Sturdy and Strong; Or, How George Andrews Made His Way

by G. A. Henty

Bill's hour was a very long one.

"You must not go out of an evening, Bill, to get out of our way," Mrs. Andrews said when he returned, "else I shall think that I am in your way. It was kind of you to think of it the first evening, and George and I are glad to have had a long talk together, but in future I hope you won't do it. You see there will be lots to do of an evening. There will be your lessons and George's, for I hope now that he's settled he will give up an hour or two every evening to study. Not Latin and Greek, George," she added, smiling, seeing a look of something like dismay in George's face, "that will be only a waste of time to you now, but a study of such things as may be useful to you in your present work and in your future life, and a steady course of reading really good books by good authors. Then perhaps when you have both done your work, you will take it by turns to read out loud while I do my sewing. Then perhaps some day, who knows, if we get on very flourishingly, after we have furnished our sitting room, we may be able to indulge in the luxury of a piano again and have a little music of an evening."

"That will be jolly, mother. Why, it will be really like old times, when you used to sing to me!"

Mrs. Andrews' eyes filled with tears at the thought of the old times, but she kept them back bravely, so as not to mar, even for a moment, the happiness of this first evening. So they chatted till nine o'clock, when they had supper. After it was over Mrs. Andrews left the room for a minute and went upstairs and opened her box, and returned with a Bible in her hand.

"I think, boys," she said, "we ought to end this first happy evening in our new home by thanking God together for his blessings."

"I am sure we ought, mother," George said, and Bill's face expressed his approval.

So Mrs. Andrews read a chapter, and then they knelt and thanked God for his blessings, and the custom thus begun was continued henceforth in No. 8 Laburnum Villas.

Hitherto George and his companion had found things much more pleasant at the works than they had expected. They had, of course, had principally to do with Bob Grimstone; still there were many other men in the shop, and at times, when his bench was standing idle while some slight alterations or adjustment of machinery were made, they were set to work with others. Men are quick to see when boys are doing their best, and, finding the lads intent upon their work and given neither to idleness nor skylarking, they seldom had a sharp word addressed to them. But after Mrs. Andrews had come home they found themselves addressed in a warmer and more kindly manner by the men. Bob Grimstone had told two or three of his mates of the sacrifices the boys had made to save up money to make a home for the mother of one of them when she came out of hospital. They were not less impressed than he had been, and the story went the round of the workshops and even came to the ears of the foreman, and there was not a man there but expressed himself in warm terms of surprise and admiration that two lads should for six months have stinted themselves of food in order to lay by half their pay for such a purpose.

"There's precious few would have done such a thing," one of the older workmen said, "not one in a thousand; why, not one chap in a hundred, even when he's going to be married, will stint himself like that to make a home for the gal he is going to make his wife, so as to start housekeeping out of debt; and as to doing it for a mother, where will you find 'em? In course a man ought to do as much for his mother as for the gal who is agoing to be his wife, seeing how much he owes her; but how many does it, that's what I says, how many does it?"

So after that the boys were surprised to find how many of the men, when they met them at the gate, would give them a kindly nod or a hearty, "Good-morning, young chaps!"