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CHAPTER XXXIV.
100,000 Brick. Paupers at twenty cents a day for the lot -- i.e., "one forty" per week: a considerable amount of money, all things taken into the account.

(12) John Stoddard, a man of good calculations, and fortunate in his business affairs, took the paupers off the hands of their great god-father, the Town of Crampton -- the paupers, I say, men, women, and children -- three or four years; when, being unwilling to harbor them longer, they fell again into the hands of our friends Mr. and Mrs. Siddleton. Mr. Siddleton had been a close observer the meantime of the management of others, and he thought whether it would not be a nice thing for himself and his wife if they could make "the thing" pay!

"Now," said he, "Mrs. Siddleton, we musn't keep these poor crittures too tenderly, nor bestow too much pious instruction on them. You see it really is a matter of dollars and cents. Stoddard and Bacon have made money out of them, and why can't we? I intend they shall work now to pay for past idleness, and really think a little manual exercise will be good for them. There's Dan, and Tucker, and Bill, and Rogers, and Sam White, and young Harry the deaf boy, besides Mag Davis, Roxy, Ma'am Upham, aunt Jemima, the old widow Prescott, Miss Carpenter, and granny Wakeup, besides the children and the bed-rid ones, old Josh Hicks and sister Peters. Here they are, seven-eights of 'um able to help a great deal. Now don't let's give up all our time to nursing on 'um and teaching them, but let's see if we can't make them fly round, and earn at least the salt they eat. What's the use of having so much working material on hand without improving it? For my part, I begin to think it's a sin." And Mr. Siddleton looked at his wife very soberly indeed; Mrs. Siddleton looked thoughtfully at the subject some time. At last she said --

"It is my duty to do all for these poor souls in my power consistent with every other actual obligation. There may be such a thing as paying too much regard to their spiritual state, and too little to their temporal---- "

"That's just it!" said he.

"Now, I agree in opinion with you, that if they can they ought to earn something; and as you have taken them so low this year, I feel it my duty to help you in your plans to realize something from the risk. So now what do you propose to do, Mr. Siddleton?"

"Well, first," said he, "you must dispense with the servant girl, and make the paupers do your work."

"Yes, that I can do, or can try it."

"Just so. Then we must begin, as we can hold out as to feeding and clothing them. You see it is now October, and the winter is before us -- the most expensive season of the year -- a long time of it now before they can do much in the fields. When the spring returns and summer, I shall take them into the fields to plant and hoe corn, make hay, reap grain, etc. But in the meantime, we must get through the winter with as little money paid out for food and clothing as possible."

"That looks to me very reasonable; and you know I always did advise them to practice abstinence from temporal vanities, on the well-known Gospel principle, "Take no thought -- for food. "

"Yes, that's all right, my dear."

"They don't really need much food, Mr. Siddleton."

"Ah?"

"No; for their natures are low, their blood is feeble, they arn't accustomed to it, they are inactive and dull, their teeth are gone or defective, and they don't expect what other folks have."

"Just so; well?"

"I was going to say," she added, "and will now, if you please, before I forget it. They are a great deal more submissive if kept on low feed than on high. I think gruel and soup are very good for them."

"That's the kind we can best afford, you know," said he. "And we must throw in some potatoes, onions, bony pieces of meat, and provide a good deal of cheap salt meat and fish. I think that we will begin our outgoes for them at one dollar and fifty cents a week. If we can bring it inside of that, well and good -- twenty-two cents a day! That's almost a quarter of a dollar, Mrs. Siddleton."

"A good deal of money in the end," said she.

"A very large sum, indeed! Perhaps we hadn't better come up quite to that figure. If we begin with too great generosity, we shall certainly run aground."

"I know it," said she.

"What if we call it twenty cents a day, eh? -- one dollar forty per week!" (13)