This was a very reasonable ideal, compared with that of the rich merchants I have mentioned; but it was even more difficult for them to reach it, for the wages were small, and they had many mouths to feed.
Mr.Bright had saved up fifty dollars; and he thought a great deal more of this sum than many people do of a thousand dollars.

He had had to work very hard and be very prudent in order to accumulate this sum, which made him value it all the more highly.
With this sum of fifty dollars at his command, John Bright felt rich; and then, more than ever before, he wanted to own the little black house.

He felt as grand as a lord; and as soon as the forty-nine dollars had become fifty, he waited upon Mr.Hardhand, a little crusty old man, who owned the little black house, and proposed to purchase it.
The landlord was a hard man.

Everybody in Riverdale said he was mean and stingy.

Any generous-hearted man would have been willing to make an easy bargain with an honest, industrious, poor man, like John Bright, who wished to own the house in which he lived; but Mr.Hardhand, although he was rich, only thought how he could make more money.