"What's a quarter of 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."
CHAPTER II.
THE EVENTS OF AN EVENING.
AT this moment the outer door opened, and Timothy Crump 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.
His wife, reading all these things in his manner, had the delicacy
to forbear intruding upon him questions to which she saw that he
could give no satisfactory answers.
Not so Aunt Rachel.
"I needn't ask," she began, "whether you 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 when that's gone we shall have to
starve."
"Not so bad as that, Rachel," said the cooper, trying to look
cheerful; "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.
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