Taken or Left

MY mother had ten boys. It was no wonder that she often looked weary and out of spirits. It was no wonder that we seldom saw her in a cheerful and hopeful state of mind, for she was never strong, and she had to work and to toil as if she were.

I used to wish sometimes that our mother would laugh more and sigh less. I could not understand then what care and anxiety we all were to her. But I can see now that she was too tired to be very merry, and that it was not strange that she found plenty to make her sigh.

I can remember the pile of stockings which she had to mend every Saturday night—heels out, and toes out, and many a hole beside. Poor mother, she would turn them over with a sigh before she began! Then there were the endless patches to be put in trousers and knickerbockers, there was the constant struggle to keep us in clean collars, there was the heavy washing every Tuesday, and the still heavier ironing every Thursday. I can see now that our mother had a very hard life.

But I never, thought of it then. I did not know what it was to be tired; I was strong, and hearty, and happy, and I am afraid I gave my mother as much work to do as any of the rest did.

I was the third boy. John and James were older than I was, and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and Simon, and Jude were younger. My own name was Peter. Father wished us all to be called after the Apostles.

"They had good old-fashioned names," he said.

My mother told me she was very thankful there were only ten of us; she was so much afraid he would call the next one Judas Iscariot, for he said it would be a pity to make a break, when they had kept it up so long.

Father had a large provision shop in the outskirts of the town; he sold groceries, and flour, and bacon, and cheese, and sausages, and butter, and eggs, and meat in tins, and countless other things. He was doing a good business, people said; but he did not grow rich. That was our fault more than his, I suppose. What could a man with ten boys do? Twenty pairs of new boots every year,—ten new suits,—three hundred and sixty-five breakfasts for ten hungry boys,—three hundred and sixty-five dinners for ten boys, still more hungry, at the end of three hours' schooling,—three hundred and sixty-five suppers for ten boys, perfectly ravenous with work, and play, and mischief; it would, indeed, have taken a very full till to have supplied all this, and left enough and to spare, so that our father could have reckoned himself a rich man.