"It's hard work, but I was glad enough to get it this morning," said his wife, looking up inquiringly at her husband. She was afraid to ask what he had earned that day, for she could see by the despairing look in his eyes that he had very little, and to-morrow was Saturday too, when there would be less chance of getting a job.
So she put aside her own fears and anxieties, and said in a cheerful tone, "I must get these in by seven o'clock to-morrow, and then go to Mrs. Rutter's for half a day's work."
The man looked at the work in his wife's hand. "Couldn't I do a bit of that for you so as to give you a rest?" he said a little wistfully.
"I've been wishing I could help mother," said Winny, smiling at the thought of her father using a needle, while Letty burst out laughing at the suggestion.
"Oh! You may laugh," he said, feeling greatly relieved to hear of this influx of work. "I mean to let you see what I can do after tea. Put it down, mother, and give us some tea, and then Letty and I will try sack sewing. Never fear but what we will got them done between us."
During tea, he told of his day's experience, which did not vary much from that of the day before, except that the hour's work he had got had prevented him from reaching another place in time to get a longer spell of work, as he might have done if he had gone there first. This was another grievance that the men had to complain of, and one that a little forethought and management might prevent.
"Perhaps these things may all be set right one day, father," said Winny. "And when they are, mother says we shall have a front room, so that I can look out into the street sometimes."
"We'll have two rooms," announced Chaplin; "and I'm not so sure but what we may try to get things put right a bit. The chap that comes talking to us at the gates of a morning says it could be done easy enough if we'd only just make up our minds to hold together. Two days I've been tramping and working for just tenpence!" And as he spoke, he took the halfpence he had earned out of his pocket, and laid it on the table as though he was half ashamed of it.
"Father, don't you think that, now God has put it into people's hearts to think about this, and to say it ought to be altered, it will be somehow?" asked Winny earnestly.
Chaplin scratched his head. He believed in God, of course; he went to the mission services sometimes with his wife, but he never thought of God as being close at hand and directing the affairs of men as Winny did, and so he looked rather uncomfortably into the fire now he was asked to give an answer to such a direct question.