Horatio Alger was famous for his books featuring teenage boys who worked their way out of poverty with the help of honesty, the sweat of their brows, and quite often a bit of luck. This book was written in 1879 and was the second about our hero Tom Nelson. (Goodreads)
Horatio Alger Jr.; (January 13, 1832 – July 18, 1899) was a prolific 19th-century American writer, best known for his many young adult novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-class security and comfort through hard work, determination, courage, and honesty. His writings were characterised by the "rags-to-riches" narrative, which had a formative effect on America during the Gilded Age. (Wikipedia)