"Well, girls, then. Would any training their parents could have given taken the thin blood (the Armstrong, as you call it) out of them."
"I don't suppose it would; but it would have helped it amazingly. You see if I get a bar of Swedish iron, first rate, stamped 'Hoop L,' I put it into the fire, and work it without fear; but if I have a bar of English iron, brash and coarse, can't get any better, and must work it up, why, by taking great pains, heating it just right, and working it just right, I can, by coaxing, make it answer—not so good a purpose as the other iron, but can make it very useful. That's the way with children; you've got 'em, and got to work 'em up, and must make the best of 'em, as I do with 'brash' iron. These girls were partly on our side the house, and if they had been put right to it, it would have helped the better part, and kept the other back, just as the saw-makers put the nature into a saw by hammering when it has been softened in grinding. Now all they do is to put the dishes on the table, sweep up the hearth and look In the glass, wring their hands, and tell about what used to be. They might teach school if they only had 'sprawl' enough."
Mr. Richardson then told Morton that his brother would take an apprentice when they moved into the old homestead and had room, after which Rich would be able to leave home.
CHAPTER XIII. MORTON'S BUSINESS.
Morton set out for Portland the next morning, leaving Rich glad and grateful, and in the best of spirits himself, arising from the conviction that better days were in store both for Rich and his parents. He took his seat on the box, and was still more confirmed in this opinion by the conversation with the driver, of whom he had inquired the way to Mr. Richardson's shop the afternoon of his arrival.
"Then you didn't have any trouble finding Richardson's shop t'other day: git, git, git along there, you white horse."
"No, I found it without the least difficulty."
"Thought you would. Belong in these parts? What you 'bout there, old Dick?" Crack, crack, crack!