We have taken advantage of a pause in the conversation, during which William Richardson resumed his reverie, and his wife plied her cards, to make this digression. At length the mother laid her cards into the basket of wool, and folding her hands in her lap, remained a few moments wrapped in thought. She then said,—
"Husband, I feel so sure that good will come of this, that it will be, in the end, the best thing for us all (for I know you can do whatever you put your[Pg 20] hand to), that I am willing to undergo almost anything to bring it about. There are three articles that will always sell at the store for half cash and half goods—butter, woollen cloth, and linen yarn. I will sell what we have to get your tools, and, perhaps, a little iron."
"Susan, what did you make this cloth for, and what shape is it in?"
"cloth that I meant to make clothes of for you and the boys, some that I wove for a gown for myself and the girls, and some blanket stuff."
"I won't take it; I won't take the clothes from your back and the children's if I never have any tools: the butter, I suppose, you have laid down for winter, and the blankets are needed for the children's beds."
"Yes, you must take it; if you can work iron, we shall have the house as full of butter, meat, and cloth as John Drew's is."
"But we can't get along without these things It is true that when I am there where.."
"We can if we only think so. We can put some brush on the children's beds, over the clothes,—hemlock brush over a few clothes is real warm,—then, when it is very cold, we can leave a large fire when we go to bed, and you can get up at twelve o'clock and put on wood. The children can get along with their old clothes, and I with mine; there's nobody to look at us here. We have pork enough, and can do without butter[Pg 21] till we can make some. One of the cows calves in March. I meant to have made some towels of the linen yarn, but tow will do just as well."
"Susan, I think a man must be made of poor material who could be discouraged with a wife like you."
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