A Discouraged Man.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 229, 19 November 1887, Page 3

A Discouraged Man.

"It is the last time I am going to try. There is no use in struggling when the odds are dead against you," It was John Harris who was talking. His wiie was sewing buttons on the children's clothes after they had gone to bed. As her mouth wa^ full of buttons she could not answer her hu&band had she felt inclined. Mr Harris resumed : " I'm clean discouraged. Of eourso 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 iinish 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. "It couldn't be worse. When a man's partner takes all the money out of tin) 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 mone3 r . 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 Harri-, trying to speak calmly. " There aic more ways than one. I shall not live to &ea 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 Han is; "you have health, wife and children, and an unblemished character." " Poor capital, these," retorted her husband, gloomily. "No, lam going to give up ! I tell you, Mary, 1 am a discouraged man ! You do not know what it is to endure thes-e business worries ; you women are sheltered and protected from all such annoyances." " Aie they ?" answered Mrs Harris, with dry lip-. She had done the work of three women that day. She had been cook and nur. a e, 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 ne\er enteied into her head that she dared to complain. "Doe the Xext Thynge " was the motto she had framed and hung up 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, ami 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 In eon comfortably the rest of your lives. It's only anticipating our final fate by a few months or years." Mrs Hau is 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 latt favour to ask of j ou." " What Ls it, Mary?" " Don't die in the house." Before the astonished man could speak she continued : " Because it would be so unpleasant for the children and for me. It is our home. I ha\e the deud of it in my possession, sent to me by my father yc&teiday. And I should hate to have any unpleasant associations connected with it. I should very much di-shke to have you buried at the four corners near here with a stake driven through yoa, though people would soon forget that \\ c ever belonged to you. For I would not 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 ashamed to think you had written your own epitaph. 'Hero lies a discouraged man.' " John Harris was dumb with surprise. " I know," continued his wife, " that it is •i favourite thing for men to say they will get out of it all, and that women do not reali-e how desperate the situation is, and a lot more rubbish that they ought to be a-hamed of." John tried to speak, but his wife had the floor. "It is only a coward who would take refuge in death and leave his wife and • children to fight the battle of life alone. And light here, Jack, I want the subject to end for ever. It is hard enough to li^e with a man who is chronically discouraged, but Mhcn ho hints at getting out of it I object." John Harris never again made any vague and improbable threats, but he took the dilemma of business by both horns and practically mastered it Ivor has his wife ever heard him declare since that he wa^ a ' ' discouraged man. "'