Fiction short story book. "Don't worry about it, mother. It is nothing we can help". "It seems to me that I might have helped it. If I had gone to General Gordon when your father first spoke about that barrel with the eighty thousand dollars in it, and told him the whole story, things might have turned out differently. But in spite of all he said, I did not suppose that he was in earnest". "Neither did I. That any man in his sober senses should think of such a thing! Why, mother, if there had been so much money buried in that potato-patch, the General would have known it, and don't you suppose he would have found it if he'd had to plough the field up ten feet deep? Of course he would". "But just think of the disgrace that has been brought upon us". "Father is the only one who has done anything to be ashamed of, and he made matters worse by running away. If he would come home and attend to his business, no one would say a word to him. The General told me so this morning".