Read "The Battle of Life" by Charlotte Maria Tucker online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"WHAT an odd view mother takes of life! " thought John, as he went whistling along the road towards the house of Justice Burns, to whom his uncle had been butler, and in whose hands he had left his savings. "Mother always seems to feel as if she were on a journey, with her staff in her hand, and her bundle on her back, though she has bided these thirty years in that little cottage where I was born. She's always a-thinking of getting on to another world, and perhaps since father has gone there that's natural enough, for he was the light of her eyes. But I take it this world is a very good world, and I'm in no hurry to leave it. I mean to settle down and thrive in that little public-house which is to be let at such a bargain, drive a good business, make plenty of money, and then ask little Dinah to come and share my home. A lucky legacy that of my uncle's, and come at a lucky time. Mother may say what she likes, there's nothing better in life than a little hard cash-except a great deal of it! " And John Carey laughed gaily to himself as he pulled the bell at the Justice's door.
"What do you want here? " asked the liveried servant who answered the bell.