CHAPTER X.

A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.

"I WONDER what is the reason some folks are always poor," muttered Robert Carter, a neighbor of the Allens, and also employed by Mr. Burrel on the farm. "I work as hard as anybody, but somehow I never get along."

His wife, to whom the remark was made, thought it more prudent to remain silent, having learned from painful experience that it is not always wise to speak one's thoughts.

"There's Allen," the man went on. "He was as poor as poverty when he came into town little more than a year ago. His expenses must be more than mine, for he has two children to my one; yet he's prospered and laying up money, besides sending off his children to school. I don't see how it is. Sometimes I get to thinking about it and I'm clear down at the heel."

"Why don't you ask Allen?" inquired his wife, seeing he expected her to speak. "I'm sure I should be more'n glad to know their secret."

"'Tisn't no use; it's all luck. Some folks are born to prosper and some isn't, that's it."

"Perhaps if we saved up a little money, husband, and sent Bob and Susan to school, and kept Warren from robbing Mr. Burrel's garden, they might get the job of picking fruit. I knew the Allen children earn a good deal that way."

"What nonsense you talk, wife! All the fixing up and schooling you could give our young uns would not alter it a hair. Mrs. Burrel's prejudiced against 'em, and wouldn't let 'em among her vines for nothing."

"It's worth making the trial, then; four cents a box for strawberries and six cents a quart for shelled peas or beans, is something when it comes every day. Mrs. Allen told me she'd speak to the mistress for them if I wished. Even her little Fred. is trusted to weed, and he only five years old."

"'Twould be worth all that to keep our boys at it," said the husband, only half convinced. "They'd rather be off bird-nesting, or sitting with their feet in the water."

"Yes, I suppose so, but they'll have to learn to work sometime, and, as Mrs. Allen says, 'it's easier to form the habit when they're young.' I was telling her what a sight of work there was in her children, and she said they were like all children, fonder of play than of work, but the habit was the thing. She had to drill them into it. 'So much must be done, and then your time's your own.'"

"I never had a fancy for taming children down that way. If you have, you're welcome to try, but don't bother me with it."

"Mrs. Allen says she'd rather have her children work, even if they get nothing for it; and then she repeated off the prettiest verse. I can't justly remember it, but it was about Satan finding work for the idle hands. I thought of it all the way home, and I believe, Robert, if our boys were made to work, they wouldn't bring us into disgrace with their mischief."

"Wont you tell Mrs. Allen to mind her own business? I have enough bother with her young ones jumping into the cart every time I go back empty from the field."

"But you said, Robert, they were such mannerly little things it was a pleasure to oblige them. There was always, a 'Thank you, sir,' or a 'Please, Mr. Carter, do I trouble you?'"

"Well, well! You've talked enough about it. Give me down my pipe, and I'll smoke awhile before I go to bed."

"How much do you suppose your tobacco costs you?" asked Mr. Allen, pleasantly, as his neighbor came walking toward him one day with a piece of broken pipe in his mouth.

"Only the merest trifle. I don't smoke much."

"Well, how much—ten cents a week?"

"Rather more than that. I generally get two papers when I go to the store."

"Say twenty-five, then, which is a low estimate. Have you ever reckoned that in a year that sum would be thirteen dollars,—enough to buy a suit of working clothes?"

"I don't see what you're driving at. I could sooner do without food than without my pipe."

"So I thought once, but I haven't touched a cigar for fifteen months. I was thinking of what you said about times being hard with you. It's these superfluities that count up with us working men. You or I would think it hard if our wives insisted every day on having a dainty meal which they couldn't share with the family. But we men, who work no harder than they do, spend money for what is no advantage to any one; for I'm sure we're better off without it."

"I don't. I tried quitting it once, and I declare I was cross enough to bite a board nail. There's difference in people, you see."

Mr. Allen laughed heartily.

"I know exactly how you felt," he said. "I grew thin and lost my appetite, but I persevered, and now I wouldn't touch the vile weed for the brightest guinea you could give me. You see, neighbor," he said, warming with the subject, "smoking or chewing, and you do both, creates a thirst that water don't satisfy. You may drink and drink, but there will be a terrible craving still. Little by little, one is tempted to try stimulants until the night and morning drams are thought as necessary as the tobacco."

This was a sore subject to Carter; for his score at the oyster saloon, where he went as regularly as to his meals, swallowed more than a third of his wages. He felt inclined to resent this plain talk from his fellow-laborer, but Allen had always been kind to him, and had it in his power to befriend him farther.

"I think I know your thoughts," the gardener said, good-naturedly. "I heard your wife talking to mine the other night, and wondering how we got along so much better than our neighbors; and I thought then that I'd have a little talk with you. I feel an interest in your family, Carter, and in you, too, and I would be glad if I could help you to better days."

"I can't say I like very well to have neighbors meddling in my affairs," was the somewhat surly reply. "I think I'm as competent to manage my business as most common men. I dare say you mean well, but it's no use to argue about smoking and chewing and all them things, for I never shall give 'em up."

"Well, Neighbor Carter, I'm glad you acknowledge that my motive is good." And so they parted.

But Mrs. Allen did not cease her efforts for the benefit of her neighbors. She encouraged Bell and Carrie to be kind to the children; and herself often called in Bob, Warren, and Susan to eat a bowl of bread and milk with her little flock.

