Timothy Crumps Ward | Page 4

Mr. Crump could not 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. Crump, affecting a cheerfulness greater than she felt.
"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 Mrs. Crump, 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 become profoundly gloomy.
"You're always trying' to discourage people," 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 to know I'm a burden."
"Now, Rachel, that's all foolishness," said Uncle Tim. "You don't feel
anything of the kind."
"Perhaps others can tell how I feel, better than I can myself," answered
his sister, knitting rapidly. "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 upon your relations, and bring a
brother's family to poverty."
"Don't talk of being a burden, Rachel," said Mrs. Crump. "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 going 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 in her lap. But I wouldn't stay to be a burden.
I'd go to the poor-house first, but perhaps," with the look of a martyr,
"they wouldn't want me there, because I should be discouragin' 'em too
much."
Poor Jack, who had so unwittingly raised this storm, winced under the
words, which he knew were directed at him.
"Then why," said 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 Aunt Rachel, "as my own nephew tells
me so. 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, also?" asked Mrs. Crump.
"When I see anything to laugh about, I'm ready to laugh," said Aunt
Rachel; "but human nature 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 of no use to attempt a confutation of this, and the
subject dropped.
The tea-things were cleared away by Mrs. Crump, who afterwards 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 mantel-piece one of the few books belonging to his
library,--"Captain Cook's Travels,"--and began to read, for the tenth
time it might be, the record of the gallant sailor's circumnavigations.
The plain little room presented a picture of peaceful tranquillity, but it
proved to be only the calm which precedes a 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