Read "Not One too Many" by Charlotte Maria Tucker online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"NO, neighbour, you've not one too many," observed Bridget Macbride, as she stood in the doorway of the cottage of Janet Maclean, knitting coarse gray socks as fast as her fingers could go.
"It's easy enough for you to say so," replied Janet, who was engaged in ironing out a shirt, and who seemed to be too busy even to look up as she spoke-"it's easy enough for you to say so, Bridget Macbride. You've never had but three bairns [children] in your life, and your husband, he gets good wages. You'd sing to a different tune, I take it, if you'd nine bairns, as I ha'e, the oldest not twelve years old-nine to feed, to clothe, and to house, and to toil and moil for, and your goodman getting but seven shillings a-week, though he's after the sheep from morning till night! " Mrs. Maclean had been getting quite red in the face as she spoke, but that might have been from stooping over her ironing work.