CHAPTER XIV.

HOME VERSUS OYSTER SALOON.

"HOW much is there in the teapot now, wife?"

This question was put by Robert Carter, as he saw Betsey, mounted on a chair, dropping some pieces of silver coin into an old earthen teapot which stood on the upper shelf of the cupboard.

"The last time I counted it there was fifty dollars lacking a few pennies, and since that you've given me three from the week's wages, beside the trifle I and the children has earned."

"At this rate, we shall get leave to purchase the house when we're as old as Methuselah."

"Oh, Robert, you're always for a joke!" replied Betsey, being in earnest not to allow her husband's interest to flag. "Wait till I tell ye what the plan is. Mr. Allen explained it all over to me.

"Mr. Morrison offers to sell the house and the little patch belonging to it for five hundred dollars. When we get one hundred scraped together, he will give us a writing, and take a paper—I forget what he called it—for the remainder."

"A mortgage, I suppose."

"Yes, that's it; and then we sha'n't be paying out money for rent. All we pay will go toward the house."

"What nonsense you do talk, Betsey! We shall have to pay interest for his money."

"But Mr. Allen says it wont be half as much as the rent, and then it will be such a comfort to think we are going to have a home of our own. I shall plant a rose-bush under the window; Bell Allen has promised me one. And we can have potatoes and cabbages without buying them. I shouldn't wonder if, some day, we had a barn and a cow in it, like the Allens."

Even Mr. Carter was betrayed into a laugh by the pleasant anticipation, but quickly drew down his mouth, saying, in his usual petulant tone,—

"I shall believe it when I see it. You're always running on, like the girl in the spelling-book, with a basket of eggs on her head."

"Well, I've got fifty dollars and over to show toward the bargain, and that's better for ye than to have the money in the till at the oyster saloon for what's gone down your throat, besides the good it's done the children. Why, Bob works as steady now as Jamie Allen. It may be the making of him. Come now, Robert, own up that you're pleased, like you did the night you gave me the ring out by the big wood-pile."

Robert didn't do that, but he took his pencil and a little piece of smooth board, and calculated how long it would take, at their present rate of advancement, to lay by the remainder of the hundred dollars. Then to this he added the amount he spent for tobacco in six months, and was surprised to see what a sum-total it made.

"But I can't do it," he said to himself, grumbling; "so there's no use to talk. I can't, and I wont!"

Nevertheless, Betsey was astonished to see her husband knock the ashes from his pipe, and replace it on the shelf without even a whiff to solace himself with, and still more, when the next morning passed without the most formal recognition of his old friend. This was a concession in favor of her purchase of which she had never dreamed; and, though his abstinence made him exceedingly fretful, she bore his ill-natured remarks without a murmur.

"It's the way he has of putting the worst of himself outside," she said to herself, "like the lamb the Bible tells about, that put on the wolf's covering, when he's meaning to do his best. But there's my ironed clothes to go to the great house, and I must be about it."

In the course of the day, Robert told Mr. Allen he thought he'd try to do without tobacco. "But I warn ye all ye'd better keep your distance for a day or two. I'm getting dangerous with this horrid gnawing at my stomach."

It was a trying week to all the Carter family. Nothing went right with the father; Bob had his ears boxed for answering back, and Sarah was sent off without her dinner for laughing when he groaned. Even Betsey began to wish he would take one whiff, just to put a little good-nature into him, but, encouraged by her kind friends, she did everything she could to lessen the craving, slavish appetite for the weed. She made strong barley coffee, and exerted herself with the corn-cakes, for which Mrs. Allen was always willing to spare a little buttermilk. Not a word of praise did she receive, but, on the contrary, Robert found fault with everything she did. And finally, when she asked him whether he missed his pipe as much as at first, he told her to shut her mouth, and mind her own business.

At the end of a fortnight, however, she had her reward. One day Robert came home, trying to wear the sullen face which had become almost habitual to him, but it was easy to see something had occurred to please him. He had a clumsy package under his arm, which he had thrown his coat over, trying to conceal it.

"Pa!" screamed Bob, jumping from the top of the gate. "I've got a job, and ma says I shall have the whole of what I earn to buy me a new jacket."

"What kind of a job is there that you'd stick to, I should like to know?"

"Oh, Robert, it's hard to say that to the boy, when he helped me so bravely with the apples and potatoes," urged Betsey, acting, as she often did, as a lightning-rod between her husband and the children. "Come in, now; the pudding is fried to a crisp just as ye like it, and plenty of pork and potatoes hot to yer hand."

The man looked confused, as if he had got himself into a dilemma, and didn't know how to get out. He walked into the kitchen. But instead of going to the sink to wash as usual, he sat down at the table with the package still under his arm. But presently he threw off his coat, and, starting up, said, with a heightened color,—

"There, Betsey, don't you ever say I never gave you a present! I've done with tobacco forever, and there's something I've bought for you with the money I should have spent for it. You shall have something to put in yer parlor as well as Allen's wife. Now don't go to fooling," as he saw her suddenly throw her apron over her head to hide her tears, "but hand on the victuals while I clean up."

