“‘Well mother—but I’m so tired! What’s the good of living so, mother?’
“‘One must live somehow, child—till one’s time comes to die.’
“Clary did not say, but she thought, as she raised herself slowly from the hard little straw bed, that it did not matter how soon that time came for her. Work! work!—living to work and working to live. Working hard, too, and for what a pittance of life! Was it living to sleep half as much as she wanted, and then to get up in the cold grey dawn of a winter’s morning, get three or four dirty children out of bed and into such clothes as they had; and then after as much breakfast as she had had sleep, to take that long cold walk in her old straw bonnet and thin cotton shawl to the printing-office,—there to stand all day supplying the busy iron fingers of the press? How thin and blue her own were!
“Poor Clary!—In truth she did not know what it was to live, in the real sense of the word—her mind looked back to no happier time than the present; for though she could well remember being a dirty little child like her brothers and sisters, with nothing to do but play or quarrel as she felt inclined, yet she by no means wished the time back again. The death of her father, and the consequent absence of his bottle and his wild fits of intoxication, had left the family in a peaceful state compared with those days; and since Clary had been at the printing-office she had learned to love the sight of decently-dressed people—had begun to take more pains to look nice herself; and above all, had begun to feel that she would like to be happy and well-dressed and respectable, if she only knew how. But they were very, very poor, and there were a cluster of little mouths to fill,—as clamorous and wide open as a nest of young swallows,—and never saying ‘enough.’ So though she kept her face cleaner and her hair smoother, and, when she could get them sewed hooks and eyes on her dress,—the march of improvement rested there; and her face was as hopeless, her eye as dull, as ever. For nobody had ever taught Clary about that ‘one thing needful’ which can make up for the want of all others. She had never been to church, she had never read the Bible—and indeed had none to read. She thought that nothing but money could make them happy,—she thought nobody could want anything but money; and was really not much surprised that people were so loath to part with it. They must be that, she thought, or the poor press-tenders could not be so very far removed from the heads of the concern, in comfortable appearance.
“There were many of the women indeed that spent more upon their dress than she did. A tawdry silk jacket worked all day at her right hand, and a pair of earrings dangled all day before her; while her own dress was but the coarsest calico; but Clary had somehow begun to wish for neatness and comfort,—of course finery was forgotten.
“Never had she been much inclined to envy anybody, till one day the head printer brought his two little children to the office; and Clary’s heart beat quick time to her sorrowful thoughts all the hours after. O to see those children at home with clean faces, and smooth hair, and whole frocks and trousers! And now there were rags and dirt and tangled locks, and no time to mend matters; and small stock of soap and combs and needles to mend with. Clary went straight to bed when she got home that night; and it was on the next morning that she awoke with the question,
“‘Mother, what’s the use of living so?’
“But as her mother had said, she must live somehow; and getting wearily out of bed, hastily too, for it was indeed late, Clary easily found her way into such clothes as she had; and then, having with some difficulty fastened the children into theirs, she seated them at the table where her mother had by this time placed the breakfast; and herself stood by, drinking a cup of the miserable coffee and tying on her bonnet at the same time.
“‘Going to wash to-day, mother?’
“‘Yes.’