Such was Philip's father, and when he died of some trouble of the
heart, there was nothing for his widow to do but continue the
business. She did this with more success than the doctor had had,
though many a time it smote her heart to sell some book of those that
her husband had loved, and to the backs of which she had become
attached for his sake and through years of acquaintance. But the
necessities of her little boy and herself cried out, and so did the
debt her husband had accumulated as tangible result of his business
career. By providing books of a less scholarly, more popular
character, such as novels, sermons, plays, comic ballads, religious
poems, and the like; as well as by working with her needle, and
sometimes copying legal and other documents, Mrs. Winwood managed to
keep the kettle boiling. And in the bookselling and the copying, she
soon came to have the aid of Philip.
The boy, too, loved books passionately, finding in them consolation
for the deprivations incidental to his poverty. But, being keenly
sympathetic, he had a better sense of his mother's necessities than
his father had shown, and to the amelioration of her condition and his
own, he sacrificed his love of books so far as to be, when occasion
offered, an uncomplaining seller of those he liked, and a dealer in
those he did not like. His tastes were, however, broader than his
father's, and he joyfully lost himself in the novels and plays his
father would have disdained.
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