And yet Coolidge was doing a good business. His profits were quite equal perhaps to his expenses, if he could only have paid as he went along. But as it was, he was working against tide all the time. He was forever paying back accounts, while the present ones went rolling up, inferior articles at high prices, at a fearful rate.
“Poverty begets poverty, that’s certain. And then it brings such a train of evils—big and little—and the smaller ones are worse to bear than the great. A man who has his pocket always drained of change is not a pleasant companion, at least not to his wife. Let him be ever so affectionate he will be unreasonable.”
“Three shillings! What do you want three shillings for, Lucy?” he would say as impatiently sometimes as if she had asked for a hundred dollars.
“For the girl who has been sewing here to-day, dear.”
“It seems to me that girl is sewing here forever. It’s three shillings here and three shillings there all the time,” he would say pettishly.
“Shall you want me next week, Mrs. Coolidge?” asked the girl, as she was paid.
“No,” she replied in a melancholy tone; “no, I will finish the rest of the work myself.”
Then perhaps feeling good-humored, he would say affectionately,
“Do, Lucy, put that eternal work-basket aside. I hate to see you stitching away so the whole time.”
“I must finish these things for the children,” she replied.