s this morning. He had long made up his mind
that it would be wrong as well as foolish for him to marry a blooming
young girl, so long as he had no other prospect than that of growing
poverty with a growing family. And his savings had been so constantly
drawn upon (besides the terrible sweep of paying for Seth's substitute
in the militia) that he had not enough money beforehand to furnish even
a small cottage, and keep something in reserve against a rainy day. He
had good hope that he should be "firmer on his legs" by and by; but he
could not be satisfied with a vague confidence in his arm and brain; he
must have definite plans, and set about them at once. The partnership
with Jonathan Burge was not to be thought of at present--there were
things implicitly tacked to it that he could not accept; but Adam
thought that he and Seth might carry on a little business for themselves
in addition to their journeyman's work, by buying a small stock of
superior wood and making articles of household furniture, for which Adam
had no end of contrivances. Seth might gain more by working at separate
jobs under Adam's direction than by his journeyman's work, and Adam,
in his overhours, could do all the "nice" work that required peculiar
skill. The money gained in this way, with the good wages he received
as foreman, would soon enable them to get beforehand with the world,
so sparingly as they would all live now. No sooner had this little
plan shaped itself in his mind than he began to be busy with exact
calculations about the wood to be bought and the particular article of
furniture that should be undertaken first--a kitchen cupboard of his
own contrivance, with such an ingenious arrangement of sliding-doors and
bolts, such convenient nooks for stowing household provender, and such
a symmetrical result to the eye, that every good housewife would be
in raptures with it, and fall through all the gradations of melancholy
longing till her husband promised to buy it for her. Adam pictured to
himself Mrs. Poyser examining it with her keen eye and trying in vain to
find out a deficiency; and, of course, close to Mrs. Poyser stood Hetty,
and Adam was again beguiled from calculations and contrivances into
dreams and hopes. Yes, he would go and see her this evening--it was so
long since he had been at the Hall Farm. He would have liked to go
to the night-school, to see why Bartle Massey had not been at church
yesterday, for he feared his old friend