much! I must make some kind of a paying investment within a
year, if only to escape their clutches!"

CHAPTER IV

DICK BECOMES CELEBRATED

Dick managed to live through the week at his uncle's place, but it was
hard work. He was corrected from morning until night. Almost everything
he did while in the house, if it was only to pick up a book in the hope
of finding something to read, met with a reproof from Aunt Samantha.

"Don't do that," she would say. "You'll make the dust fly about if you
disturb the books, and I can't abide dust."

If he wandered about the grounds his uncle would covertly watch him.

"Don't pick up stones to throw," Mr. Larabee would caution the lad. "You
might break a window, or take the bark off my favorite apple trees. I
never saw such a boy! Why can't you sit still and think? I'm sure you've
got enough responsibilities hanging over you, with all that money your
mother so foolishly----"

But he had the sense to stop there, for the angry flash in Dick's brown
eyes warned him this was a subject he had better not mention to his
nephew.

There was never a more happy boy than Dick when the week of probation
was up and he could start for home.

"You are going back to that wasteful life of idleness," said his aunt,
as she condescended to shake hands with him, and give him her little
bird-like kiss. "I hope your visit here has done you good. You may make
us a longer one--some day."

"Not if I can help it," thought Dick to himself.

"Come, now," grumbled Uncle Ezra. "I don't want to keep the horse out of
the stable any longer than I can help. He might take cold and I'd have
to buy some medicine. Saving money is like earning it, as I hope you'll
learn, Nephew Richard. I'll teach it to you when you come under my
control, as I'm sure you will, for you never can comply with the task
your mother so foolishly----"

Dick's hands clinched, and it was lucky that at that moment the horse
shied at a piece of paper, requiring all Mr. Larabee's attention to
control him, or there might have been a renewal of the quarrel.

Dick breathed a sigh of relief as the gloomy house in the midst of the
fir trees was left behind, and he gave vent to an audible exclamation of
satisfaction when he was in the train and speeding away from Dankville,
for even the name of the place seemed to have an unhappy influence over
him.

"Well, are you glad to get back?" asked Mr. Hamilton, as he greeted his
son that after