"Oh, Robert, I knew the good was in yer heart, if ye'd only let it shine out! 'Twas only the want of that vile stuff that made ye bitter against yer own family. I'll be a better wife to ye than ever. I thank ye, too, for the elegant present."

The children eagerly gathered about to admire the gift. It was a statue of plaster, white as snow, representing a lovely child kneeling, with uplifted hands and eyes. It looked so pure that even Bob was awed, and unconsciously lowered his voice, as he said,—

"Oh, my! Sally, isn't that a pooty picter? I wonder who he sees up there."

Lifting the statue with the greatest care, Mrs. Carter stowed it away in a large chest, and covered it with a towel, until the time when she should have a parlor like her neighbors.

It was astonishing what an effect that simple act of kindness had on the whole family. Robert often found fault with his food, or the manner in which it was cooked, but to-night he ate it with an evident relish, meantime relating every particular of the purchase.

"I may as well make a clean breast of it," he said, laughing. "I've been cross as fury since I left off smoking, and I don't say but there'll be times when I shall be so agin, but 'tisn't every wife that would have got along with it as well as you have. I said that to myself over and over again in the midst of my tantrums. To-night I was coming home from work, when I met a man with a long shelf of them 'ere things on his head, and all at onct it come right into my mind, 'There's a present for Betsey to put inter the new parlor.'"

The next morning, when the children had gone to school (Mrs. Allen had persuaded Betsey to send them regularly now), she could not refrain from carrying the statue to her kind neighbors.

"It's a perfect beauty!" exclaimed Mrs. Allen, wiping the suds from her hands, and lifting it tenderly.

"Bobby says he's looking at somebody," repeated the mother.

"He is praying to God, Betsey. Children who pray to him see him with an eye of faith."

"I never thought of that," faltered the woman, her face growing very serious.

"Don't you see he looks like a little angel?" continued Mary, noticing with pleasure the effect of her words. "See how pure and peaceful every feature is! That is the way Christians feel when they have given all their cares up to Him. They seem to see his smile, and it encourages them to pray always."

Betsey covered the towel over her treasure, and merely saying "Good-morning," turned toward home. But again and again she said to herself, "He's praying to God," and twice she lifted a corner of the towel to gaze at the peaceful features. The woman could not then describe her feelings, but she afterwards said,—

"I never seemed to know before what prayer was, and my heart yearned toward God."

In the evening, she called the children, one by one, into the bedroom, and showed them the praying child, repeating what Mrs. Allen had said. But they did not seem impressed by it as she was. To her it seemed to say, "You ought to pray to God."

In the dead of night, when all were sleeping, she crept softly out of bed, and kneeling in the middle of the floor, raised her hands and eyes in the darkness toward that gracious Friend who needs no light to see the contrite heart searching after him. Not a sound escaped her lips, but her soul went forth to God, "if haply she might find him," in yearning desires to be made pure and peaceful like that little child. She longed to strike a light for one glimpse of those sweet, calm features, but feared to arouse her husband; so she again sought her pillow, and was soon fast asleep.

One month glided rapidly into another, every week enabling Betsey to lay aside a pretty little sum toward the purchase of their cottage, until a hundred dollars were safely deposited in the earthen teapot. Mr. Carter now thought it time for him, as the head of the family, to negotiate the business with the owner. But first he asked Mr. Allen's advice, who recommended him to request Mr. Burrel, who was justice of the peace, to draw the deed.

"But how came you by so much money, Carter?" asked the gentleman, after listening with great interest to the story.

"Well, sir," answered Robert, trying to conceal his confusion by a laugh, "about half of it is what I've saved from the till of Massey at the oyster saloon, and what I used to spend for tobacco. T'other half Betsey and the young ones have scraped together by odd jobs. You see Betsey has took a notion to have a home of her own, and so we've all put to, to help it on."

"Capital!" exclaimed the gentleman, warmly. "It shows a great deal of character to get rid of a habit of long standing. I dare say it was a good deal of a trial to you."

"Every word you say is true, sir. It was a tough job, as Betsey could testify. But Allen told me he'd got through it, and I thought it mean in me to be behind another."

"I'll take the money, and do the business for you with pleasure. And here is ten dollars toward the second hundred. Betsey may tell the wife of any of my men that I will do the same by them, when they have proved themselves to be in earnest, as you have. You say there is a strip of ground for a garden-patch?"

"Yes, sir; and Bob is old enough to mind it."

"Well, remember, when you are ploughing in the spring, to turn over the loam with the oxen. You can raise a fine crop of vegetables with a little care."

"Many thanks to you, sir, and Betsey 'll say the same."