“I know that very well, but I don’t see how I’m going to stop the leak. All the children had to go to the high-school, and dress as smartly as the sons and daughters of rich men; though it was
more than I could do to get the money to pay for it.”
“But couldn’t your wife see how things were going?” asked the captain.
“I talked with her, and told her seven years ago that I was running behindhand. I have talked with her twenty times since, and told her we should all fetch up in the poorhouse if we kept on. She said the boys would soon find places in stores, and help me. The girls could have had plenty of work at good wages, but their notions were as high as their mother’s.”
“I see how it is,” said Captain Gildrock, nodding his head, as much as to declare that it was the old story.
“The girls are too proud to marry a farmer or a mechanic, and rich men’s sons don’t seem to want them. They are good girls enough, but they have got high notions. The boys never did do any thing, and I don’t know whether they can or not. I want Bolly to try. Pemberton is eighteen, and I suppose he is too old for your new school.”
“Not at all: I will take them both, but they will have to work.”
“That’s what they need. If I could get the boys into your school, I should like it first-rate, and I should have some hopes that I might get along; though I have got to lose my farm, and it won’t fetch any thing over the mortgage,” added the farmer very gloomily.
“I will take the two boys into my school; and, if the girls will go to work, I will find places for them in a store or factory.”
“You are very kind, Captain Gildrock; but I am afraid my wife won’t allow the boys to go to your school, or the girls to do any thing to help support themselves,” added Farmer Millweed.