"Harry does not manage at all, but he is very manageable, the best quality a man can possess.
Lucy manages Harry and everything else at Yoden to perfection. She expects another baby with the spring, but she is well and cheerful and busy as a bee."
"Does Yoden farm do anything worth while?"
"To be sure it does. Lugur helps Harry about the farm and Harry likes work in the open, but Harry's voice is worth many farms. It has improved lately, and next week he goes to Manchester to sing in oratorio. He will bring a hundred pounds or more back with him."
"Then at last he is satisfied and happy."
"Happy as the day is long. He is wasteful though, in money matters, and too ready to give the men he knows a sovereign if they are in trouble. And it is just wasting yourself to talk to him about wasting money. I told him yesterday that I had heard Ben Shuttleworth had been showing a sovereign Mr. Harry gave him and that he ought not to waste his money, and he said some nonsense about saved money being lost money, and that spending money or giving it away was the only way to save it. Harry takes no trouble and Medway, the new preacher, says, Henry Hatton lifts up your heart, if he only smiles at you."
"So he does, mother—God bless him!"
"Well, John, I can't stop and talk with thee all day, it isn't likely; but thou art such a one to tempt talk. I must be off to do something. Good-bye, dear lad, and if thy trouble gets hard on thee and
thou wants a word of human love, thy mother always has it ready and waiting for you—so she has!"
John watched his mother out of sight; then he locked his desk and went about her commission. She had trusted him to find beds for thirty-four children, and it never entered his mind that any desire of hers could possibly be neglected. Fortunately, circumstances had gone before him and prepared for his necessity. The mattresses were easily found and carried to the prepared room, and the children had been nourished on warm milk and bread, had been rolled in blankets and had gone to sleep ere John arrived at his own home. He was half-an-hour behind time, and Jane did not like that lost half-hour, so he expected her usual little plaintive reproach, "You are late tonight, John." But she met him silently, slipped her hand into his and looked into his face with eyes tender with love and dim with sorrow.