The story
“He was an energetic young farmer, and he realized why he couldn’t pay expenses. He needed up-to-date farming implements. He didn’t have them, he didn’t have the money to buy them, and he had absolutely no credit. It was particularly unfortunate because he was in love with the daughter of the magnate, and the said magnate declined to welcome him as a member of the family. In desperation the young farmer wrote to a distant cousin, earnestly requesting a loan of $200. In the reply he received a letter from the cousin’s executor’s informing him that the old man was dead, and ‘had left him not one cent.’ It was also explained that the estate of the deceased was valued at $20,000. The farmer threw the letter from him in despair, and decided to go to the city to make a last final hunt for funds. His aged and shrewd farm hand came along, saw the letter, picked it up and read it. He suddenly conceived a way to help him. He took the letter, carefully erased the words ‘not a’ and substituted one very important ‘every.’ Then he managed to drop the letter just outside the rural railway station, and, as had hoped, the news that the young farmer had inherited $20,000 was soon known by everyone in the village. When the farmer returned from the city, disappointed at not having raised the loan, he was surprised and touched by the warmth of his reception. Everyone greeted him cordially, while his father-in-law he hoped for was especially affectionate. The magnate insisted upon loaning him money, and with this cash the young man was enabled to put his farm in good order and have a very profitable year. The magnate grew more and more proud of him and was delighted to find that the young man was still willing to marry the village girl. As the young farmer was thriftily and uniformly successful, his father-in-law never knew that the $20,000 fortune was simply the result of a farmhand’s skilled use of a pen. The farm hand never told the secret.”
Summary from The Moving Picture World · 2 November 1912
