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Page 47
[Illustration]
THE BOY IN THE BOX.
BY HELEN C. BARNARD.
"You haven't any more ambition than a snail, Joe Somerby!" said
energetic Mrs. Somerby to her husband, as, with sleeves rolled to the
elbow, she scoured the kitchen paint.
Joe, who was smoking behind the stove, slowly removed his pipe to
reply:
"Wal, if I haint, I haint; and that's the end on 't!"
"What would become of us if I was easy, too?" continued his spicy
partner. "Why can't you have a little grit?"
Joe puffed away silently.
"Now, you pretend to carry on the rag business, you spend all your
money a-buying and a-storing of 'em away; the back room's full, the
attic's full, the barn's full,--I can't stir hand or foot for them
rags! Why on earth don't you sell 'em?"
"Waiting for 'em to rise, marm!"
"Always a-waiting!" retorted Mrs. Somerby, thrusting her
scrubbing-brush and pail into a closet, and slamming the door upon her
finger. "Before you get through, the chance goes by. Joe," in a coaxing
tone, "I've had a presentiment."
Joe evinced no interest, but removed his pipe to say:
"Now, wife, don't get uneasy. Let's be comfortable."
"Yes, I feel a presentiment about those rags;" the little woman whisked
into a chair beside her lord. "They say the paper manufacturers are
giving a big price now, husband. Why can't you take a load to the city
to-day? I've been thinking of it all the morning."
"I'll do my own thinking, marm," said Joe, with dignity. He rose,
however, and laid his pipe away.
Mrs. Somerby said no more, sure that she had roused him from his torpid
condition. She wound Joe up to the starting-point, just as she did her
kitchen-clock, and he kept upon his course as steadily as that ancient
time-piece. She was just the wife for ease-loving Joe, whom her brisk
ways never wounded, for he knew her heart was full of tenderness for
him.
An hour later Joe drove into the yard. Mrs. Somerby flew out with a
lump of sugar for a jaded-looking horse, bought by Joe to speculate
upon, and who ate everything he could get, including his bedding, and
never grew fat.
"I'll make a trotter of him in a month, and sell him to some of the
grandees!" Joe said, but his system failed or the material was
poor,--old Jack slouched along as if each step was likely to be his
last. But despite this, Jack had become very dear to the childless
couple, and they were as blind as doating parents to his defects.
"Bless his heart!" cried Mrs. Somerby, as Jack whinnied at her
approach, and thrust his ugly nose into her hand.
Mr. Somerby felt of Jack's ribs with a professional air, and said:
"I'm trying a new system with this 'ere beast; I think he's picking up
a grain."
"He'll pick up the grain, no doubt," playfully retorted his wife. "Now
then, I'll help you off. Those paper men'll have all they want if
you're not on hand. I'm glad I put you up to sorting the stuff last
week."
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