Jack's Ward; Or, The Boy Guardian. Alger Horatio Jr.Читать онлайн книгу.
he would be expected. It was with a lighter heart than usual that he bent his steps homeward, for he knew that the dollar would be heartily welcome.
We will precede him, and give a brief description of his home.
There were only five rooms, and these were furnished in the plainest manner. In the sitting room were his mother and aunt. Mrs. Harding was a motherly-looking woman, with a pleasant face, the prevailing expression of which was a serene cheerfulness, though of late it had been harder than usual to preserve this, in the straits to which the family had been reduced. She was setting the table for tea.
Aunt Rachel sat in a rocking-chair at the window. She was engaged in knitting. Her face was long and thin, and, as Jack expressed it, she looked as if she hadn't a friend in the world. Her voice harmonized with her mournful expression, and was equally doleful.
"I wonder why Jack don't come home?" said Mrs. Harding, looking at the clock. "He's generally here at this time."
"Perhaps somethin's happened," suggested her sister-in-law.
"What do you mean, Rachel?"
"I was reading in the Sun this morning about a boy being run over out West somewhere."
"You don't think Jack has been run over!"
"Who knows?" said Rachel, gloomily. "You know how careless boys are, and Jack's very careless."
"I don't see how you can look for such things, Rachel."
"Accidents are always happening; you know that yourself, Martha. I don't say Jack's run over. Perhaps he's been down to the wharves, and tumbled over into the water and got drowned."
"I wish you wouldn't say such things, Rachel. They make me feel uncomfortable."
"We may as well be prepared for the worst," said Rachel, severely.
"Not this time, Rachel," said Mrs. Harding, brightly, "for that's Jack's step outside. He isn't drowned or run over, thank God!"
"I hear him," said Rachel, dismally. "Anybody might know by the noise who it is. He always comes stamping along as if he was paid for makin' a noise. Anybody ought to have a cast-iron head that lives anywhere within his hearing."
Here Jack entered, rather boisterously, it must be admitted, in his eagerness slamming the door behind him.
CHAPTER II
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