Very formulaic (most of them are) but that doesn't stop it from being a good story. This one has young Herbert Carter and his widowed mother in a bind over scraping enough money up to pay the interest on the mortgage, a greedy investor who tries to foreclose and his son who is a pompous jerk and snob. Herbert gets helped along the way by a small legacy from an elderly relative and a timely job helping a young man with poor eyes in his studies. Typical Alger stuff, but I liked it. ( )

Not bad, as Algers go - Herbert has some luck, especially in the timing of the arrival of money, but the big luck that makes things really work for him is well-heralded and part of his life, not out of the blue like so many of Alger's heroes - a literal legacy, though not the one that starts the story. The rich boy's disposition was a little too obvious - actually, I would be interested to read an Alger about a rich man's son who loses everything and has to start from scratch while still young. But I don't think he wrote it. ( )