"What"s 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."
At this moment the outer door opened, and Timothy Harding 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.
Reading all this in his manner, she had the delicacy to forbear intruding upon him questions to which she saw it would only give him pain to reply.
Not so Aunt Rachel.
"I needn"t ask," she began, "whether you"ve 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 if we can"t get that, we shall have to starve."
"Not so bad as that, Rachel," said the cooper, trying to look cheerful; "I 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 money enough to pay for a few pounds," said Mrs. Harding, smiling with an air of mystery.
"Where did it come from?" asked Timothy, who was puzzled, as his wife antic.i.p.ated. "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."
"Very likely the bill"s bad," she said, with the air of one who rather hoped it was.
"Now, Rachel, what"s the use of antic.i.p.ating evil?" said Mrs. Harding.
"You see you"re wrong, for here"s Jack with the flour."
The family sat down to supper.
"You haven"t told us," said Mrs. Harding, seeing her husband"s cheerfulness in a measure restored, "what Mr. Blodgett said about the chances for employment."
"Not much that was encouraging," answered Timothy. "He isn"t at all sure when it will be safe to commence work; perhaps not before spring."
"Didn"t I tell you so?" commented Rachel, with sepulchral sadness.
Even Mrs. Harding couldn"t help looking sober.
"I suppose, Timothy, you haven"t formed any plans," she said.
"No, I haven"t had time. I must try to get something else to do."
"What, for instance?"
"Anything by which I can earn a little; I don"t care if it"s only sawing wood. We shall have to get along as economically as we can--cut our coat according to our cloth."
"Oh, you"ll be able to earn something, and we can live very plain," said Mrs. Harding, affecting a cheerfulness she didn"t feel.
"Pity you hadn"t done it sooner," was the comforting suggestion of Rachel.
"Mustn"t cry over spilt milk," said the cooper, good-humoredly. "Perhaps we might have lived a leetle more economically, but I don"t think we"ve been extravagant."
"Besides, I can earn something, father," said Jack, hopefully. "You know I did this afternoon."
"So you can," said his mother, brightly.
"There ain"t horses to hold every day," said Rachel, apparently fearing that the family might become too cheerful, when, like herself, it was their duty to be profoundly gloomy.
"You"re always tryin" to discourage people, Aunt Rachel," said Jack, discontentedly.
Rachel took instant umbrage at these words.
"I"m sure," said she, mournfully, "I don"t want to make you unhappy. If you can find anything to be cheerful about when you"re on the verge of starvation, I hope you"ll enjoy yourselves, and not mind me. I"m a poor, dependent creetur, and I feel I"m a burden."
"Now, Rachel, that"s all foolishness," said Timothy. "You don"t feel anything of the kind."
"Perhaps others can tell how I feel better than I can myself," answered his sister, with the air of a martyr. "If it hadn"t been for me, I know you"d have been able to lay up money, and have something to carry you through the winter. It"s hard to be a burden on your relations, and bring a brother"s family to this poverty."
"Don"t talk of being a burden, Rachel," said Mrs. Harding. "You"ve been a great help to me in many ways. That pair of stockings, now, you"re knitting for Jack--that"s a help, for I couldn"t have got time for them myself."
"I don"t expect," said Aunt Rachel, in the same sunny manner, "that I shall be able to do it long. From the pains I have in my hands sometimes, I expect I"m goin" to lose the use of "em soon, and be as useless as old Mrs. Sprague, who for the last ten years of her life had to sit with her hands folded on her lap. But I wouldn"t stay to be a burden--I"d go to the poorhouse first. But perhaps," with the look of a martyr, "they wouldn"t want me there, because I"d be discouragin" "em too much."
Poor Jack, who had so unwittingly raised this storm, winced under the last words, which he knew were directed at him.
"Then why," asked he, half in extenuation, "why don"t you try to look pleasant and cheerful? Why won"t you be jolly, as Tom Piper"s aunt is?"
"I dare say I ain"t pleasant," said Rachel, "as my own nephew twits me with it. There is some folks that can be cheerful when their house is a-burnin" down before their eyes, and I"ve heard of one young man that laughed at his aunt"s funeral," directing a severe glance at Jack; "but I"m not one of that kind. I think, with the Scriptures, that there"s a time to weep."
"Doesn"t it say there"s a time to laugh, too?" asked Mrs. Harding.
"When I see anything to laugh about, I"m ready to laugh," said Aunt Rachel; "but human nater ain"t to be forced. I can"t see anything to laugh at now, and perhaps you won"t by and by."
It was evidently quite useless to persuade Rachel to cheerfulness, and the subject dropped.
The tea things were cleared away by Mrs. Harding, who then sat down to her sewing. Aunt Rachel continued to knit in grim silence, while Jack seated himself on a three-legged stool near his aunt, and began to whittle out a boat, after a model lent him by Tom Piper, a young gentleman whose aunt has already been referred to.
The cooper took out his spectacles, wiped them carefully with his handkerchief, and as carefully adjusted them to his nose. He then took down from the mantelpiece one of the few books belonging to his library--"Dr. Kane"s Arctic Explorations"--and began to read, for the tenth time, it might be, the record of these daring explorers.
The plain little room presented a picture of graceful tranquillity, but it proved to be only the calm which preceded the storm.
The storm in question, I regret to say, was brought about by the luckless Jack. As has been said, he was engaged in constructing a boat, the particular operation he was now intent upon being the excavation, or hollowing out. Now three-legged stools are not the most secure seats in the world. This, I think, no one will deny who has any practical acquaintance with them. Jack was working quite vigorously, the block from which the boat was to be fashioned being held firmly between his knees. His knife having got wedged in the wood, he made an unusual effort to draw it out, in which he lost his balance, and disturbed the equilibrium of his stool, which, with its load, tumbled over backward.
Now, it very unfortunately happened that Aunt Rachel sat close behind, and the treacherous stool came down with considerable force upon her foot.
A piercing shriek was heard, and Aunt Rachel, lifting her foot, clung to it convulsively, while an expression of pain disturbed her features.
At the sound, the cooper hastily removed his spectacles, and, letting "Dr. Kane" fall to the floor, started up in great dismay. Mrs. Harding likewise dropped her sewing, and jumped to her feet in alarm.