Miscellany: What Will The People Say?: Chapter III

Concluded. 'The fact is, Sarah, we must sell our carritige, and try to curtail a little,' Mr. Ashton.said after dinner. 'Sell our carriage ? Impossible!' 'We could get along once very well without a carriage, and I think we must do so agaiu.' 'But what will people say to see us coming down. If we had never owned a carriage I should not advise you to get one now, seeing business is so dull. as you say. But it will never do to give it up now. People would say that we were going to the wall, and there would be enough to try and push us tfrere, if that were once said. O, no, don't think ofit!' Silenced - but not convinced that it was right to continue Iris present style of living, Mr. Ashton returned to his store, and sat conning over plans and projects forraising raoneyon the nextday, when the entrance of some one disturbed his train of thought. 'Good day, Mr." Ashton,' said the individual, who proved to be his laridlord. 'Good day! How do you do, Mr. PunctualT'replied the merchant, with a feeling of uneasiness. 'You have put my bilí off again,' said that personage, coming abruptly to the point. 'and now I have come for it myself. 1 like promptness in dealing, and nm never satisfied with any thing else. -When you have livcd in my house for threo months my part of the contract is fulfilled. Then 1 look for you to fulfil yours. Do you understand?' 'Perfectly.' said Mr. Ashton, turning to his desk and filJing up a check for two hundred and fifty dollars. It is true that hc had no money in bank, but then the check could not be presented until the next day, and that would give him a little time. The lnndlord received the check in silence, and bowing low departed. In about half an hour after tholandlord had disappeared, a bilí carne in for a set of harness, new linings and cushions forthe carriage, &c. amounting to one hundred dollars. 'I cannot pay this, just now,' Mr. Ashton said, with an air of impatience. 'It has already been standing four months,' the man replied. 'It is iiardly fair, Mr. Ashton, to keep mechanics out of their money in this way. We earn it hard, and al way s want it.' 'You need not be insolent about it,' the merchant said, half angrily. 'Come day after to-morrow and you shall have your money.' The mechanic turned away, muttering somewhat more loudly than he intended, 'Peopie say you malee most too much show to be honest, and I believe they are right.'Mr. Ashton's quick ears caught the words. He dropped his eyès to the floor, nnd sat in deep self-communion formany minutes, while a bright red spot burned upon hischeek. Itwas, perhaps halfan hour bofore he resumedhis investigation of the morrow's monetary business. - There was a calm self-possession in his manner, as he did so, and an air of deep resolve about him, that indicated the mnstery of some weakness. At the usual hour, he returned home. After tea, his wife remarked,with a smile, as if the subject had been broached by him in a momentary fit of business perplexity- 'Well, husband, have you got orer your strange idea about selling the carriage?' 'No, Sarah,' hc replied in a serious tone.'Nonsense!' 'But I am in earnest, Sarah. I find that we cannot support our present style of living, wilhsafety.' 'Indeed, indeed husband - you are alarmed without cause.' 'Indeed! I am not, Sarah.' 'But had'nt you better wait awhile, and see if business won't improve. I can't bear the idea of it. And then, what will pcople say?' 'I don't know, Sarah, what they would say. But I can teil you what they do say.' 'And what do they say]' inquired Mrs. Ashton, eagerly. 'Why they say that we make most too much show to be honest! And what is worse, they are half right.'Mrs. Ashton was thunder-struck, as they say; that is, she was so astonished and confounded, that she knew not what to think or speak. At last she said, looking into her husband's face, with her own pal e and concerned in its expression. 'Surely you must be trifling with me!' cNo, Sarah, I ara not. Of late, I have been so close'y run for money to meet my business and accommodation paper, which is unusually heavy about these times, that I have been forced to put off many bilis that were due,and should have been paid. Among these wasabill from the carriage maker, Tor the new and beautiful harness, carriage linings andlons. JtiecaJieü to-day tor the tourth or fifth time, andl had to put himoffagain. He grumbled at it, and as he went away, muttered loudenough for me to hear him, 'People say,that you make most too much show to be honest, and I believe them.' This is too severe for me, Sarah, and I cannot stand it. If I have weakly yielded to my own inclinations and your desires, and indulged in a little display and extravagance, I am nevertheless, honest; and while a shadow ofsuch a suspicion asthat indicated, is resting over me, I can have no peace of mind.' Mrs. Ashton listened with breatless interest while her husband was speaking, but,although he paused for some moments, she did not reply. 