Winter Evening Tales

Sallie was not cross or cruel, and she was grateful to Davie, but she did not love the old man.

He soon found that the attempt to take up again his trade was hopeless. He had grown very old with three years' exposure and hard duty. Other men could do twice the work he could, and do it better. He must step out from the ranks of skilled mechanics and take such humble positions as his failing strength permitted him to fill.

Sandy objected strongly to this at first. "He could work for both," he said, "and he thought father had deserved his rest."

But Davie shook his head—"he must earn his own loaf, and he must earn it now, just as he could. Any honest way was honorable enough." He was still cheerful and hopeful, but it was noticeable that he never spoke of his brother Sandy now; he had buried that golden expectation with many others. Then began for Davie Morrison the darkest period of his life. I am not going to write its history.

It is not pleasant to tell of a family sinking lower and lower in spite of its brave and almost desperate efforts to keep its place—not pleasant to tell of the steps that gradually brought it to that pass, when the struggle was despairingly abandoned, and the conflict narrowed down to a fight with actual cold and hunger.

It is not pleasant, mainly, because in such a struggle many a lonely claim is pitilessly set aside. In the daily shifts of bare life, the tender words that bring tender acts are forgotten. Gaunt looks, threadbare clothes, hard day-labor, sharp endurance of their children's wants, made Sandy and Sallie Morrison often very hard to those to whom they once were very tender.

David had noticed it for many months. He could see that Sallie counted grudgingly the few pennies he occasionally required. His little newspaper business had been declining for some years; people took fewer papers, and some did not pay for those they did take. He made little losses that were great ones to him, and Sallie had long been saying it would "be far better for father to give up the business to Jamie; he is now sixteen and bright enough to look after his own."

This alternative David could not bear to think of; and yet all through the summer the fear had constantly been before him. He knew how Sallie's plans always ended; Sandy was sure to give into them sooner or later, and he wondered if into their minds had ever come the terrible thought which haunted his own—would they commit him, then, to the care of public charities?

"We have no time to love each other," he muttered, sadly, "and my bite and sup is hard to spare when there is not enough to go round. I'll speak to Sandy myself about it—poor lad! It will come hard on him to say the first word."