paid twenty-five dollars---which had been promptly banked as a
nucleus of his college fund.

How simple and easy it had seemed, earning his way through the
School of Mines, while talking with those enthusiastic young collegians
and their professor! How well he remembered the things they had said,
the advice they had given him! Yet now, after eight months of hard
work, constant hunting in the woods, and rigid economy, he seemed
no nearer the goal than he had been when the portals of High School
closed behind him forever. In fact, just as he was now placed in
his prospects he faced a bitter discouragement; he was on the
threshold of a new calamity.

His mother, who took in fine sewing, had developed a serious eye
trouble that threatened to put an end to her earning power, and to
leave her totally blind unless she submitted to a very delicate
operation within a few weeks. Of course, his mother's welfare
was stronger than any other consideration with Ralph, but he had
a vague idea that operations cost a great deal of money. At least,
he had been told so by his nearest neighbor, Tom Walsh, a farmer
who lived several miles from the town of Oakvale, which was the
station from whence he would have to take his mother by train to
New York. A day's journey, a week or more in the hospital, and
incidental expenses---even with the aid of his precious hoard and
the inadequate sum these furs would bring him---how could he ever
raise enough to help her, in time?

With another deep sigh, he replaced the worn account book, and
rested his head against the mossy hollow in the stone, gazing
disconsolately up through the branches of the trees at the jagged