“But there is Bonny Betty, with six helpless children—you see that she can get along.”
“Yes, sir,—but Betty is a woman, and somehow they have a higher spirit than a man. Why, a man would have broken down if he had been left with six such children as she has, or if he had not sunk, he would have run away and left them to Providence. You have no idea, sir, how long a poor woman will bear up against every evil and misfortune if she has children dependent upon her.”
“You have now told me the little history of the Seven Shanties, but has no one a garden but yourself. I should think that the man you mentioned last—what’s his name?—the man with one leg—he ought to have a garden.”
“Daniel M’Leary,—yes, he might do a little in that way, but for two reasons; one is that he cannot dig, for his back is weak,—and a better reason still is, that there’s never a shanty but mine that has a bit of land to it. Daniel M’Leary has not even enough for a pig pen if he had wherewithal to feed a pig. He has done, however, all that man could do; he has planted a grape vine behind his shanty, and last summer, being the third year of its bearing, he sold from it five dollars’ worth of grapes. He gave me some cuttings; I planted them against the back of my shanty which faces the south, and last summer two of them had a few bunches on them, but the children pulled them off before they were ripe. I don’t think, however, it was the neighbours’ children.”
The next day Mr. Price was able to get out of the little room and enjoy the fresh air of the open commons. He saw, what Mrs. M’Curdy said, that the shanties had no ground attached to them. In front was the road, and behind a precipitous bank, scarcely a foot-path behind that of Bonny Betty. Yet these poor people paid from ten to twelve dollars a year for a piece of ground not more than twenty feet square. Mrs. M’Curdy was on the edge of a common, and her plot took in a strip of land about twenty by a hundred feet; this was the admiration and envy of the neighbours, who all imagined that if they only had “the luck to get such a bit garding spot” they would thrive as well as Mrs. M’Curdy.
At noon a gentleman called on Mr. Price; he was the owner of some of the land thereabout, and likewise of the little strip on which all the shanties, excepting Mrs. M’Curdy’s, stood. He came by consequence of the letter which Mr. Price had written to him the day before, and being a sensible and considerate man, he was soon convinced by this gentleman’s arguments that some change in the circumstances of these poor people, his tenants, would be beneficial to him as well as to them. He finally agreed to lease to Mr. Price a piece of land not more than a few rods’ distance from the shanties; it was to be about one hundred and sixty feet square. It was leased for twelve years.
As money can command any thing, in two weeks two hundred loads of manure were spread over this spot and ploughed in, and a good rough board fence enclosed the whole, with a wide gate in the centre of each side. Near the upper gate, under a large hemlock, a comfortable shanty was built, well floored, with two rooms, and a chimney between. On the lower side was another, only larger, having four small rooms; this was shaded by a fine silver pine. This shanty guarded the south gate. The fence and gates, all the posts being made of cedar, cost Mr. Price one hundred and fifty dollars, the manure and ploughing were one hundred more, the two shanties cost three hundred and fifty dollars. Furniture for the two shanties, grape vines, currant bushes, strawberry plants, garden seeds, two carts, six wheelbarrows, and other garden tools, with a shed to keep them in, cost four hundred dollars more. Here was an expenditure of the round sum of ten hundred dollars. The interest of this at six per cent. amounted only to sixty dollars, and he was only charged one hundred and forty dollars for the rent of the land, so that the interest of the money was but two hundred dollars a year. What was this to a man worth twelve thousand a year?
Mr. Price, quick in planning and executing, soon arranged every thing to his mind, and what was extraordinary, to the liking of every one. In ten days he installed Daniel M’Leary in the north shanty, giving him the key of the north, east and west gates; in the south shanty, he placed Bonny Betty and her six helpless children; and a day it was to see, for both he and Mrs. M’Curdy, as well as dear little Norah, kept the thing a profound secret. The first intimation Bonny Betty had of the good luck, was in the morning of the day of her removal; Mrs. M’Curdy called in by accident, as it were, and observed that she should not be surprised if Mr. Price were to call in and see about the wen on Benny’s forehead; “so Betty, my friend, suppose you red up the children a little; here is Susan quite able, I am sure, to lend a hand, deaf and dumb though the poor little thing is. See how handy she goes to work.”
“If you thought he’d be coming Sally, why I’d leave my work, and put on their Sunday clothes; but poor little Jemmy is very feverish to-day, and Christie’s legs are more swelled than common; are you sure he’ll be coming this way?”
“No, I am not sure, but at any rate red up the children, for who knows what may happen; you’re an honest industrious woman, and you may well be called Bonny Betty; I think ye’ll eat your dinner in a better house than this ere you die; good folks are not always neglected.”