The disconsolate mother was now assailed by the clamorous outcries of nature's first want, that of food. She surveyed her beloved little brood in the feeble light, and saw in all its horror the fearful impress of famine stamped upon their emaciated features, and strangely lighting up their little heavy eyes. She wrung her hands, and looking up silently to heaven, wept aloud for some minutes.
“Childre,” she said at length, “have patience, poor things, an' you'll soon get something to eat. I sent over Nanny Hart to my sisther's, an' when she comes back yell get something;—so have patience, darlins, till then.”
“But, mother,” continued little Atty, who could not understand her allusion to the sleep from which there is no awakening; “what kind of sleep is it that people never waken from?”
“The sleep that's in the grave, Atty, dear; death is the sleep I mean.”
“An' would you wish to die, mother?”
“Only for your sake, Atty, and for the sake of the other darlins, if it was the will of God, I would; and,” she added, with a feeling of indescribable anguish, “what have I now to live for but to see you all about me in misery and sorrow!”
The tears as she spoke ran silently, but bitterly, down her cheeks.
“When I think of what your poor lost father was,” she added, “when we wor happy, and when he was good, and when I think of what he is now—oh, my God, my God,” she sobbed' out, “my manly young husband, what curse has come over you that has brought you down to this! Curse! oh, fareer gair, it's a curse that's too well known in the country—it's the curse that laves many an industrious man's house as ours is this bitther night—it's the curse that takes away good name and comfort, and honesty (that's the only thing it has left us)—that takes away the strength of both body and mind—that banishes dacency and shame—that laves many a widow and orphan to the marcy of an unfeelin' world—that fills the jail and the madhouse—that brings many a man an' woman to a disgraceful death—an' that tempts us to the commission of every evil;—that curse, darlins, is whiskey—drinkin' whiskey—an' it is drinkin' whiskey that has left us as we are, and that has ruined your father, and destroyed him forever.”
“Well, but there's no other curse over us, mother?”
The mother paused a moment—