kitchen among the pots the rest of my days, I mean to
do my share to make it the cheerfulest kitchen in all the country."

Here the voice of the tea-kettle died down to a plaintive simmer, simmer,
and I heard Sunbeam say, "He's asleep." She always thinks I'm asleep when
I rest my eyes.

"Tea is ready," said three of them, at once.

CROOKED JACK.

Jack Grip was a queer fellow. Queer because he never got enough money,
and yet never seemed to know the right use of money. His family had the
bare comforts of life, but his wife was a drudge, and his children had
neither books nor pictures, nor any of those other things so necessary to
the right education of children. Jack was yet young, but he was in great
danger of becoming a miser. The truth was, he had made up his mind to get
rich. It took him some time to make up his mind to be dishonest, but he
was in a hurry to be rich, and lately he had been what his neighbors
called "slippery" in his dealings. Poor Jack! he was selling his
conscience for gold, but gold could never buy it back.

On a certain night in November, the night that my story begins, Jack was
not at ease. His accounts showed that he had made money. He was getting
rich very fast, but something troubled him. Shall I tell you what it was?

Just next to Jack's farm was a perfect beauty of a little place, on which
lived the Widow Lundy. Her husband had bought the farm, and borrowed
money of Jack Grip to pay for it. It was about half paid for when poor
Lundy was killed by a falling tree. There was some money due him, and he
had a little property besides, so that the widow sent word to Mr. Grip
that if he would only wait till she could get her means together, she
would pay up the remainder. But times were hard, and Jack saw a chance to
make two thousand dollars by forcing the sale of the farm and buying it
himself. It just fitted on to his lower field. It went hard to turn the
widow out, but Jack Grip made up his mind that he would be rich. He tried
to make it seem right, but he couldn't. He had forced the sale; he had
bought the place for two thousand less than it was worth.

The widow was to move the next morning. She had little left, and it was a
sad night in the small brown house. Poor little Jane, only ten years old,
cried herself to sleep, to think she must leave her home, and Harry was
to go to live with an aunt until his mother found some way of making a
living.

Poo