When Washington left the breakfast table he could have worshiped that man.  Washington was one of that kind of people whose hopes are in the very, clouds one day and in the gutter the next.  He walked on air, now.  The Colonel was ready to take him around and introduce him to the employment he had found for him, but Washington begged for a few moments in which to write home; with his kind of people, to ride to-day’s new interest to death and put off yesterday’s till another time, is nature itself.  He ran up stairs and wrote glowingly, enthusiastically, to his mother about the hogs and the corn, the banks and the eye-water—­and added a few inconsequential millions to each project.  And he said that people little dreamed what a man Col.  Sellers was, and that the world would open its eyes when it found out.  And he closed his letter thus: 

“So make yourself perfectly easy, mother-in a little while you shall have everything you want, and more.  I am not likely to stint you in anything, I fancy.  This money will not be for me, alone, but for all of us.  I want all to share alike; and there is going to be far more for each than one person can spend.  Break it to father cautiously—­you understand the need of that—­break it to him cautiously, for he has had such cruel hard fortune, and is so stricken by it that great good news might prostrate him more surely than even bad, for he is used to the bad but is grown sadly unaccustomed to the other.  Tell Laura—­tell all the children.  And write to Clay about it if he is not with you yet.  You may tell Clay that whatever I get he can freely share in-freely.  He knows that that is true—­there will be no need that I should swear to that to make him believe it.  Good-bye—­and mind what I say:  Rest perfectly easy, one and all of you, for our troubles are nearly at an end.”

Poor lad, he could not know that his mother would cry some loving, compassionate tears over his letter and put off the family with a synopsis of its contents which conveyed a deal of love to then but not much idea of his prospects or projects.  And he never dreamed that such a joyful letter could sadden her and fill her night with sighs, and troubled thoughts, and bodings of the future, instead of filling it with peace and blessing it with restful sleep.

When the letter was done, Washington and the Colonel sallied forth, and as they walked along Washington learned what he was to be.  He was to be a clerk in a real estate office.  Instantly the fickle youth’s dreams forsook the magic eye-water and flew back to the Tennessee Land.  And the gorgeous possibilities of that great domain straightway began to occupy his imagination to such a degree that he could scarcely manage to keep even enough of his attention upon the Colonel’s talk to retain the general run of what he was saying.  He was glad it was a real estate office—­he was a made man now, sure.

The Colonel said that General Boswell was a rich man and had a good and growing business; and that Washington’s work world be light and he would get forty dollars a month and be boarded and lodged in the General’s family—­which was as good as ten dollars more; and even better, for he could not live as well even at the “City Hotel” as he would there, and yet the hotel charged fifteen dollars a month where a man had a good room.