Little Fishers: and their Nets

h hands on her sides, and thought. Jerry had been consulting her. Was there any way of planning so that the front room in t

ten it up. There was no denying that that square front room would be the better for a carpet. At the same time there was no denying that the Deckers needed a hundred other things worse than they did a carpet. But the heart

rner never did ask me as much for weaving as she did other folks. The rags was every one of them saved up. Poor Hannah used to send me a lot of rags, and Sarah Jane and I sewed them at odd spells when we wouldn't have been doing anything. It is a good deal of bother to take care of it, and I'm always afraid the moths will get ahead of me, and eat it up. I might sell it to her for what the warp and the weaving cost me. But land! what would she pay with? I might give her a chance to do ironing. I have to turn away fine ironing every week of my life because I can't do more than accommodate my old customers. Who knows but she is a pretty good ironer? I might give her the coarse parts to iron, and watch her, and find out. Job is always at me to have somebody help with the big ironings, and I have always said I wouldn't have a girl bothering around, I would rather take less to do. But then, she is a decent quiet body, and that Nettie is just a little woman. She will have to do something to help along if they eve

nd besides being sure to agree to whatever she had to propose, he was himself of such a nature that he would have given away unhesitatingly the very clothes he wore

dream of her second married-life, so long as any pleasantness had been left to allow of dreaming; and she could not get away from the feeling that people who had not a scrap of carpeting for their best room, were very low down. She opened her eyes very wide while listening to Mrs. Smith's rapidly told story. What kind of a carpet could it be that was offered to her for simply the price of the weaving? for Job and his wife after some figuring with pencil and paper, had agreed together heartily to throw in

and so willing, that she saves me a great deal, and she has a notion that she would like to fix up the front room

k into one of the green

her feel as though she was choking. "If I were you I would have a carpet, and curtains to the windows, and lots of nice things, and m

e ironing the very next week, and if she could do it wel

o the collars and creases in the cuffs, I won't say a word; only I guess maybe I won't give her collars and cuffs to iron; not till she learns how. I o

e's direction he had planned a very satisfactory sofa with a back to it, and two chairs, but how to get the material needed to finish them, and also

oes it take for c

the plan she had for teaching Mrs. Decker to iron shirts. "Why, that depends on wha

do they use

still looke

the hill, you know, when I helped her do up curtains that time, they had great heavy silk things, or maybe velvet, though the stuff didn

e seen such curtains. They are damask. I am not thinking about lace, and damask, and all that sort of thi

, and a nice hem in, or maybe some bright calico at the bottom to help them hang straight, I don't know as there is anything much prettier. Though to be sure they aren't good for much to keep people from looking in; and they aren't quite s

muslin? I mean, ho

d at figures. Unbleached muslin costs about eight cents a yard, or maybe ten; we'll say ten, because I've always noticed that was easier to calculate. Ten cents a yard, and two windows, say two

id she will think that is a great deal. And then t

curtains up short of fifty cents apiece; and that is a good deal for curtains, that's a fact. Paper ones don't cost so

A dollar for the curtains, and I don't know how much more for t

ocket. He makes his dollar a day, even now, when he doesn't half work; Job said so only last night. But furniture is dreadful dear stuff,

rown; a great roll in her trunk; she is going to make them over to fit the little girls.

ing

be furniture. I've made a sofa, and two chairs, and I'm at work at a table. Only

head. "I don't see how you can! You can do a great many things th

a, and put a back to it, then it is padded with cotton, and covered with something bright, cretonne, I think she said they called it, only it wasn't

ing in an admiring tone. "What a contriving l

or blue, or whatever they want, around it, and cover it with thin white cheese cloth or some lacey stuff, she had the name of it, but I've forgotten; i

hat they might be real pretty. I want a table myself, to stand under the glass in my front room. What if yo

p, and came over and put both ar

is minute and set up the skeleton of another table. I have two boards there wh

and imitation cretonne, and unbleached muslin; she knew to a fraction how many yards of each would be needed, and the sum total appalled her

t, and Mrs. Decker had said that the bare thought of trying made her feel faint and sick; that if she had ever seen her father in a passion such as he could get into when things did not go just to suit him, she would know what it was to ask him for anyt

chance while the children were quarreling over an apple that Jerry had given them, and stole out in the direction of the shop where her father worked. She would not ask Jerry to go with her

er the door, which she had herself arranged for a fastening, and knelt there so long by the barrel which did duty as a table, that her moth

hought, for just as she turned the corner by the shop whe

rty is this coming down the street? The neatest little woman I've seen for many a day. A strang

o, came to the door in time to

le into his face. She was a trim little creature;

if that is the little one who went away six, seven years ago, was it? She's as pretty a girl as I've seen

ment Nettie spr

ve him the two two dollar bills, and two ones, without further words. Six dollars! If only she could get part of it! How should the delicate matter be managed? Suddenly Nettie acted on the thought which came to her. What more natural than for a child to ask for money just then and there? She needed it, and why not say it? Perhaps he woul

r? I want some money. That was

I take it for granted that he is going to waste all his money?" said poor Nettie

the bills. "What do you know

es. I promised to see about it as soon as I could. And

very well acquainted with her father; did not know how he would endure coaxing

." He sighed as he spoke, and nobody laughed; for most of them remembered that the man's home was desolate. Wife and daughter both buried only a few months before. This man sometimes spent his earnings on beer, but he was accustomed to say that there was nobody left to care; an

d hand. Her face a good deal flushed; but it wore an expectant l

rl. Such a handsome one as that. Y

." It was the foreman who said this, as he passed on his w

Mr. Decker, I cannot say, but he actually took a two and a one and placed them in her ha