Phil Daring walked toward the village with uneasy, nervous strides. There was an anxious expression upon his usually placid face.
“Queer, ” he muttered to himself, “that I never thought to ask how we’re able to live. It costs money to feed five hungry youngsters; and where does it come from, I wonder?”
The Eliot house was on the brow of a knoll and the street sloped downward to the little village where the “business center” clustered around the railway station. The river was just beyond, flowing sleepily on its way to the gulf, and at Riverdale a long wooden bridge spanned the murky water. It was a quiet, pretty little town, but had such a limited population that every resident knew nearly everyone else who lived there and kept fairly well posted on the private affairs of each member of the community.