I haven't had time. I must try to get something else to do."

"What, for instance?"

"Anything by which I can earn a little, I don't care if it's only sawing
wood. We shall have to get along as economically as we can; cut our coat
according to our cloth."

"Oh, you'll be able to earn something, and we can live _very_ plain,"
said Mrs. Crump, affecting a cheerfulness greater than she felt.

"Pity you hadn't done it sooner," was the comforting suggestion of
Rachel.

"Mustn't cry over spilt milk," said the cooper, good-humoredly. "Perhaps
we might have lived a _leetle_ more economically, but I don't think
we've been extravagant."

"Besides, I can earn something, father," said Jack, hopefully. "You know
I did this afternoon."

"So you can," said Mrs. Crump, brightly.

"There ain't horses to hold every day," said Rachel, apparently fearing
that the family might become too cheerful, when, like herself, it was
their duty to become profoundly gloomy.

"You're always trying' to discourage people," said Jack, discontentedly.

Rachel took instant umbrage at these words.

"I'm sure," said she; mournfully, "I don't want to make you unhappy. If
you can find anything to be cheerful about when you're on the verge of
starvation, I hope you'll enjoy yourselves, and not mind me. I'm a poor
dependent creetur, and I feel to know I'm a burden."

"Now, Rachel, that's all foolishness," said Uncle Tim. "You don't feel
anything of the kind."

"Perhaps others can tell how I feel, better than I can myself," answered
his sister, knitting rapidly. "If it hadn't been for me, I know you'd
have been able to lay up money, and have something to carry you through
the winter. It's hard to be a burden upon your relations, and bring a
brother's family to poverty."

"Don't talk of being a burden, Rachel," said Mrs. Crump. "You've been
a great help to me in many ways. That pair of stockings now you're
knitting for Jack--that's a help, for I couldn't have got time for them
myself."

"I don't expect," said Aunt Rachel, in the same sunny manner, "that
I shall be able to do it long. From the pains I have in my hands
sometimes, I expect I'm going to lose the use of 'em soon, and be as
useless as old Mrs. Sprague, who for the last ten years of her life had
to sit with her hands folded in her lap. But I wouldn't stay to be a
burden. I'd go to the poor-house first, but perhaps," with the look of
a martyr, "they wouldn't want me there, because I shou