The $500 Check

Catalog Note *The Five Hundred Dollar Check* by Horatio Alger, Jr., is a domestic fiction serial following the return of Jacob Marlowe to his hometown of Lakeville after twenty-five years in California mining country. The elderly, modestly-dressed Jacob encounters young Bert Barton, a poor but virtuous fifteen-year-old working in the local shoe factory to support his widowed mother. Bert, Mary Marlowe's son, is Jacob's nephew. When Jacob's arrival becomes known, his wealthy nephew Squire Albert Marlowe—owner of the shoe factory—receives him with sudden warmth, suspecting he has accumulated a fortune in the mines. The Squire and his wife Julia immediately shift from indifference toward Bert's family to calculated hospitality, positioning themselves as Jacob's natural heirs. Their mercenary calculations emerge in private conversation: they speculate on his wealth, his probable lifespan (noting his father died at sixty-seven of apoplexy), and their inheritance prospects. The narrative contrasts Bert's genuine character with his cousin Percy's affected snobbery and the elder Marlowes' transparent greed.