hour. All the "breathing spell" they could remember however,
poor things; for times were always hard with them nowadays; and
since the father died, when Phronsie was a baby, Mrs. Pepper had
had hard work to scrape together money enough to put bread into
her children's mouths, and to pay the rent of the little brown house.

But she had met life too bravely to be beaten down now. So with a
stout heart and a cheery face, she had worked away day after day at
making coats, and tailoring and mending of all descriptions; and
she had seen with pride that couldn't be concealed, her noisy,
happy brood growing up around her, and filling her heart with
comfort, and making the little brown house fairly ring with jollity
and fun.

"Poor things!" she would say to herself, "they haven't had any
bringing up; they've just scrambled up!" And then she would set
her lips together tightly, and fly at her work faster than ever. "I
must get schooling for them some way, but I don't see how!"

Once or twice she had thought, "Now the time is coming!" but it
never did: for winter shut in very cold, and it took so much more to
feed and warm them, that the money went faster than ever. And
then, when the way seemed clear again, the store changed hands,
so that for a long time she failed to get her usual supply of sacks
and coats to make; and that made sad havoc in the quarters and
half-dollars laid up as her nest egg. But---- "Well, it'll come some
time," she would say to herself; "because it must!" And so at it
again she would fly, brisker than ever.

"To help mother," was the great ambition of all the children, older