Master George. ii

 

As soon as I had done so, the men my father
drank with came often in the evening after I was
gone to bed, and sat talking and drinking for
hours. I could hear the sound of their voices
through the wall, though I could not distinguish
words. Then in the morning my father lay late,
and went out, leaving a dirty, untidy house for me
to cleanup. I confess that I did as little in that
way as possible. I prepared book-work for Mr.
Hurst, or I went to lessons there—for I could not
bear that Master George should be more there, or
better prepared than 1; or I went into the wood
with Master George, who loved trees and streams
and birds and flowers, and all out-door things ; and
the work in house and garden might get done as it
could in the odd corners of time that were left.

To be sure, there was but little to do now, and
this was one of the causes of complaint that I had
against my father ; for he had given up the field,
and had taken the cows, my dear old Monna being
one of them, and had sold them at the spring fair.
that he
would at least sell her to some one in the neigh-

 

I did beg hard that he would spare Monna

bourhood, that I might go and sce her—or if he
would but wait a few weeks, I would work and earn
the money for her myself, and give it him. My
father only bade me shut up, and not make a fool