"I'd go and break stones on the road rather than be sitting indoors doing nothing, Will," I heard Mrs. Howland say as I was walking up to the cottage door. The words were spoken sharply, and the tone was in a high pitch.
"Ho, ho," thought I, "if the wind is in that quarter, perhaps I had better make my call at another time;" and I hesitated for a moment. But as I really had some business with William Howland, and as I had got so far, I made up my mind not to turn back.
William Howland is a good man, I verily believe; but I am bound (if I must speak out) to say that he is not——well, not to write too strongly——not over fond of hard work. He has a wife and family dependent on his exertions, and he had recently, two or three weeks previous to this call of mine, lost a place of regular employment, fifteen shillings a week wages, because he could not or would not get up soon enough in the morning.
The case was this. He had, three months before (after a good deal of knocking about, sometimes in work, and rather oftener out of it), applied to a neighbouring farmer for a situation then vacant on the farm.
"I am afraid you won't suit me, Howland," said the farmer; "but, as you say you want work, I'll try you. But you'll understand, I shall expect you at your post by a quarter before six in the morning."
"That's early, sir," said Will.
"Yes, a quarter of an hour before the regular time, I know. But you will have to be timekeeper to the other men, who begin work at six; and it will be proper for you to be on the farm before they come. However, that's the condition on which I shall employ you. Take the place or leave it."
Howland decided that, upon the whole, it was best to take it, which he did; and for a few weeks he managed to be at his post at the appointed time. Then he began to slacken, sometimes being five minutes behind, sometimes ten, until at last he seemed to settle in his mind that six o'clock was the proper time to commence his day's work; and he did not always stick to that. The consequence was he lost his place; and after that, up to the time of my approach to his cottage, he had been out of work.
On entering, I found Mrs. Howland in a pretty considerable fume. Apparently she had worked herself into a heat of temper, which, perhaps, was not altogether unaccountable, even if inexcusable, by reason of her husband being seated near the window, with a book open before him.