Mr. Bright had saved up fifty dollars; and he thought a great deal more of this sum than many people do of a thousand dollars.  He had had to work very hard and be very prudent in order to accumulate this sum, which made him value it all the more highly.

With this sum of fifty dollars at his command, John Bright felt rich; and then, more than ever before, he wanted to own the little black house.  He felt as grand as a lord; and as soon as the forty-nine dollars had become fifty, he waited upon Mr. Hardhand, a little crusty old man, who owned the little black house, and proposed to purchase it.

The landlord was a hard man.  Every body in Riverdale said he was mean and stingy.  Any generous-hearted man would have been willing to make an easy bargain with an honest, industrious, poor man, like John Bright, who wished to own the house in which he lived; but Mr. Hardhand, although he was rich, only thought how he could make more money.  He asked the poor man four hundred dollars for the old house and the little lot of land on which it stood.

It was a matter of great concern to John Bright.  Four hundred dollars was a “mint of money,” and he could not see how he should ever be able to save so much from his daily earnings.  So he talked with Squire Lee about it, who told him that three hundred was all it was worth.  John offered this for it, and after a month’s hesitation, Mr. Hardhand accepted the offer, agreeing to take fifty dollars down and the rest in semi-annual payments of twenty-five dollars each, until the whole was paid.

I am thus particular in telling my readers about the bargain, because this debt which his father contracted was the means of making a man of Bobby, as will be seen in his subsequent history.

John Bright paid the first fifty dollars; but before the next instalment became due, the poor man was laid in his cold and silent grave.  A malignant disease carried him off, and the hopes of the Bright family seemed to be blasted.

Four children were left to the widow.  The youngest was only three years old, and Bobby, the oldest, was nine, when his father died.  Squire Lee, who had always been a good friend of John Bright, told the widow that she had better go to the poorhouse, and not attempt to struggle along with such a fearful odds against her.  But the widow nobly refused to become a pauper, and to make paupers of her children, whom she loved quite as much as though she and they had been born in a ducal palace.  She told the squire that she had two hands, and as long as she had her health, the town need not trouble itself about her support.

Squire Lee was filled with surprise and admiration at the noble resolution of the poor woman; and when he returned to his house, he immediately sent her a cord of wood, ten bushels of potatoes, two bags of meal, and a firkin of salt pork.

The widow was very grateful for these articles, and no false pride prevented her from accepting the gift of her rich and kind-hearted neighbor.