other, said Nancy Bennet, I wish you would let us have tea to breakfast: there are neighbour Spendalls and their children drinking tea every morning when I go by to school, and we never have it but on Sunday afternoons. My dear, said her mother, every thing which is good for you, that I can buy, I wish you to have; but there are many reasons which would make it improper for us to drink much tea: One is, that it is very dear, and affords but little nourishment: Another, that it is neither pleasant nor wholesome without cream and sugar. Two pounds of the coarsest sugar I could buy, would cost eighteen pence. With that eighteen pence I could buy you a new shift; the sugar, you know, would be soon gone and forgotten; the shift will help to keep you warm and comfortable for years. Which would you rather have? O the shift, said she to be sure. Well, my dear, said her mother, it is by denying ourselves tea that we are able to get a comfortable change of shirts and shifts; and another advantage is, that I believe we have better health than many people who live a good deal on tea. Your father finds himself more able to work after bread and cheese and a pint of beer, than he would after tea: And a bason of milk-porridge is a much more satisfying meal for us; and, it is a very happy thing, that the most wholesome food is generally the cheapest. Ploughmen and milkmaids, who look so ruddy, and are the most healthy people in the kingdom, seldom taste tea. Part of their health and strength, it is true, is owing to their rising early, going to bed early, and living a good deal out of doors: but we, who are obliged to do our work more in the house, ought to get the most wholesome food we can; and, spending our money in tea and sugar, would deprive us of many more useful things. I have heard my mother say, that tea was very little drank when she was young; and, I believe, people were quite as healthy and as happy then. For one quarter of a year, I laid by, every week, just as much as I should have laid out had we drank tea. This, at the least I could reckon it, was one shilling and sixpence a week. As there are twelve weeks in a quarter of a year, this, you know, came to eighteen shillings; and, with that money, I bought myself and you, these good stuff gowns, which have kept us so warm all the winter, and a pair of sheets for your bed: Would you rather have been starved in rags, and drank tea; or, comfortably clad, and had milk-porridge? O, I have heard enough about tea, said Nancy, give me milk-porridge, a stuff gown, and new sheets.
If comfort round a cottage fire,
The poor desire to see,
Let them to useful things aspire,
And learn to banish tea.
TALE III.
enny Bunney sometimes did an errand for her school-mistress: sometimes she took her mother’s work to the warehouse, and was often employed to go on other errands, because she was very quick, never loitering on the road. She was also careful to remember what was told her, and carry a proper message. She had a sufficient pleasure in being useful, and finding herself trusted, and did not wish for any other reward; however, the people where she went, were very kind, and would sometimes give her a halfpenny. There was a woman lived very near where she did, who sold apples and gingerbread, &c. these she thought looked very nice, and sometimes she would buy a halfpenny-worth, but there was very little for money; she had soon eaten it, and found herself not at all satisfied. What a foolish thing, said she to herself, will it be to spend all my money in this way, and have nothing useful for it. I will lay by the halfpence I get till I can buy something useful, and then I shall find which affords me the most satisfaction. She observed, that her mother had long worked very hard to get food and cloaths for her children, and that she hardly ever bought anything for herself. Her caps were almost worn out, and Jenny knew that she did not know how to get any new ones: so she asked her mistress, at the school, to be so good as to tell her how much would buy her mother two caps. Her mistress told her she thought she could buy her two for ten pence: so she saved all the halfpence she got, and very anxious she was till the number was compleated: then, the next time she went to school, she gave it to her mistress to lay it out. The following morning the caps were bought, and ready for her to make. She worked hard, and, at night, had hemmed the border, set it on neatly, and finished one cap! The second day her task was compleated, and the caps carried home. If she had had a dozen given to herself, I do not think her joy would have been half so great as that she had, in the thought of giving these to her mother. As soon as she got into the house, she ran up to her and said, mother, I have got a little present for you, if you please to accept it. A present, said she! what is it? Jenny then pulled out the caps, and put one on her mother’s head, and the other in her lap. How came you by these, said she? Who sent them? Mother, said Jenny, I have bought and made them myself: You do a great deal for me, and I am sorry that I can help you no more; however, I feel more glad that I could buy you these, than if any body else had given you them. My dear, said her mother, where could you get the money? O, said she, you know that I had many odd half-pence given me, these I kept till I got enough to buy you two caps, as I thought it would give me more pleasure than laying it out in any thing else. Her mother almost cried for joy, to find she had so good a child, and told her she should value the caps more than if any fine lady had given her them. Young, as you are, you now find how much you can do to render your parents comfortable; and I rejoice, that poor as we are, you will never want pleasure, since you have learned that you need only try to be useful.
When gingerbread and apples lure,