The House by the Medlar-Tree by Giovanni Verga

Padron 'Ntoni, now that he had no one but Alessio to help him with the boat, had to hire some one by the day -- Cousin Nunzio, perhaps, who had a sick wife and a large family of children; or the son of La Locca, who came whining to him behind the door that his mother was starving, and that his uncle Crucifix would give them nothing, because, he said, the cholera had ruined him, so many of his debtors had died and had cheated him out of his money, and he had taken the cholera himself. "But he hadn't died," added the son of La Locca, and shook his head ruefully. "Now we might have plenty to live on, I and my mother and all the family, if he had died. We stayed two days with Vespa, nursing him, and it seemed as if he were dying every minute, but he didn't die after all."

However, the money that the Malavoglia gained day by day was often not enough to pay Cousin Nunzio or the son of La Locca, and they were obliged to take up those precious coins so painfully put together to buy back the house by the medlar-tree. Every time Mena went to take the stocking from under the mattress she and her grandfather sighed. La Locca's son was not to blame, poor fellow -- he would have done four men's work sooner than not give the full worth of his wages -- it was the fish, that would not let themselves be caught. And when they came ruefully home empty, rowing, with loosened sails, he said to Padron 'Ntoni: "Give me wood to split, or fagots to bind; I will work until midnight, if you say so, as I did with my uncle. I don't want to steal the wages from you."