I fear I have been betrayed into expressing myself warmly, but I feel deeply. Not for myself; for Augustus George. I dare not interfere. Will any one? Will any publication? Any doctor? Any parent? Any body? I do not complain that Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) entirely alienates Maria Jane's affections from me, and interposes an impassable barrier between us. I do not complain of being made of no account. I do not want to be of any account. But Augustus George is a production of Nature (I can not think otherwise) and I claim that he should be treated with some remote reference to Nature. In my opinion, Mrs. Prodgit is, from first to last, a convention and a superstition. Are all the faculty afraid of Mrs. Prodgit? If not, why don't they take her in hand and improve her?
P.S. Maria Jane's mamma boasts of her own knowledge of the subject, and says she brought up seven children besides Maria Jane. But how do I know that she might not have brought them up much better? Maria Jane herself is far from strong, and is subject to headaches, and nervous indigestion. Besides which, I learn from the statistical tables that one child in five dies within the first year of its life; and one child in three within the fifth. That don't look as if we could never improve in these particulars, I think!
P.P.S. Augustus George is in convulsions.
THE FARM-LABORER.—THE FATHER.
BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.
When George Banks was nearly thirty years of age, he married. He had always been happy, except for one great drawback: and now he hoped to be happier than ever; and, indeed, he was. The drawback was that his father drank. Banks had been brought up to expect a little property which should make life easy to him; but, while still a youth, he gave up all thought of any property but such as he might earn. He saw every thing going to ruin at home; and he and his sister, finding that their father was irreclaimable, resolved to go out and work for themselves, and for their mother while she lived. The sister went out to service, and Banks became a farm-laborer. Their father's pride was hurt at their sinking below the station they were born to; but they were obliged to disregard his anger when an honest maintenance was in question. There was a smaller drawback, by the way; Banks was rather deaf, and he thought the deafness increased a little; but it was not enough to stand in the way of his employment as a laborer; he could hear the sermon in church; and Betsy did not mind it, so he did not. He had a good master in old Mr. Wilkes, a large farmer in a southern county. Mr. Wilkes paid him 12s. a week all the year round, and £5 for the harvest month. For some years Banks laid by a good deal of money; so did Betsy, who was a housemaid at Mr. Wilkes's. When they became engaged, they had between them £50 laid by.
Banks took a cottage of three rooms, with nearly half a rood of garden-ground. They furnished their house really well, with substantial new furniture, and enough of it. In those days of high prices it made a great cut out of their money: but they agreed that they should never repent it. Banks had the privilege of a run on the common for his cow, and of as much peat as he chose to cut and carry for fuel. He had seen the consequences of intemperance in his father's case, and he was a water-drinker. He seldom touched even beer, except at harvest-time, when his wife brewed for him, that they might keep clear of the public-house.
During the whole of their lives to this day (and they are now old) they have never bought any thing whatever without having the money in their hands to pay for it. If they had not the money, they no more thought of having the article than if it had been at the North Pole. They paid £5 a year for their cottage, and the poor rate has always been from 15s. to 20s. a year. It was war-time when they married, in 1812; and the dread came across them now and then, of a recruiting party appearing, or of Banks being drawn for the militia; but they hoped that the deafness would save them from this misfortune. And the fear was not for long: in 1814, peace was proclaimed. It was a merry night—that when the great bonfire was lighted for the peace. Mrs. Banks could not go to see it, for she was in her second confinement at the time; but her husband came to her bedside and told her all about it. She had never seen him so gay. He was always cheerful and sweet-tempered; but he was of a grave cast of character, which the deafness had deepened into a constant thoughtfulness. This night, however, he was very talkative, telling her what good times were coming, now that Bonaparte was put down; how every man might stay at home at his proper business, and there would be fewer beggars and lower poor rates, and every thing would go well, with God's blessing on a nation at peace. The next year there was war again; but, almost as soon as it was known that Bonaparte had reappeared, the news came of the battle of Waterloo, and there was an end of all apprehension of war.
In eleven years they had eleven children. There was both joy and sorrow with those children. For seven years, the eldest, little Polly, was nothing but joy to her parents. She was the prettiest little girl they had ever seen; and the neighbors thought so too. She was bright and merry, perfectly obedient, very clever, and so handy that she was a helpful little maid to her mother. When three infants died, one after another, her father found comfort in taking this child on his knees in the evenings, and getting her to prattle to him. Her clear little merry voice came easily to his ear, when he could not hear older people without difficulty. The next child, Tom, was a blessing in his way: he was a strong little fellow of six; and he went out with Banks to the field, and really did some useful work—frightening the birds, leading the horses, picking sticks, weeding, running errands, and so on. But the charm at home was little Polly. When Polly was seven, however, a sad accident happened. She was taking care of the little ones before the door, during her mother's confinement, and one of the boys struck her on the top of the head with a saucepan. She fell, and when she was taken up she looked so strangely that the doctor was consulted about her. After watching her for some weeks he said he feared there was some injury to the brain. Banks has had many troubles in life, but none has been sorer than that of seeing the change that came over this child. It was not the loss of her beauty that made his heart ache when he looked in her face: it was the staring, uneasy expression of countenance which made him turn his eyes away in pain of heart. She grew jealous and suspicious; and, though no mood of mind remained many minutes, this was a sad contrast with the open sweetness of temper that they were never more to see. She did as she was bid; she went on learning to cook and to sew, and she could clean the house; but she never remembered from one minute to another what she was to do, and was always asking questions about things that she had known all her life. Her uncle (her mother's brother), who was well off in the world, and had no children, took her home, saying that change and going to school would make all the difference in her. But she had no memory, and could learn nothing, while she lost the mechanical things she could do at home. So, after a patient trial of three years, her uncle brought her home, and took, in her stead, the bright little Susan, now four years old. Polly never got better. After a time, fits of languor came on occasionally, and her mother could not get her out of bed; and now she sometimes lies for many days together, as in a swoon, looking like one dying, but always reviving again, though declining on the whole; so that it is thought it can not now go on very long.