“Our cabin has had a very narrow escape.”
“Yes,” said Tom, coming up, “I’ve been out to look, and the fire just came up to your line, and then stopped.”
Mr. Payson was deeply affected by the intelligence, for, knowing that no human power could stay the advancing flames, upon the cabin top he had been praying that the wind might change. Was it in answer to his silent petitions that it had taken place in so timely a manner?
CHAPTER XI.
OLD MRS. SKINFLINT IN TROUBLE.–LOST IN THE WOODS.
There is no man so bad as he might be–a fact that everybody knows, but that most are apt to forget in their estimate of those who have offended their sense of right.
Mr. Smith had his virtues as well as faults; perhaps more of the latter than the former; but there were some mollifying circumstances to be taken into the account in the summing up of his character. His natural love of money had been stimulated and intensified by the malign influence of his wife. She was miserly when he married her. To keep what she had, and get what she could, was her ruling passion; besides which she had a passion for ruling. And often, when her husband’s gentler heart would be touched by a tale of suffering, and his hand be opened to relieve the distressed, would she interfere to prevent the indulgence of the benevolent impulse; and now, after some thirty years’ matrimonial moulding, he had become so assimilated to her 143 grasping spirit, and so accustomed to yield to her stronger will, that his dealings in business made him appear worse than he really was. In the sale of the “eighty-acre lot” to the missionary, about which much indignation was felt in the settlement, Mrs. Smith was the chief actor. Mr. Smith was the monkey employed to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, although, it must be confessed, he relished the chestnuts. She was a crafty woman, and kept out of sight in the transaction while she urged him on, so that people saw only Mr. Smith in the wrong-doing, when, if they could have peeped behind the curtain, they would have seen that his “better half” was the more guilty.
The thirty dollars which Mr. Smith finally consented to take for the “improvements on the claim,” Mr. Payson was unable to pay all at once; he was, therefore, subjected to many vexatious duns for the balance. Fearing that, at last, her husband would relent, and the debt might not all be realized, Mrs. Smith resolved to turn collector herself. So, putting on her best cap, and her faded black alpaca, she made her way through the woods to the missionary’s cabin.