A Discouraged Man.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 267, 12 November 1887, Page 12 (Supplement)

A Discouraged Man.

',',Jt" is £Bo "last time lam to try,,, There is no use in struggling whim' theodds ere dead against you." *■•'■'*

It was John Harris who was talking. His wite was sewing buttons on the children's clothes after they had gone to bed. As her mouth was full of buttons she could not answer her husband had sho felt inclined. Mr Harris resumed: " I'm clean discouraged. Of course I don't think of myself; it is you and the children I'm worried about; and if it wasn't for leaving you alone, Mary, I'd—" He did not finish what he was saying, as his wife coughed, and all the buttons flew out of her mouth.

"Is it such a bad failure?" she asked presently. She was darning the children's stockings now, having finished sewing on buttons.

"Itcouldn't be worse. When a man's partner takes all the money out of the business and skips to a foreign country, everybody hounds him to death as if he had been dishonest. All the creditors are clamouring for their money. It's no use, Mary ; I'm a ruined man, and I'm going to find a way out of it all."

"How?" asked Mrs Harris, trying to speak calmly. i" There are more ways than one. I shall not live to see you want, or to 'be a burden on you and the children. There is no dishonour attached to my name now. It was rash, I suppose, to embark all in one venture, and lose it!" "You have not lost all," suggested Mrs Harris; "you have health,wife andchildren, and an unblemished character." "Poor capital, these," retorted her husband, gloomily. " No, lam going to give up ! I tell you, Mary, lam a discouraged man ! You do not know what it is to endure these business worries; you women are sheltered and protected from all such annoyances." '•Are they ?" answered Mrs Harris, with dry lips. She had done the work of three women that day. She had been cook and murse,s and now. she was seamstress. She had cut and contrived, counted pennies, and was engaged to give music lessons to the doctor's daughter to offset their last year's bill. Her whole frame quivered, with the pain of jarred and tangled nerves. But it never entered into her head that she dared to complain. "Doe the Next Thynge" was the motto she had framed and hung tip where she could see it, many times a day. ." As I say," continued her husband, after a spell of gloomy thought,, "there's a way out of it, and many a man has been driven to it. I won't live and be persecuted by a mob of circumstances. If I were out of the way you and the children would have enough to live on comfortably the rest of your lives. It's only anticipating our final fate by a few months or years." Mrs Harris folded the last pair of stockings and laid them neatly away.' A little smile hovered about her lips. " John," she said in a firm voice, " I have a last favour to ask of you." v

"What is it, Mary?" "-Don't die in the house." , Before the aatonished man could speak she continued :

f< Because it would be so unpleasant for the child.ren and for me. It is our home. I have the deed of it in my possession, sent to me by my father ..yesterday. And I should hate to have any unpleasant associations connected with it. I should very much dislike to have you buried at the four corners near here with" a stake driven through you,. though people would soon forget that \ve ever belonged to you. For I wouldnot own to being the widow of a coward or let my children bear his name. And even if you were not held responsible I would be" ashanjed to think you had written your own epitaph. ' Here lies a discouraged man..' ". John, Harris was dqmb w,ith ; surprise.., ; -\. "I know,"continued his wife,'" Ohtitit is a favourite thing.for men to i say tlioj will get out. of it all, find thai; yipnii flo not realise how deeporato the situ'afcipri i», -and a j dot) morerubbish' tbafc they to, be,j phanjedof." ; '

John tried to speak, but his wife had the *'ifc is only a coward who would take refuse in death and leave his wife and children to fight the battle of life alone. And right here, Jack, I want the subject to end for ever. It is hard enough to live with a man who is chronically discouraged, but when he hints at getting out of it I object." John Harris never again made any vague and improbable threatß, but he took the dilemma of business by both horns and practically mastered it. . Nor has his wife ever heard him declare since that he was a " discouraged man."