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"True, but we can't afford good."

"No -- but six barrels! Why, Captain Bunce, you're crazy! All the poor folks in creation couldn't eat it in a year; and as for cooking it, the Lud knows I shan't." Poor Mrs. Bunce! "The Lord knows." Yes, He knows many things that seem hidden from us.

But Mrs. Bunce liked a joke. She wasn't so hard on the Captain, after all, as her words seemed. She had a thorough conviction of his supremacy, but was now and then a little assuming; just enough, at least, to give the Captain a homeopathic dose of uneasiness.

"Mrs. Bunce!" said the Captain, seriously.

"What?" said she, rather suddenly.

"I will take care of the beef!"

Mrs. Bunce looked up for an explanation. She looked into her husband's face: it was cold and resolved.

"Very well," said she. "Beef it is, poor beef, and enough on't."

Mrs. Bunce turned and went into the house. The beef was rolled into the cellar, and the paupers of Crampton were fated to feed on it.

One barrel was opened that evening; the next day the whole family made a dinner of it.

"It's tough," said the Captain to his spouse.

She nodded.

"It's lean," said Dick.

"Confoundedly so!" said Elisha.

"It's salt," said Betsey.

"I wish father hadn't bo't it," said Henrietta.

What said the paupers?

"It is impossible, with my poor gums, to eat this beef," said the widow Prescott.

"It is very hard and yellow," said Ebenezer Cowles and Mrs. Dodge.

"It'll bear munching a good while," said aunt Dorothy and Mrs. Rice.

"It's tough as bull's hide," said old Dan.

"It's poor folks' turkey," said poor Boyce.

"My teeth are good," said Jims, "but they crack some."

"Too salt," said Bill. "Good salt-water ham, yaw! yaw!"

On the whole, the beef was condemned at the first meal, and it grew no better very fast.

CHAPTER XI.
MAG DAVIS. -- Were it not for beautiful Woman in this world, we should not have half the respect for ourselves that we now exercise, nor would Society so rise to the dignity of an Institution. As it is, we highly congratulate ourselves, and as to Woman are strictly conservative.

WINTER approaching, the people of Crampton calked their doors and windows to keep out the cold; some banked up their houses, and closed the roll-ways with straw, leaves, and tan. New stoves, finely polished, were ordered; new furnaces, that warmed the whole house, were put up, or the old repaired with new grates, and put in order to heat up at a moment's warning. Abundance of fuel was laid in without regard to cost, and so garments were ordered, furs purchased. Winter arrangements complete were made on every side, because no man or woman with any thing of a competency would think of meeting the rigors of a northern winter unprepared.

There was one class of persons in the town, who, in a very imperfect manner, imitated this consistent example. We mean the poor-house class. Every body belonging to it folded the garments he happened to have on a little closer to him, crept a little nearer to the fire, and was thankful if the cold of December could be endured on gruels, pale cider, beef-bone soup, hard neck and grizzly pieces of beef, rusty pork and cheap beans, in quantities proportioned to the cost.

As the wintry weather pinched more and more, all the stragglers, one after another, who in mild weather wandered off and got their living -- some by begging, others by working a little, and some by stealing and light pilfering -- came in from their excursions, and took up with their old quarters at the poor-house. Among these came old Mag Davis, hag that she was -- an out and out piece of sinful and wretched humanity. So came in John and Polly Tucker, gipsies in their mode of life. And there were two or three orphan children, ragged and dirty and ignorant. Vicious women and wicked men came, and all who could make out a good claim on the town staid: others passed on.

The snow began to fall. Captain Bunce ordered out into the fields, and yards, and woods, all the hands who could be of any service, and made Bill and Dan, and Boyce and Tucker and Jims accomplish a good deal of work, while Mrs. Bunce compelled the women and more infirm men to help her about house. "You must work," said she, "or starve; we can't feed idle bodies."

In vain the poor creatures complained; work was good for them, and it cost a world of money to keep them. Captain Bunce could not afford to keep them if they were to render him no service. Captain Bunce discharged his hired man, and told Dick and Elisha to make "the folks" do his work.

A cold hard day closing in with snow and rain, gathered the miserable, wretched paupers into their hovel. Bu Jims dripping with rain and covered with snow, brough in some large armfulls of brush, chips, and a log or two which were cast on the fire. The flames flashed up into the chimney, and threw their bright light into the large, comfortless room. A single taper burned in an iron candlestick. The forms of the inmates seated singly and in groups, or lounging here and there, and moving through the room, cast shadows in very grotesque shapes along the soiled walls, and creaking floor.