Jedediah Cahoon had evidently had a hard time since the day when, after declaring his intention never to return until "loaded down with money," he had closed the door of his sister's house at South Middleboro and gone out into the snowstorm and the world.

His letter contained few particulars.
He had wandered far, even as far as his professed destination, the Klondike, but, wherever he had been, ill luck was there to meet him.
He had earned a little money and lost it, earned a little more and lost that; had been in Nome and Vancouver and Portland and Seattle; had driven a street car in Tacoma.
I wrote you from Tacoma, Thankful [the letter said], after I lost that job, but you never answered.

Now I am in 'Frisco and I am down and out.
I ain't got any good job and I don't know where I will get one.

I want to come home.

Can't I come?
I am sorry I cleared out and left you the way I done, and if you will let me come back home again I will try to be a good brother to you.