Indeed, in less than five minutes she was
laughing gayly, and caricaturing the whole scene just passed, from the
baby's wilfulness, to Sara's shriek of dismay and rush for the burning
greenbacks.
Sara, oppressed with care and forebodings as she was, could not help
smiling, and the smile seemed to ease her of her burden just a trifle.
"Well, we haven't come to want yet, thank God!" she thought hopefully.
Not want as they knew it, though the most of us might consider them
little short of it. There were still herring, "coddies," and potatoes in
store, and some groceries, while the pile of wood back of the shed was
large for that village. Then, too, summer was near, when their needs
would be fewer. To be sure, the new dresses must be given up, but they
still had one change apiece, and there were some things of the dead
mother's which could be used, for poverty does not admit of morbid
sentimentality.
"Oh, we can live, surely, till father comes home," was Sara's summing-up
that night, as she lay wide-awake in her bed after all the rest had long
been sleeping. Then, turning over with the resolution to trust and fear
not, she clasped the naughty baby (whom she had never thought of
blaming) in her arms, and, with a last uplifting of her soul in prayer,
dropped gently into slumber.
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