The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1900-12-27

to fit by the midnight train to Cam
were evolving into landowners and
had bought a house. 1t was a very
little house on the hillside, which
overlooked the village where Jean
ALBERT and Della and Henri worked
in the mills. but two acres of land
went with it, and already the little
Auberts were growing rosy and fat
legged. Hitherto the gates of Para
disc had been effectually closed to
them, and with woods and fields no
more than half a mile away and the
whole street on the other side lined
with green lawns to tempt their very
eyes, they had never till now kicked
up their heels on grass.
Peeping out of the two street win
dows of the yardless double tenement
house which had been their home, or
playing softly round the doorstep
on hot summer evenings, they had
looked like a family of mice, noiseless,
bright-eyed and shy. Mamma Aubert
was the mother mouse, a thin, dark
eyed, decent French-Canadian wom-
an, seldom seer outdoors, but often
of an afternoon by the window with
a bald-headed baby in her arms and
a rather hectic flush upon her cheeks.
In school the little Auberts wore
perennial high-necked, long-sleeved,
pink calico aprons, and still main
tanning their mouse-like manners did
excellent work. The boys were
black-eyed rogues. but like true
Frenchmen took kindly to instruction
in cap-doffing and excuse-me. They
all had a gift for ~penmanship and
drawing, and Robert ALBERT was the
artist of the school.
The year before the horse was
bought the two eldest children had
graduated into the wooden mill, and
Delia's deft fingers earned enough
money to pay her board, clothe her
self tastefully and have a little mar
gin left, which she laid by for furni-
ture for the which they were
going to call parlor.
There was n shadow on the fam
lily happiness, and that was the mort
gage; and just before Christmas this
shadow began to assume alarming
proportions. 1t had looked easy in
the spring, when they first moved
into the new home, to meet the pay
ment which was due in December.
Jean Aubert was carpenter and ma
chinist in one of the factories, and a
steady and capable man, but the proc
ess of evolution is never without a
Gstruggle, and. do the best he could.
the interest was all he could paw.
Even for that, what with the cold
coming suddenly on and his nestful
erof young ones being uncommoply
hungry and hard on their clothes
after their summer out doors, the
family were strained to the
utmost. Della and Henri contributed
their savings, the parlor that was to
be was shut up, and they all came
down to a pretty strict diet of pud-
ding and milk. It was a poor out
look for Christmas, for ahead of them
doomed up more interest and other
payments, besides the continuous
outgo for their living.
II don't know but I've undertaken
too much," Jean Aubert said, soberly.
st costs more yer here than it did
on the street. If we don't save more
this winter than we have since we
came, we shall have to move back"
and in the melancholy silence that
eSfollowed Mamma ALBERT gave up her
chickens and COW, Della saw her
dream of muslin curtains and an or
gan vanish in air, and the children
4 suffered that depression of spirits
which is always induced by a verdict
adverse to Christmas,
Fortune has a way of experiment.
ing with full cups to see how much
more they 9 hold after they are