n the wide
hearth making a snare for rabbits. The room they occupied was cold and
cheerless; the warmth of the scanty fire being scarcely felt; yet
the floor, and every article of furniture, mean as they were, were
scrupulously neat and clean.

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