Only, as she grew taller, she had sometimes laughingly said that if the kept on she should not much longer be able to stand upright in her den, as she called it.
'I hit my head now everywhere except in the middle,' she once said.

'I wonder if we can't some time manage to raise the roof.' The words were spoken thoughtlessly, and almost immediately forgotten by Jerrie: but Harold treasured them up, and began at once to devise ways and means to raise the roof and give Jerrie a room more worthy of her.
This was just after he had left college, and there was hanging over him his debt to Arthur and the support of his grandmother.

The first did not particularly disturb him, for he knew that Arthur would wait any length of time, while the latter seemed but a trifle to a strong, robust young man.

Mrs.Crawford was naturally very economical, and could make one dollar go further than most people could two; so that very little sufficed for their daily wants when Jerrie was away.
'I must earn money somehow,' Harold thought, 'and must seek work where I can do the best, even if it is from Peterkin.' So, swallowing his pride, he went to Peterkin's office and asked for work.

Once before, when a boy of eighteen, and sorely pressed, he had done the same thing, and met with a rebuff from the foreman, who said to him gruffly: 'No, sir; we don't want no more boys; leastwise, gentlemen boys.