Stories Of Integrity

INTEREST.

"O UNCLE JAMES!

What will the interest be on my dollar for a year?"

"Six cents, my boy."

"Only that? Well, never mind; it is better than nothing. Come, uncle, let's go to the bank. I've got business there," said Charlie, trying to look as tall as possible.

"What are you going to do with yours, Johnnie?

"Spend it for—"

"Spend it? " interrupted Charlie, "foolish! Then it will be gone; better put it in the bank where it will be safe."

"Don't quarrel about it, boys," said Uncle James; "I told you to do just what you pleased, with your dollars, and I should see which understood the true use of money; so get your hats, and we'll go to the bank and put in Charlie's dollar before it burns a hole in his pocket,' as my father used to say; and Johnnie shall do as he pleases."

"All ready; come on," said Charlie. A grateful look, which only Uncle James saw, was John's reply.

"Uncle James," or "James King," as the doorplate read, lived in one of our large cities, where his two nephews, Charles and John Stetson, shared his home while attending school.

The gold dollars had been given to the boys as rewards for a long example in "compound interest," worked out correctly.

At the bank, Charlie received a little book, certifying the bank to be his debtor for one dollar; and buttoning his coat closely over his treasure, he said to John, "Come, John, down, with your cash; best way, no risk, interest sure."

"I'm going to get interest, too," was the reply.

"How? I'd like to know."

John replied by a shake of the head. After dinner he was missing; and we will follow him to a back room of a miserable broken tenement, where a woman sat sewing busily, and by his mother's side, studying his Sabbath-school lesson for the next day, sat Henry White, the object of the visit.

John slipped something into his hand, and whispering, "Buy shoes," hastened to the door, and stopping only to say "Good afternoon," he was gone. Week after week, Charlie would imagine the mills adding themselves to make up his interest, and Sabbath after Sabbath, as the weather grew colder, John would meet on the church steps a poor but neatly clad boy with a stout pair of shoes, whose grateful look was worth much more than six cents interest.

Which understood the true use of money?

Selected.