She wrung her hands, and looking up silently to
heaven, wept aloud for some minutes.
"Childre," she said at length, "have patience, poor things, an' you'll
soon get something to eat. I sent over Nanny Hart to my sisther's, an'
when she comes back yell get something;--so have patience, darlins, till
then."
"But, mother," continued little Atty, who could not understand her
allusion to the sleep from which there is no awakening; "what kind of
sleep is it that people never waken from?"
"The sleep that's in the grave, Atty, dear; death is the sleep I mean."
"An' would you wish to die, mother?"
"Only for your sake, Atty, and for the sake of the other darlins, if
it was the will of God, I would; and," she added, with a feeling of
indescribable anguish, "what have I now to live for but to see you all
about me in misery and sorrow!"
The tears as she spoke ran silently, but bitterly, down her cheeks.
"When I think of what your poor lost father was," she added, "when we
wor happy, and when he was good, and when I think of what he is now--oh,
my God, my God," she sobbed' out, "my manly young husband, what curse
has come over you that has brought you down to this! Curse! oh, fareer
gair, it's a curse that's too well known in the country--it's the curse
that laves many an industrious man's house as ours is this bitther
night--it's the curse that takes away good name and comfort, and honesty
(that's the only thing it has left us)--that takes away the strength of
both body and mind--that banishes dacency and shame--that laves many a
widow and orphan to the marcy of an unfeelin' world--that fills the
jail and the madhouse--that brings many a man an' woman to a disgraceful
death--an' that tempts us to the commission of every evil;--that curse,
darlins, is whiskey--drinkin' whiskey--an' it is drinkin' whiskey that
has left us as we are, and that has ruined your father, and destroyed
him forever.
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