“Yes, it is quite a change from a seen I witnessed to-day in Jonesville” (he is real charitable, Thomas J. is). “I found a family starving, Mother, really suffering for food—think of that, not five miles from here. The father and mother sick with fever, the children too young to work, they were too proud to beg, but at last they did send for me; I used to know the man. And Maggie and I carried enough to them for the present, and I sent for the doctor. We must all take hold and help them out, Mother, they are deserving and honest.”
And I told him warmly that I would. I would carry them a sack of flour and some butter and meat in the morning.
And Josiah sez, “Half a sack will do, won’t it? They can’t bake.”
And I sez, “You are right, Josiah, I will bake the bread and carry to them, and cook the meat.”
And Thomas J. resoomed, “Right round this very place, Mother, within five miles, I will find you fifty families where children are suffering for food and clothing.”
Sez Josiah (he don’t love to give and wuz afraid of the dreen on his resources if I took it into my head to succor the hull fifty families), “in lots of places the parents are lazy or drink.”
“But,” sez I warmly, “the children are not to blame, they are more to be pitied.”
“That is so, Mother,” sez Thomas J.
“But,” sez Josiah, “the town ort to take care on ’em.”
“Sometimes they are too proud to apply to the town,” sez Thomas J.