The appearance of this family indicated that they were very poor.  They were all thin and pale, really for want of proper food, and their clothes had been patched until it was difficult to decide what the original fabric had been; yet this very circumstance spoke volume in favour of the mother.  She was, a woman of great energy of character, unfortunately united to a man whose habits were such, that, for the greater part of the time, he was a dead weight upon her hands; although not habitually intemperate, he was indolent and good-for-nothing to a degree, lying in the sun half his time, when the weather was warm, and never doing a stroke of work until driven to it by the pangs of hunger.

As for the wife, by taking in sewing, knitting, and spinning for the farmers’ families in the neighbourhood, she managed to pay a rent of twenty dollars for the cabin in which they lived; while she and Johnny, with what assistance they could occasionally get from Jerry, her husband, tilled the half acre of ground attached; and the vegetables thus obtained, were their main dependance during the long winter just at hand.  Having thus introduced the Coles to our reader, we will continue the conversation.

“I guess we will have to put out Johnny, and you will try and help us a little more, Jerry, dear.”

“Why, what’s got into the woman now?” muttered Jerry, stretching his arms, and yawning to the utmost capacity of his mouth.  The children laughed at their father’s uncouth gestures, and even Mrs. Cole’s serious face relaxed into a smile, as she answered,

“Don’t swallow us all, and I will tell you.  The winter is beginning early, and promises to be cold.  Our potatoes didn’t turn out as well as I expected, and the truth is, we cannot get along so.  We won’t have victuals to last us half the time; and, manage as I will, I can’t much more than pay the rent, I get so little for the kind of work I do.  Now, if Johnny gets a place, it will make one less to provide for; and he will be learning to do something for himself.”

“Yes, but mother,” said the boy, moving close to her side, and laying his head on her knee, “yes, but who’ll help you when I am gone?  Who’ll dig the lot, and hoe, and cut the wood, and carry the water?  You can’t go away down to the spring in the deep snow.  And who’ll make the fire in the cold mornings?”

The mother looked sorry enough, as her darling boy—­for he was the object around which the fondest affections of her heart had entwined themselves—­she looked sorry enough, as he enumerated the turns he was in the habit of doing for her; but, woman-like, she could suffer and be still; so she answered cheerfully,

“May be father will, dear; and when you grow bigger, and learn how to do everything, you’ll be such a help to us all.”

“Don’t depend on me,” said Jerry, now arousing himself and sauntering to the fire; “I hardly ever feel well,”—­complaining was Jerry’s especial forte, an excuse for all his laziness; yet his appetite never failed; and when, as was sometimes the case, one of the neighbours sent a small piece of meat, or any little article of food to his wife, under the plea of ill health he managed to appropriate nearly the whole of it.  He was selfishness embodied, and a serious injury to his family, as few cared to keep him up in his laziness.