CHAPTER XIV.
GEORGE BRANFORD'S HOME.
A low sigh, that was all, but the quick ears of Betsy Branford heard it, and she looked toward the table at which her husband, with bowed head, was sitting, and then a heavier sigh escaped her own lips. She sat in a low rocker near one of the windows of their humble kitchen, paler and thinner than usual, for at her feet was a cradle in which a babe of only a few weeks lay. The babe slept quietly, however, and after that sigh escaped her, she turned and gazed out of the window and off toward the hills, with the same troubled look that had been in her eyes all the morning.
George was in great trouble just then, but the change that brought it was small compared with the change in him, wrought since the winter before. Having once accepted Christ as his Saviour, he had gone manfully about his daily duties amid his old temptations and associations, and in spite of jeers and ridicule he had kept the faith. He had grown wonderfully in grace also, and he and Sailor Jack had become fast friends, and had more than once knelt together and prayed for the Master's blessing upon the Black Forge people.
What a difference it makes in a man when he is "clothed and in his right mind?" Betsy Branford would have told you that she could scarcely believe herself that this strong, manly, sober, industrious George Branford, was the wild, reckless, drinking, ungodly man whom she had called husband so short a time before. He was so strong in his faith, too; so sure that God heard and answered prayer, that she had, even in these few months of his Christian life, come to lean upon him, and to look to him for help in her own religious growth. When, now, he happened to be cast down and discouraged, her own heart grew weak, and her faith failed.
What was the trouble? Why this—and no wonder the strong man grew faint for a moment: the last morsel of food in that house had been eaten that morning. Not a mouthful remained for that frail mother; not a mouthful for the little children; not even a drop of milk for that sleeping babe. Nor was this extreme want due to any fault or neglect of that strong, manly husband. The little that came to him when the Forge Mills shut down had been carefully husbanded. He had used his money only for the barest necessaries of life, and he had earned every cent he could during the weeks the mills had been still. But with hundreds of idle men seeking and clamoring for work, there had been but little for each one, and the pay for that little was meagre indeed, and soon exhausted.
It was a large family, too, for one pair of hands to provide for. Mr. Branford, Sr., ever since the strike, had hung about the saloons, and the little he earned went into the rumseller's till, or was whiffed away in smoke. He came around to the house, however, for his meals, and uttered many a bitter oath if he was obliged to go away without them. Then there were the three sisters, all Christians now, and practicing self-denial in every way, and ready to do any honest work; but they got little, and this was their only home. Even now they had gone out to the hills with Betsy's older children, hunting for chestnuts that bright October morning that they might sell them for bread. Of those older children there were three, and now in the cradle lay a fourth; and then there was the wife and mother, and lastly the strong, hearty husband and father. Ten mouths in all! Is it any wonder that with his scanty work and scantier pay, and with his most rigid economy, too, they had now reached a condition of absolute want?
When the placards had announced the possibility of the mills starting up early the next month, new hope had come to George Branford's breast. This struggle with absolute want would be short, and soon over now, he thought. He had met Mr. Bacon, in fact, only a few days before, and that gentleman, stopping him, had asked:
"George, do you feel competent to take charge of the jack rooms, in case we start up the mills next month?"
"Yes, sir," George had promptly answered, a great hope filling his heart.