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.
WHILE his mother was putting on her bonnet before setting out on her errand, John Carey had finished the slender meal which appeared to leave him more hungry than before. He had watched the widow as she had taken his father's staff from the corner to stay her feeble steps, and it had then struck John, for the first time, how much his mother had aged since his illness, how pale and weary she looked.
"Stay, dear mother," John had cried, with a feeling of self-reproach; "you look so tired, I can't bear to see it. Wait, and we'll find some one else to send."