When an accident or death took place amongst the hands at Rutherford's, and it was known that the wife and children would be in almost immediate need of help, a collection was sure to be made, in order to tide over the first money difficulties. Comrades gave almost beyond their means, without fear of reproof from wives who were waiting for wages, in order that their mate's widow might not at once feel the pinch of poverty along with the wound of bereavement.
But Margaret had already calculated that two causes would prevent her from receiving aid of this kind.
First, there was poor Jim's widow and children to care for, and their case was sadder, their need greater than her own. Secondly, everybody knew that Margaret's "fortune" had not been encroached upon, for had she not been proud to say as much? A woman who had hundreds of pounds "out at use," or interest, was not likely to need help from those who owned no reserve of the kind, or to receive it.
Jim's wages had been much higher than Adam Livesey's, but owing to his own habits he had always been in debt, and the family generally in low water, poorly fed and worse clad.
Adam's small earnings had been turned to the best account, and apart from Margaret's fortune, the family were regarded as "comfortable."
"There will be nobody to stretch out a hand for me nor mine," thought Margaret. "Drink and shiftlessness pay best when trouble comes. I did think that bit of money from mother would be there to make things easy for us in our old days, but some of it will have to be spent now. However, if it's for Adam, I'll not grudge it, if the last penny goes. It's all I can do for him, poor fellow. In a year or two, the lads will begin to bring a trifle in; but, however hard parents are put to it, the children must have their time at school."
Margaret sighed at this last thought, for, like many other uneducated parents, she was inclined to put little value on learning, and to regard it rather as a hindrance to early bread-winning. "If not this," she said, and perhaps with some truth, "that when working men's lads had got much schooling, they began to be ashamed of fathers and mothers that had little or none."
"Aye," Margaret would say, "they all want to dress in broadcloth, and work with their coats on in an office or such-like place. They go by hundreds after everything that means being stuck at a desk with a pen in their hands, and think they're gentlemen on fifteen shillings a week. Why, if there's a place for a clerk at ever such a trifle to begin with, they're after it like a swarm of flies round a dab of treacle. They go on trying to live genteel on less wage than my Adam gets, and that's little enough. Any way, working folks that don't pretend to be anything else, have no need to dress up like them that have ten times as much to spend."
Margaret's ambition for her boys was that each should learn a trade of some kind. Observation had convinced her that the steady, skilled mechanic, with a good knowledge of his craft, seldom had idle time on his hands, or needed to be one of a swarm of applicants for a vacant place at a desk.
Adam, too, had confirmed her views from an experience at Rutherford's.