After six or eight weeks, the children were pretty well restored
to orderly habits; and the wife, being really a notable and prudent
woman, resolved to make up for her lost butter and vegetables, by
doing without help through the winter. When summer came, they should
have boarders, she said; and sure enough, they had boarders in plenty;
but not profitable ones. There were forty cousins, at whose houses
they had stopped; and twenty people who had been very polite to them
on the way; and it being such a pleasant season, and _travelling so
cheap_, everyone of these people felt they had _a right_ to take
a journey; and they could not help passing a day or two with their
friends at the farm. One after another came, till the farmer could
bear it no longer. 'I tell you what, wife,' said he, 'I am going to
jail as fast as a man can go. If there is no other way of putting
a stop to this, I'll sell every bed in the house, except the one we
sleep on.'
And sure enough, he actually did this; and when the forty-first cousin
came down on a friendly visit, on account of what her other cousins
had told her about the cheapness of travelling, she was told
they should be very happy to sleep on the floor, for the sake of
accommodating her, for a night or two; but the truth was, they had but
one bed in the house.
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