Heroism In Humble Life Or The Story Of Ben Pritchard And Charlie Campion

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. WAITING FOR CHARLIE. If the help that Willie and Hugh gave was small, it was yet more than had ever been expected. They counted for little while Charlie remained. Her second son had always been the widow's favourite; and she was glad to be able to do better for him than she had been able to do for her eldest. She resolved to strain every nerve to get the boy a trade; and, much to her credit, she succeeded in doing so. Several circumstances helped her. Just when the question had to be decided, What was to be done with Charlie ? Mrs. Campion obtained charge of the block of offices in which she had since lived. There was no longer anything to pay for rent or coals or gas; and a certain, though small, money payment coming in weekly gave the poor woman a feeling of confidence and rest such as she had not known since her husband's death. By this time, too, poor patient little Willie had begun to bring something in. Thus Mrs. Campion was enabled to leave Charlie six months longer at school, and finally, to accept for him the offer, made long before for Willie by the building firm in whose employ Campion had been killed, that they would take the widow's son as an apprentice on favourable terms. Thus things went well for Charlie, however hard others had had to work that his way might be made smooth. He took it all quite easily and gbod- humouredly, and really believed that he would have done as much for mother and brother as they had done for him. Always merry, and generally whistling, he faced every domestic difficulty with the genial question, What's the odds, so long as we are happy ? never staying to inquire whether any one in the household was particularly happy except himself. He thought indeed that it was rather selfish of Willie to go off and get married whil...