Between Whiles by Helen Hunt Jackson
page 122 of 198 (61%)
page 122 of 198 (61%)
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things with an iron hand. All hopes of a husband and a home of their own
had quite died out of their spinster bosoms, and they would not have been human had they not secretly and grievously envied the comely, blooming Isabella her husband, children, and home. But, with all this, it was no play-day life that Mrs. Isabella had led. At the very best, and with the best of farms, Prince Edward Island farming is no high-road to fortune; only a living, and that of the plainest, is to be made; and when children come at the rate of ten in twenty-two years, it is but a small showing that the farmer's bank account makes at the end of that time. There is no margin for fineries, luxuries, small ambitions of any kind. Isabella had her temptations in these directions, but John was firm as a rock in withstanding them. If he had not been, there would never have been this story to tell of his Little Bel's school-teaching, for there would never have been money enough in the bank to have given her two years' schooling in Charlottetown, the best the little city afforded,--"and she boardin' all the time like a lady," said the severe McIntosh aunts, who disapproved of all such wide-flying ambitions, which made women discontented with and unfitted for farming life. "And why should Isabella be setting her daughters up for teachers?" they said. "It's no great schoolin' she had herself, and if her girls do as well as she's done, they'll be lucky,"--a speech which made John McDonald laugh out when it was reported to him. He could afford to laugh now. "I mind there was a day when they thought different o' me from that," he said. "I'm obliged to them for nothin'; but I'd like the little one to have a better chance than the marryin' o' a man like me, an' if |
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