“I can’t do so much as you,” said Eleanor White, the ironmonger’s widow; “but I’ll give Collet the worth of an angel in goods by the year, and the produce of one of the pear-trees in my garden.”
“I can’t do much neither,” added Emmet Wilson’s husband, the baker; “but I’ll give them a penn’orth of bread by the week, and a peck of meal at Easter.”
“And I’ll chop all the wood they burn,” said his quiet, studious son Titus, “and learn the lads to read.”
“Why, Titus, you are offering the most of us all in time and labour!” exclaimed Roger Hall.
“You’ve got your work cut and measured, Titus Wilson,” snapped Tabitha. “If one of them lads’ll bide quiet while you can drum ABC into his head that it’ll tarry there a week, ’tis more than I dare look for, I can tell you.”
“There’s no telling what you can do without you try,” was the pithy answer of Titus.
“I’ve been marvelling what I could do,” said John Banks modestly, “and I was a bit beat out of heart by your sovereigns and nobles; for I couldn’t scarce make up a crown by the year. But Titus has showed me the way. I’ll learn one of the lads my trade, if Collet ’ll agree.”
“Well, then, that is all we can do, it seems—” began Roger, but he was stopped by a plaintive voice from the couch.
“Mightn’t I do something, Father? I haven’t only a sixpence in money; but couldn’t I learn Beatrice to embroider, if her mother would spare her?”
“My dear heart, it were to try thy strength too much, I fear,” said Roger tenderly.