The
family were very poor. Mrs. Martin could sew, and she could have
sustained her family if she had had a machine. But fingers are not worth
much against iron wheels. And so, while others had machines, Mrs. Martin
could not make much without one. She had been obliged to ask help from
the overseer of the poor.
Mr. Lampeer, the overseer, was a hard man. He had not skill enough to
detect impostors, and so he had come to believe that everybody who was
poor was rascally. He had but one eye, and he turned his head round in a
curious way to look at you out of it. That dreadful one eye always seemed
to be going to shoot. His voice had not a chord of tenderness in it, but
was in every way harsh and hard. It was said that he had been a
school-master once. I pity the scholars.
Widow Martin lived--if you could call it living--in a tumble-down-looking
house, that would not have stood many earthquakes. She had tried
diligently to support her family and keep them together; but the wolf
stood always at the door. Sewing by hand did not bring in quite money
enough to buy bread and clothes for four well children, and pay the
expenses of poor little Harry's sickness; for all through the summer and
fall Harry had been sick.
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