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- Author: Jr. Horatio Alger
Book online «Timothy Crump's Ward: A Story of American Life by Jr. Horatio Alger (english novels to improve english txt) 📖». Author Jr. Horatio Alger
“Life's full of disappointments,” she groaned. “Our paths is continually beset by 'em. There's that sofa! It's so pleasant to have one in the house when a body's sick. But there, it's gone, and if I happen to get down, as most likely I shall, for I've got a bad feeling in my stummick this very minute, I shall have to go up-stairs, and most likely catch my death of cold, and that will be the end of me.”
“Not so bad as that, I hope,” said Mrs. Crump, cheerfully. “You know, when you was sick last, you didn't want to use the sofa—you said it didn't lay comfortable. Besides, I hope, before you are sick again we may be able to buy it back again.”
Aunt Rachel shook her head despondingly.
“There ain't any use in hoping that,” said she. “Timothy's got so much behindhand that he won't be able to get up again; I know he won't.”
“But if he manages to get steady work soon, he will.”
“No, he won't. I'm sure he won't. There won't be any work before spring, and most likely not then.”
“You are too desponding, Aunt Rachel.”
“Enough to make me so. If you had only taken my advice, we shouldn't have come to this.”
“I don't know what advice you refer to, Rachel.”
“No, I don't expect you do. You didn't pay no attention to it. That's the reason.”
“But if you'll repeat it, perhaps we can profit by it yet,” said Mrs. Crump, with imperturbable good humor.
“I told you you ought to be layin' up something ag'in a rainy day. But that's always the way. Folks think when times is good it's always a goin' to be so, but I knew better.”
“I don't see how we could have been more economical,” said Mrs. Crump, mildly.
“There's a hundred ways. Poor folks like us ought not to expect to have meat so often. It's frightful to think what the butcher's bill must have been the last six months.”
Inconsistent Rachel! Only the day before she had made herself very uncomfortable because there was no meat for dinner, and said she couldn't live without it. Mrs. Crump might have reminded her of this, but the good woman was too kind to make the retort. She contented herself with saying that they must try to do better in future.
“That's always the way,” muttered Rachel. “Shut the stable door when the horse is stolen. Folks never learn from experience till it's too late to be of any use. I don't see what the world was made for, for my part. Everything goes topsy-turvy, and all sorts of ways except the right way. I sometimes think 'taint much use livin'.”
“Oh, you'll feel better by and by, Rachel. Hark, there's Jack, isn't it?”
“Anybody might know by the noise who it is,” pursued Rachel, in the same general tone that had marked her conversation hitherto. “He always comes stomping along as if he was paid for makin' a noise. Anybody ought to have a cast-iron head that lives anywhere in his hearing.”
Her cheerful remarks were here broken in upon by the sudden entrance of Jack, who, in his eagerness, slammed the door behind him, unheeding his mother's quiet admonition not to make a noise.
“Look there!” said he, displaying a quarter of a dollar.
“How did you get it?” asked his mother.
“Holding horses,” answered Jack.
“Here, take it, mother. I warrant you'll find a use for it.”
“It comes in good time,” said Mrs. Crump. “We're out of flour, and I had no money to buy any. Before you take off your boots, Jack, why can't you run over to the store, and get half a dozen pounds?”
“You see the Lord hasn't quite forgotten us,” remarked his mother, as Jack started on his errand.
“What's a quarter of a dollar?” said Rachel, gloomily. “Will it carry us through the winter?”
“It will carry us through to-night, and perhaps Timothy will have work to-morrow. Hark, that's his step.”
CHAPTER II. THE EVENTS OF AN EVENING.
AT this moment the outer door opened, and Timothy Crump entered, not with the quick elastic step of one who brings good tidings, but slowly and deliberately, with a quiet gravity of demeanor, in which his wife could read only too well that he had failed in his efforts to procure work.
His wife, reading all these things in his manner, had the delicacy to forbear intruding upon him questions to which she saw that he could give no satisfactory answers.
Not so Aunt Rachel.
“I needn't ask,” she began, “whether you got work, Timothy. I knew beforehand you wouldn't. There ain't no use in tryin'. The times is awful dull, and, mark my words, they'll be wuss before they're better. We mayn't live to see 'em. I don't expect we shall. Folks can't live without money, and when that's gone we shall have to starve.”
“Not so bad as that, Rachel,” said the cooper, trying to look cheerful; “don't talk about starving till the time comes. Anyhow,” glancing at the table on which was spread a good plain meal, “we needn't talk about starving till to-morrow, with that before us. Where's Jack?”
“Gone after some flour,” replied his wife.
“On credit?” asked the cooper.
“No, he's got the money to pay for a few pounds,” said Mrs. Crump, smiling, with an air of mystery.
“Where did it come from?” asked Timothy, who was puzzled, as his wife anticipated. “I didn't know you had any money in the house.”
“No more we had, but he earned it himself, holding horses, this afternoon.”
“Come, that's good,” said the cooper, cheerfully, “We ain't so bad off as we might be, you see, Rachel.”
The latter shook her head with the air of a martyr.
At this moment Jack returned, and the family sat down to supper.
“You haven't told us,” said Mrs. Crump,
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