Mrs. Carter now often came to her for advice. She was beginning to be dissatisfied with her own way of living, and, under her neighbor's judicious instruction, had commenced a reform in her housekeeping. She exerted herself to the utmost to make their poor home appear pleasant to her husband, and refrained from detailing the constant annoyances to which her children subjected her by their thieving propensities. From Mrs. Allen, too, she learned to cook a number of relishing dishes at little expense, which, though he did not acknowledge it, went farther toward convincing him that he might possibly do without his dram than all else had done.

"So you've had a call from the great folks," he said, one evening on his return from work. "I should think it was time they came, when I've worked on the farm two years before they ever heard of Allen. But some folks has the luck of attracting notice."

"It was Mrs. Allen asked her to call," urged Mrs. Carter, warmly, "and she'd be a good friend to me and to you, if you'd let her. She spoke very pretty to the lady for me, and I'm to go up for washing, to try if I can do it to please the great folks."

"That's because she didn't want the washing herself. I aint so easily taken in."

Mrs. Carter felt her blood boil with anger, but resolved, if possible, to curb it. So taking a heaping platter of potatoes and a johnny-cake from the oven, she proceeded to place them on the table.

Her husband sat down to eat in silence, the children as usual being off on some frolic. But curiosity to hear about their visitors at length prevailed over his ill-humor, and he said,—

"What did you find to talk about to the ladies?"

"I was after scouring the floor, and she praised me for keeping it neat. She said, 'if a house was ever so poor or plainly furnished, neatness might make it attractive.' Those were her very words. I minded them well."

"Yes, Betsey," the man said, gazing about him with a condescending air, "you do keep your room a great deal smarter than you used to."

Even this poor praise made her heart quite light, and she went on frankly to say,—

"I have been thinking how I wish we owned this place. If we did, I could paper the walls,—I learned when I was a girl,—and with the money I earn at the great house, I could buy paint for the outside. Then I'd add green blinds,—they make a house look so genteel, you know,—and have a pretty patch of flowers in front. I do believe, husband, if we had a tidy place of our own, the children would be proud to stay in it."

Her eyes beamed with pleasure at the picture she had drawn, but she was suddenly let down from her heights of fancy by her husband, who said,—

"Wife, if you aren't too much lifted up by your green blinds, wont you light my pipe? I'm going to the store."

"Oh, husband, if you will only stay with me! I know it hurts you to go there so much. I'll fix me up, and we'll take a walk together, as we used to. I made your tea real strong, so you wouldn't miss your drink. Say, wont you?"

Whether it was the strong tea, or a newly-awakened desire to try the effect of abstinence, Mr. Carter did consent to stay at home, and cut wood for the rest of the evening, which concession so much elated his wife's spirits that she planned a number of additional improvements if the house were only their own.

Taking in washing, as she hoped to do, involved the buying of a new clothes-line and pins. How to obtain them was the question, since, if she asked her husband for money to go to the store, he would be likely to say she had better give up at once, since it cost more to get ready than the work was worth. The berries were now in their prime, and at last, a lucky thought occurred to her.

"If Robert will consent for once to eat a cold dinner, I will take the children and go into the woods for the day."

Robert did consent, though not very graciously.

"I can do it," he answered, "but I'm sick of improvements, as you call them, since I must be shut out of my own house, and left to eat dinner like a dog from a pail."

But at night, when she returned laden with the fruits of her industry, and even Bob in possession of a large basket of berries, which he eagerly declared he could sell for ten cents a quart, the man acknowledged they had made a good day of it, and recommended them to follow the business.

Mrs. Allen had many times urged her neighbors to send their children to the Sabbath-school, but had always been met by the excuse that they had no suitable clothes. Now, by means of much coaxing, she persuaded them to go berrying day after day, until, besides the new line and two dozen of pins, they had earned enough to buy cloth for two calico dresses, two jackets, and a pair of pants. These her kind adviser gladly cut for her, explaining, meanwhile, that, in the families of the poor, many a penny may be saved by making one's own garments instead of buying them at the shops.

It was quite an era in the Carter family when, one fine Sabbath morning in September, Bob, Susan, Warren, and Nora started off together for Sabbath-school.

Even Mr. Carter was conscious of some degree of pride as he saw them walk away from the house neatly dressed, while the passers-by turned again and again to gaze at them.

"Why didn't you buy yourself a gown?" he asked, suddenly turning to his wife, who was standing in the doorway, shading her eyes to see the last of the children.

"Me? Oh, my turn will come by and by. I want to fit you out next."

He said no more, but on Saturday night brought her a silver dollar, the exact sum he had saved by going without his morning and evening dram,—the exercise of which self-denial cost him more than he cared to acknowledge.

The woman was in raptures, declaring it was worth more to her than a dozen new gowns; that she'd be willing to wash day and night, to go without new dresses, if he would only give up his visits to the saloon.

In truth, Mr. Allen's friendly warnings and his wife's hopeful visions were not without their effect, though not for his little finger would he acknowledge it to any one. He began to doubt whether it was all luck, as he had so often declared, and whether his own habits might not have something to do with it.

The first step he took toward reform was to seize Bob and Warren, as they lay sunning themselves in front of the house, and give them a smart flogging for their laziness, assuring the astonished youngsters that they were old enough to earn their own living, whereas they now didn't earn the salt to their porridge.