Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 466

This issue of Beadle and Adams' weekly (June 29, 1886) features the serial "Entombed Alive" by Charles Morris, author of several adventure stories. The narrative opens with Jeremiah Jarman, a resourceful but impoverished youth from New York City, sleeping roadside with only six cents and a button to his name. A well-dressed gentleman named Guilbert Morford, whose suspicious demeanor suggests hidden motives, awakens the boy and offers employment as a nurse to a sick man at three dollars weekly plus meals. Jerry accepts eagerly and is taken to Morford's mansion outside town. The story then shifts to a sickroom where an invalid lies gravely ill, tended by the mysterious Morford. The OCR quality degrades significantly after this point, but the narrative establishes a mystery: Morford's sinister intentions toward his new young employee remain unclear, hinting at potential entrapment or exploitation.