Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1876-09-08
Hard Times.

Mrs. Fairman was proud woman, If she
did enjoy misery; and she had no irten-
tioD of letting Miss Henslow know that the
family lived on canaillo bread.
bed had been kicked in the chest by
Black Bill, who was trying TO run with the
cart, and now he lay on the bed in the fam
lily bedroom, and Salome was with him.
Mrs. Fairman had told the men folks,
more than hundred times, that they ought
TO sell Black Bill but she wasn't anybody
to be considered, and no heed was paid TO
what she said. There was one satisfaction
though; things had turned out exactly as
she predicted they would, and that was the
worst possible.
Now as she stepped away from the stove
where she had been carefully covering up
the little grey loaves with a crash towel,
she glanced out of the window at the
spring pastures that were perishing for
the want OF rain, and where the cattle could
scarcely nibble moulhful and beyond to
the hard looking plowed fields that showed
only the fuintest gllmmer of blue-green
oats. The wells were giving out, and
springs that never before had been known
TO fail.
Mrs. Fairman's face had a cut-water out
line. 1t was rheumy and pinched in at the
nostrils, and tucked down at the corners of
the mouth. Now, as she looked at the cold,
bleak brown fields taken in connection with
the canailly loaves behind the slove, it
see med plain TO her mind that there was a
judgment upon them and in a somewhat
vague way she connected the judgment
with Obed, "whO never had been under
conviction since she married him." and who
had seldom stepped his foot into the meeting
house at the Corners. She had read in the
newspapers that the drouth extended over
the whole of New England, and a large
portion of tho western states but it did
not occur 10 her that providence was going
considerably out of its way to punish obed
for his obstinacy and spiritual blindness.
A man had ridden early in the morning,
over from Salisbury with Whitcomb's bill,
and had threatened to levy on some of the
farm implements, and order sheritFs sale
unless it was paid in ten days. Mrs. Fair
man knew that obed was "drained" of
money, and the prospect of being sold out
of house and home, thing she had SO Omen
predicted would happen, seemed dismally
near.
Miss Henslow lived across the road in a
little house that appeared to be always in
the sulks. Now she len her goose heating,
and took a section of Deacon Broderip's
coat over her arm, with her big tailOr's
shears at her side, and went STOPPING,
across the way. She had crooked back,
and hooked nose, with mouth that hid
itself in the big cavity of her face, and which,
some way, gave one the impression of a
gigantic owl. She appeared TO have three
story throat, and TO speak out of the base
ment door. She stepped over one of Sa-
lOme's tlower-beds, where the "sturllons"
could not push their heads through the
caked soil, and she gave sharp peck on
the window pane with her steel thimble.
~ got the hdgets setting alone" she be-
gan, as Mrs. Fairman admitted her, and
settled down, and let her poke bonnet fall
back, showing ring of snufy brown hair
each side of her face done up with big
pin. "You see 1 dreamed ofrais last night,
and it's always bad sign. The last time
1t happened was just before Aunt Debby
Strong died. Seth Barnaby and his cousin