value coming back empty

I'm trying to truncate a field that is coming back in our search results list. 

I have

var d = $getItemValue(ctx, "Description");

var t = d.tostring().substring(0,25);

<div> _#= t =#_ </div>

and t is empty this way.

however, if I just output Description to the screen it shows all of it

<div> _#=Description=#_ </div>  shows all of the description.

is there a different way to only show the first 25 characters of my description field in my results page?