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.
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