The Letter of Credit. Warner Susan
do not know."
"Where does she live?"
"Rotha, you may wash up these dishes, while I put things a little to rights in the other room."
The next day Mrs. Carpenter set about finding some work. Alas, if there were many that had it to give, there seemed to be many more that wanted it. It was worse than looking for rooms. At last some tailoring was procured from a master tailor; and Mrs. Carpenter sat all day over her sewing, giving directions to Rotha about the affairs of the small housekeeping. Rotha swept and dusted and washed dishes and set the table, and prepared vegetables. Not much of that, for their meals were simple and small; however, with one thing and another the time was partly filled up. Mrs. Carpenter stitched. It was a new thing, and disagreeable to the one looker-on, to see her mother from morning to night bent over work which was not for herself. At home, though life was busy it was not slaving. There were intervals, and often, of rest and pleasure taking. She and Rotha used to go into the garden to gather vegetables and to pick fruit; and at other times to weed and dress the beds and sow flower seeds. And at evening the whole little family were wont to enjoy the air and the sunsets and the roses from the hall door; and to have sweet and various discourse together about a great variety of subjects. Those delights, it is true, ceased a good while ago; the talks especially. Mrs. Carpenter was not much of a talker even then, though her words were good when they came. Now she said little indeed; and Rotha missed her father. An uneasy feeling of want and longing took possession of the child's mind. I suppose she felt mentally what people feel physically when they are slowly starving to death. It had not come to that yet with Rotha; but the initial fret and irritation began to be strong. Her mother seemed to be turned into a sewing machine; a thinking one, she had no doubt, nevertheless the thoughts that were never spoken did not practically exist for her. She was left to her own; and Rotha's thoughts began to seethe and boil. Another child would have found food enough and amusement enough in the varied sights and experiences of life in the great city. They made Rotha draw in to herself.
CHAPTER III.
JANE STREET
Mrs. Carpenter's patient face, as she sat by the window from morning till night, and her restless busy hands, by degrees became a burden to Rotha.
"Mother," she said one day, when her own work for the time was done up and she had leisure to make trouble, – "I do not like to see you doing other people's sewing."
"It is my sewing," Mrs. Carpenter said.
"It oughtn't to be."
"I am very thankful to have it."
"It takes very little to make you thankful, seems to me. It makes mefeel angry."
"I am sorry for that."
"Well, if you would be angry, I wouldn't be; but you take it so quietly.
Mother, it's wrong!"
"What?"
"For you to be doing that work, which somebody else ought to do."
"If somebody else did it, somebody else would get the pay; and what would become of us then?"
"I don't see what's to become of us now. Mother, you said I was to go to school."
"Yes," – and Mrs. Carpenter sighed here. "I have not had time yet to find the right school for you."
"When will you find time? Mother, I think it was a great deal better at Medwayville."
Mrs. Carpenter sighed again, her patient sigh, which aggravated Rotha.
"I don't like New York!" the latter went on, emphasizing every word.
"There is not one single thing here I do like."
"I am sorry, my child. It is not our choice that has brought us here."
"Couldn't our choice take us away again, mother?"
"I am afraid not."
Rotha looked on at the busy needle for a few minutes, and then burst out again.
"I think things are queer! That you should be working so, and other people have nothing to do."
"Hush, Rotha. Nobody in this world has nothing to do."
"Nothing they need do, then. You are better than they are."
"You speak foolishly. God gives everybody something to do, and his hands full; and the work that God gives we need to do, Rotha. He has given me this; and as long as he gives me his love with it, I think it is good. He has given you your work too; and complaining is not a part of it. I hope to send you to school, as soon as ever I can."
Before Rotha had got up her ammunition for another attack, there was a tap at the door, and Mrs. Marble came in. She always seemed to bring life with her.
"What do you get for that?" she asked, after she had chatted awhile, watching her lodger. Mrs. Carpenter was making buttonholes.
"A shilling a dozen."
Mrs. Marble inspected the work.
"And how many can you make in that style in a day? I should like to know."
"I cannot do this all day," said Mrs. Carpenter. "I get blind, and I get nervous. I can make about two dozen and a half in five hours."
"Twenty five cents' worth: I declare!" said the little woman. "I wonder if such folks will get to heaven?"
"What folks, Mrs. Marble?" enquired Rotha, to whom this saying sounded doubtful.
"The folks that want to get so much for so little. They wouldn't be satisfied with any heaven where they couldn't get a hundred per cent."
"The Lord gives more than that," said Mrs. Carpenter quietly. "A hundredfold in this present world; and in the world to come, eternal life."
"I never could get right hold of that doctrine," said Mrs. Marble. "Folks talk about it, – but I never could find out it was much more than talk."
"Try it," said Mrs. Carpenter. "Then you'll know."
"Maybe I shall, if you stay with me long enough. I wisht I was rich, and I'd do better for you than those buttonholes. I think I can do better anyhow," said the little woman, brimming over with good will. "Ha' you got no friends at all here?"
Mrs. Carpenter hesitated; and then said "no." "What schools are there in this neighbourhood?" she asked then immediately.
"Schools? There's the public school, not far off."
"The public school? That is where everybody goes?"
"Everybody that aint rich, and some that be. I don't think they had ought to. There's enough without 'em. Twelve hundred and fifty in this school."
"Twelve hundred and fifty children!"
"All that. Enough, aint it? But they say the teaching's first rate. You want to send Rotha? You can't get along without her at home, can you? Not unless you can get somethin' better than them buttonholes."
"Mother," said Rotha when Mrs. Marble had gone, "you wouldn't send me to that school, would you? That's where all the poor children go. I don't think anybody but poor people live all about here."
"Then it is a proper place for us. What are we but poor people, Rotha?"
"But mother, we were not poor people at Medwayville? And losing our farm and our home and all, don't make any difference."
"Don't it?"
"No, mother, not in us. We are not that sort of people. You wouldn't send me to such a school?"
"Take care, my child. 'The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich;' and one is not better than the other."
"One is better off than the other," said Rotha. "Mother, how comes aunt Serena to be rich and you to be poor?"
Mrs. Carpenter hesitated and seemed to choose her words.
"It was because of the way she married," she answered at last. "I married a poor man, and her marriage brought her into riches. I would not exchange with her for all the world, Rotha. I have had much the best of it. You see your judgment is not worth much."
Rotha