"What's a quarter of a dollar?" said Rachel, gloomily. "Will it carry us
through the winter?"

"It will carry us through to-night, and perhaps Timothy will have work
to-morrow. Hark, that's his step."

CHAPTER II. THE EVENTS OF AN EVENING.

AT this moment the outer door opened, and Timothy Crump entered, not
with the quick elastic step of one who brings good tidings, but slowly
and deliberately, with a quiet gravity of demeanor, in which his wife
could read only too well that he had failed in his efforts to procure
work.

His wife, reading all these things in his manner, had the delicacy to
forbear intruding upon him questions to which she saw that he could give
no satisfactory answers.

Not so Aunt Rachel.

"I needn't ask," she began, "whether you got work, Timothy. I knew
beforehand you wouldn't. There ain't no use in tryin'. The times is
awful dull, and, mark my words, they'll be wuss before they're better.
We mayn't live to see 'em. I don't expect we shall. Folks can't live
without money, and when that's gone we shall have to starve."

"Not so bad as that, Rachel," said the cooper, trying to look cheerful;
"don't talk about starving till the time comes. Anyhow," glancing at
the table on which was spread a good plain meal, "we needn't talk about
starving till to-morrow, with that before us. Where's Jack?"

"Gone after some flour," replied his wife.

"On credit?" asked the cooper.

"No, he's got the money to pay for a few pounds," said Mrs. Crump,
smiling, with an air of mystery.

"Where did it come from?" asked Timothy, who was puzzled, as his wife
anticipated. "I didn't know you had any money in the house."

"No more we had, but he earned it himself, holding horses, this
afternoon."

"Come, that's good," said the cooper, cheerfully, "We ain't so bad off
as we might be, you see, Rachel."

The latter shook her head with the air of a martyr.

At this moment Jack returned, and the family sat down to supper.

"You haven't told us," said Mrs. Crump, seeing her husband's
cheerfulness in a measure restored, "what Mr. Blodgett said about the
chances for employment."

"Not much that was encouraging," answered Timothy. "He isn't at all sure
how soon it will be best to commence work; perhaps not before spring."

"Didn't I tell you so?" commented Rachel, with sepulchral sadness.

Even Mr. Crump could not help looking sober.

"I suppose, Timothy, you haven't formed any plans," she said.

"No,