'And now, Sarah,' he resumed, eyou know that I have considered you, and consulted you in all domestic arrangements. Í still wish to do so. Butlcan no longer act as you wish, unless I am fully satisfied that to act thus is right. I think that we should sell our carriage, and move into a smaller house; and my reason for thinking so, is founded upon my knowledge of the fact, that as business is, and promises to be, for some time to come, I cannot afford the expense to which theysubject us. 'And people say we make too great a show to be honest?' Mrs. Ashton remarked, in a tone of surprise, a little touched with indgnation, as her husband ceased speaking. 'Yes, Sarah, they do.' 'Well, they shall say it no longer. - They may say any thing but thal. But to question your honesty is too much. Sell the carriage, did you say? Yes, sell it to-morrow, and move into a smaller house next week. People say that we are not honest? O no, people musn't say that!' And a lear stood in Mrs. Ashton's eye, as she drew her arm aflectionately about her husband's neck. CHAPTER IV.It was, perhaps, about a year after,that Mr. and Mrs. Ashton sat, one evening, before a cheerful grate, in a snug little house, in a retired part of the city. Every thing around them was neat and comfortable, and even elegant, though not on the scale of magnificence that they had once indulged. As they were drawing up their chairs before the fire after supper, Mr. Ashton remarked - 'This morning, Sarah, I took up the last note I had out in the world. No man can say that I owe him a dollar.' 'You fèel very comfoj-table then, of course,' his wife replied, smilingly. CI do feel very comfortable. Much more than when I sported an elegant carriage, and lived in a style of splendor beyond my ability to support.' 'People can't say that we make too greatashow to be honest,' Mrs. Ashton remarked, good humoredly. 'That they cannot. And, if they did, itwouldmake but little difterence, for there would be no truth in the allegation.It is the truth that people say about us, that is of most importance.' 'So I feit when you explained to me your real condition, and 1 saw, too plainly, that there was room for the remark made.' 'I certainly was in a bad way, then. - Every day I had tó rack my brains for the means of lifting my notes,and paying my borrowed money. And when night' came, 1 was sick and dispirited, and unfit to enjoy an hour's pleasant socialtercourse. If I dreamed, it was of mon1 ey, and notes and ruin. Ffty. times it has ! occurred that there has been but twenty minutes, or ten dollars between me and bankruptcy. And. yet I was doinga very fair business. The fortúnate sale which I made of the carriage gave me fifteen hundred dollars, which helped me a good deal. It was so much that did not have to bc relurned. m In a short time, we got into thissnug little affair of a house, atone fourth the rent we had been paying, and I found quarter bilis of si.ty-lwo dollars much more easily paid than those of two hundred and fifty dollars. And, besides this, our family expenses have been,quarterly, five hundred dollars less.' 'Impossible, Mr. Ashton!' 'It is a fact, for I have kept, regularly. an account in my business, of all moneys paid out for other than business purposes. Our carriage driver was a tax of three hundred dollars a year. Feed for two, and sometimes three horses, extra servant hire about a large house, and extra servanls,and the thousand expenses which such an establishment involves, swell up into no unimportant sum.' 'And all this was not so much for the comfort it gave as to provide for the question, What tcill the people say?' Mrs. Ashton remarked, smiling, how vain and foolish I was!' she added more'All these things,' resumed Mr. Ashton, made a heavy aggregate. Overthree thousand dollars in the last year saved from expenses, and obtained in the sale of horses and carriage, helped my business wonde rfully. Ana besides that, when I had once commenced, from a full conviction of its necessity, a system of reform and cconomy,I carried it out m my store. I was more prudent and cautious in buying and selling, reduced my business more to a system, and made my calculations to rely less upon borrowing, and more upon business returns. Gradually I succeeded in reducing all to a safe and legitímate line, and now I feel the happy result of good resol ution, followed by a rigid determination to carry them out. Peoplemay talk as much as they please now; I know that no one can say I owe him a dollar.' 'And you are much happier. To do right and then rest salisfied, I feel, is much better than to be anxious that others may admire or speak well of us. - A single year's experience has taught me a great deal.' 'We are both gainers then,' Mr. Ashton replied. 'That is, we are better and wiser. May we never forget the lesson we have learned, that the true sources of happiness lie within ourselves.'