THE EVENTS OF AN EVENING
"I am glad you've come, Jack," said his mother. "Rachel was just
predicting that you were run over or drowned."
"I hope you're not very much disappointed to see me safe and well, Aunt
Rachel," said Jack, merrily. "I don't think I've been drowned."
"There's things worse than drowning," replied Rachel, severely.
"Such as what?"
"A man that's born to be hanged is safe from drowning."
"Thank you for the compliment, Aunt Rachel, if you mean me. But, mother,
I didn't tell you of my good luck. See this," and he displayed the
dollar bill.
"How did you get it?" asked his mother.
"Holding horses. Here, take it, mother; I warrant you'll find a use for
it."
"It comes in good time," said Mrs. Harding. "We're out of flour, and I
had no money to buy any. Before you take off your boots, Jack, I wish
you'd run over to the grocery store, and buy half a dozen pounds. You
may get a pound of sugar, and quarter of a pound of tea also."
"You see the Lord hasn't forgotten us," she remarked, as Jack started on
his errand.
"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
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."
"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 anticipating 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.
It did not take long to see how matters stood.
"Hurt ye much, Rachel?" inquired Timothy.
"It's about killed me," groaned the afflicted maiden. "Oh, I shall have
to have my foot cut off, or be a cripple anyway." Then, turning upon
Jack fiercely: "You careless, wicked, ungrateful boy, that I've been
wearin' myself out knittin' for. I'm almost sure you did it a purpose.
You won't be satisfied till you've got me out of the world, and
then--then, perhaps"--here Rachel began to whimper--"perhaps you'll get
Tom Piper's aunt to knit your stockings."
"I didn't mean to, Aunt Rachel," said Jack, penitently, eying his aunt,
who was rocking to and fro in her chair. "You know I didn't. Besides, I
hurt myself like thunder," rubbing himself vigorously.
"Served you right," said his aunt, still clasping her foot.
"Shan't I get something for you to put on it, Rachel?" asked Mrs.
Harding.
But this Rachel steadily refused, and, after a few more postures
indicating a great amount of anguish, limped out of the room, and
ascended the stairs to her own apartment.