"Better," said he, "I had stuck by the counter; for I might have become bankrupt as often as I chose; and, if I had made the never a penny by it, I might at least have got quit of my creditors; but children are a sort of creditors that a man cannot sweep off by any means, not even the famous cessio."
And what made the matter more intolerable was, that all this time, when Mrs Crabbin was thriving so excellently well, in the way of adding to the number of the human species, she was gradually declining in health, having, by the time she had the third child, become so lean and shrivelled, that neither the Atlas nor the Hercules would have insured her life at a premium of fifty per cent. Yet, as we have said, three more followed in good time, and healthier creatures never opened their eyes on an evil world. Mrs Amelia Crabbin had now, however, done her worst; and, having been wasted away to a mere sigh, she one night took Mr Caleb round the neck, and, weeping bitterly, told him she was going, in the midst of her prosperity, to where she once thought she would have gone six years before—even where her five sisters were—the grave; recommending to him to take care of the twelve hundred and fifty, for the sake of the six children she had left, as every penny of it, and more, would be needed by the dear orphans. Mr Caleb wept too; but it was at the touching allusion she had made to the danger she had escaped, of dying before the first of the children was born; and Mrs Amelia, seeing what she conceived to be undoubted evidence of his affection, hung awhile upon his neck, and then bid him bring in every one of the six. They were accordingly ranged by the side of her bed.
"Now, my little ones," she said to them, tenderly, "Caleb, Andrew, Maria, George, Amelia, and Augustus, your mother is going to die, and you may never see her again after this hour. Mr Crabbin," she continued, looking to her husband, "you must know that these children are the last of the blood of our Reddies, and proud am I to think that it has pleased Heaven that I should be the means of thus leaving so many scions of our ancient race, that there is no chance of the name being forgotten, seeing that they have all three names, the middle one being Reddie in every instance. I hope they will multiply as I have done. Bless you, my dear children! Your father will protect you; and thankful am I that the twelve hundred and fifty is yet all left, so that you will get your shares when you come to be of age."
In an hour afterwards Mrs Amelia Crabbin was no more, and in three days afterwards she was buried.
"It is finished," said the husband; "and a fair speculation never turned up an uglier balance, since the days of the bubble of the South Sea."
So he took to real weeping; and there was not a friend that came to give him consolation, but went away with the impression that he had been one of the most loving of husbands, and was one of the tenderest of men. Among those visiters, were two or three acquaintances of his deceased wife, and one or two of them possessed even more than twelve hundred and fifty. So, Mr Caleb, seeing through his wet eyes that his grief took with them very well, continued the indications—a very easy process, seeing he had only to look to the debit and credit of his speculation to make the tears drop as fast as hailstones.
"It's a heavy loss you have sustained, Mr Crabbin," said Miss Jean Gibbs.
"Very heavy loss," rejoined he, with emphasis on the principal word.
"But the children are a consolation."
"To be sure they are," answered Caleb; "and I have six of them, and now, you see, all without a female to take charge of them."