"I believe Mr. Wilbur got the promise from Mr. Antis before Eben saw him," remarked Miss Emily Willson, who was in the company. "Perhaps Tom will do better in different hands."
"Maybe so. His father does have a kind of discouraging way with him, that's a fact," said Grandma Badger. "But I expect Tom is a good deal what his father was at his age—always finding fault with his business and wanting to try something else. That was always the way with Joe Wilbur, and that was the reason he never got on any, and you will see Tom will be just such another one as he was."
"Let us hope for better things in Tom's case," said Miss Emily, smiling. "Flora told me that her mother would not hear of this arrangement at first, but Eben was so very anxious to be doing something for himself that she gave way, and allowed him to do as he pleased."
"They are real good, smart children, both of 'em," said Grandma Badger. "Folks said Eben was too young to join the church, but I don't see any of our members that walk any more consistent than he does. For my part, I think all the more of the boy that he has gone to work at whatever he could find to do, to help along his mother and sister, instead of waiting for something to turn up that just suited him."
"Then, if it was the right thing for Eben to do, grandma, why should you blame his mother for telling him to do it?" asked young Mrs. Badger, rather mischievously.
The old, lady took a pinch of snuff, and drew herself up.
"You see, Malviny, I ain't so smart as you be, and sometimes I say foolish things. The apostle says, 'If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man,' and I don't seem to have come to that pint of perfection just yet, though maybe I shall if I live eighty years longer."
"You come about as near it as most of us, I guess, grandma," said the younger lady, who had only meant to draw out her mother-in-law, and so the conversation was happily ended.
Of course Eben's conduct had been discussed at the school, where he had always been a great favourite with both teacher and scholars.
"The Fairchilds have come down in the world," said Martha Edwards, with a toss of her head, "to let Eben go out to work like a common hired man. I guess they won't hold their heads quite so high after this."