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It is evident that such a smart, energetic creature as Madam Bacon must, of course, be well fitted to have the care of our friends, the paupers, and that she, if any body, would be able to draw out their energies in a way that would secure at least the aforesaid twenty per cent. And we must say, she was not wanting in this respect. She was out and in among them all day long, and evening too, from five o'clock till nine or ten; and it was a very rare thing indeed to see one of them who could work idle.

Here was the widow Prescott knitting, or heeling and darning stockings or old clothes, or again picking over beans, dried apples, rags, or dampening clothes to iron. Here was Mag Davis winding yarn, getting ready the dinner, scrubbing, night and morning milking "her cow," as the mooley was facetiously called; Roxy ditto, and making beds for Madam Bacon. Mrs. Jane Huggins, with her two or three little children, was making rags for a carpet, or mending pants, vests, and coats for the paupers. Molly Weaknis was scouring knives, or brushing the rooms. In the fall of the year, all hands often passed the evenings and part of the day paring, quartering, and stringing apples to dry for market. During the day the men worked at the cider-press; in hay time they assisted in making and securing hay; and so in harvest time they bound up sheaves; they planted, hoed, and gathered corn and potatoes. Men and women often worked in the garden, and kept it free from weeds. More than half the whole number could do some work -- perhaps full three-fourths -- and a good many were able to work more or less vigorously all day. No good farmer would give one of them the full price of a vigorous day-laborer for his help; but some could earn a good twenty per cent., to say the least, on the cost of the whole. Abraham was sure of that; and so was his wife.

Nothing was truer, as Mr. Haddock, Mr. Phillips, and Mr. Rodman said, from Mr. Bacon's success, than that the paupers could, under more advantageous circumstances, earn the whole cost of their support, and be every way better taken care of, and happier. And they brought the subject to the notice of the town, and argued it repeatedly. They even offered to be responsible for the results; but the time had not come. Their propositions were not received.

Abraham, as we have said, had them in charge two years. He had made all the necessary arrangements to take them a third, when he was most unexpectedly under-bid by a close-calculating, rummy sort of a man over in the south-east part of the town -- a man in rather embarrassed circumstances, but a great swaggerer, and particularly strenuous for the paupers, be- ing a merciful and humane manager. This man was Jacob Siddleton; and as he had but a small house for his own family, and still smaller for the new comers, they lived, while in his hands, stowed away in poorly-ventilated rooms, and in a very damp, unwholesome, and inconvenient way altogether. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Siddleton cared to set them about any work, except to mend and wash their own clothes, cut and burn their fuel, and prepare their own meals. These, even, were sometimes performed under embarrassments and difficulties, as the Israelites in Egypt once experienced difficulty in the tale of bricks. At Siddleton's six of the paupers died. Some were down with the scurvy a part of the time, and all of them grew lifeless and wan while there.

Mr. and Mrs. Siddleton's' great and merciful design was to keep them as quiet as possible. Mrs. Siddleton sometimes sat down among them and showed them pictures, and read little stories for their amusement. Again, she would show them her cast-off caps, and frocks, and trinkets of various hues and fashions, and talk of other days, and of what she and Mr. Siddleton were going to do when they were rich. When any of them were sick she prepared water gruel, and catnip and motherwort and elderberry tea for them; and if they were hurt she melted tallow and rubbed it on the wounds, advising them always to moderate their diet, to eat simple food, never to crowd the stomach, and only to allow themselves the use of nourishing food.

Notwithstanding all these particulars, they were never a very lively and happy company; and they frequently felt the gnawings of hunger. They desired changes of raiment and more comfortable rooms. But Mrs. Siddleton told them the Saviour of sinners, when on earth, had not where to lay His head; and they must allow that they were in a far more desirable condition than he "was; and that as to raiment, the same Saviour had said, "Take no thought for the body what ye shall put on." "The world," said she, "is all gone mad after fashions and expensive clothing. It is a real shame and disgrace to this Christian age, that so much extravagance is practiced by ladies and gentlemen; it makes no difference whether rich or poor, white or black. It's is only yesterday I saw a smart-looking, elegantly-dressed colored girl, swinging and tiptoeing along to church, dressed in expensive moire antique silk, of a very high and splendid color; and directly after another colored girl, with a modern summer white-fringed cape, and her companion with one of our fashionable cheap grey dusters. Thus they go -- all following Fashion, wherever she leads the way. Now it is better to appear dressed in poor clothing as a rebuke of the age in which we live -- and it is especially commendable in the poor, to feel contented with their lot, and to avoid all useless repinings at the appointments of Divine Providence!"