The next night at supper Big Jim was very silent. When he had eaten his slice of cake he said in his slow way, "No more cake for a while, I guess, Mama."
Mrs. Manning looked up in her nervous, startled manner.
"Well, I went with my usual kick to the boss about the derrick and he told me to take it or leave it. That work was slacking up so he'd decided on a ten per cent. cut in wages. I don't know but what I'd better quit and look for something else."
"Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Mrs. Manning. She had been through many, many periods of job hunting since her marriage. "Keep your job, Jim. Next week is September and winter will be here before we know it. We'll manage somehow."
"I'll not go to school," cried Little Jim. "I'll get a job. Please, Dad, let me!"
"You'll stay in school," replied Big Jim in his best stone chisel drawl, "as long as I have strength to work. And if I can send you through college, you'll go. Don't you ever think of anything, Jimmy, but that you are to have a thorough education? If anything happens to me you are to get an education if you have to sweep the streets to do it. That's the New England idea. Educate the children at whatever cost. I had a high school education and you'll have a college course if I live. And if I don't live, get it for yourself. I'll have another cup of tea, please, Mama."
"Well, it makes me sick!" exclaimed Little Jim with one of his rare outbursts of feeling, "to have you and mama working so hard and me do nothing but feed the chickens and chop wood. I'll give up the _Youth's Companion_, anyhow."
Mrs. Manning looked horrified. The _Companion_ was as much a family institution as the dictionary. "How do you think you are going to be really educated, Jimmy, unless you read good things? Your father and I were brought up on the _Companion_ and you'll keep right on with it. I'll get cheaper coffee, Papa, and we can give up cream. Ten per cent. That will make a difference of twenty cents a day. I'll turn my winter suit."
"I'll give up tobacco for a while," said Big Jim. "I was thinking about it, anyhow. It's got so it bites my tongue. I don't need any new winter things, but Jimmy's got to look decent. My father would turn over in his grave if he thought I couldn't keep the last Manning dressed decent. Maybe we ought to give up this cottage, Mama. The Higgins cottage is pretty good but it hasn't got any bathroom."