His hired help are worked beyond all reason, and have scarcely ever a part of Sunday for themselves. Some poor ignorant fellow of an emigrant has come over and has not yet learned our prices, and Jones has pounced on him, and so he gets his work done for a song.
Get rich? Of course, he does. How could such a man help it?
The parlor is open to-day—the first time I have seen it for a twelvemonth—and the shutters are thrown back. Neighborly decency says I must go to the funeral, and I get my horse and carriage.
In the parlor the boy is laid, and the fine embellished coffin contains all that is mortal of the poor lad, Jones’s eldest heir.
Well, it’s a nice parlor, even so, and those things which money could buy in a lump are there. The little bric-a-brac, or knick-knacks, or books, are of course absent, for Mrs. Jones only sees the parlor monthly, when she dusts it out, and no one has any time about Jones’s to make it homelike.
Books are conspicuous by their absence, save only one, a large gilt family Bible, opened last when it was put in here, some months ago, for no one has any time to read at Jones’s.
A hush, and the minister rises and announces the hymn. Neighbors’ wives and daughters have mercifully gathered, and, standing in the hall, and upon the stairs, raise their voices in one of Watts’s soul-stirring hymns, and gradually the assembled neighbors join in. A prayer follows, and then the solemn warning. All voices are hushed. Boys of the neighborhood are the bearers—boys whom this Jones boy once loved and made his confidants and associates. The coffin is placed within the hearse. The procession moves, and soon the grave closes all, and Jones has lost his oldest son, and is disconsolate for a day or two.
Again the parlor is closed. When its cobwebs will be again dusted from it, as I have attempted to do, it is impossible to say. Possibly not until the next boy comes home to die like his brother. I am picturing Jones’s home to show one of a class of money grabbers and slaves in Ontario. The bright sunshine of a home is not there. Books, papers, recreation, society and neighborly chat are all absent.
CHAPTER XIX.
City and country life compared—No aristocracy in Canada—Long winter evenings—Social evenings—The bashful swain—Popular literature of the day—A comfortable winter day at home—Young farmers who have inherited property—Difficulty of obtaining female help—Farmers trying town life—Universality of the love of country life—Bismarck—Theocritus—Cato—Hesiod—Homer—Changes in town values—A speculation in lard.