"Not at your trade?"
"No; but at something else which will pay equally well till trade revives."
Here he told the chance by which he was enabled to serve Mr. Merriam the evening previous, and then he gave an account of his visit to the merchant's countingroom, and the engagement which he had made.
"You are indeed fortunate, Timothy," said his wife, her face beaming with pleasure. "Two dollars a day, and we've got nearly the whole of the money left that came with this dear child. Why, we shall be getting rich soon!"
"Well, Rachel, have you no congratulations to offer?" asked the cooper of his sister, who, in subdued sorrow, was eating as if it gave her no pleasure, but was rather a self-imposed penance.
"I don't see anything so very fortunate in being engaged as a porter," said Rachel, lugubriously. "I heard of a porter once who had a great box fall upon him and kill him instantly; and I was reading in the Sun yesterday of another out West somewhere who committed suicide."
The cooper laughed.
"So, Rachel, you conclude that one or the other of these calamities is the inevitable lot of all who are engaged in this business?"
"You may laugh now, but it is always well to be prepared for the worst," said Rachel, oracularly.
"But it isn't well to be always looking for it, Rachel."