CHAPTER XXI.
A LAST RESORT.
The Board was fully agreed that something must be done to relieve Aunt Matilda's present necessities, but what to do did not seem very clear.
Wilson Ogden proposed issuing some kind of scrip or bonds, redeemable in six or seven months, when the company should be on a paying basis.
"I believe," said he, "that Mr.Darby would take these bonds at the store for groceries and things, and we might pay him interest, besides redeeming the bonds when they came due." This was rather a startling proposition.

No one had suspected Wilson of having such a financial mind.
"I don't know," said Harry, "how that would work.

Mr.Darby might not be willing to take the bonds; and besides that, it seems to me that the company ought not to make any more promises to pay when it owes so much already." "But you see that would be different," said Wilson.

"What we owe now we ought to pay right away.

The bonds would not have to be paid for ever so long." "That may be pretty sharp reasoning," remarked Tom Selden, "but I can't see into it." "It would be all the same as running in debt for Aunt Matilda, wouldn't it ?" asked Kate.
"Yes," said Wilson, "a kind of running in debt, but not exactly the common way.