Page:History of Charles Jones, the footman (1).pdf/4

, that hindered her from her prayers. At six in thothe [sic] morning and eight in the evening, as regularly as ever the hour came, she always knelt down with her children round her, four of us, and read with great solemnity and devotion a short form given her by the clergyman, which concluded with thothe [sic] Lord's prayer, in which we all joined. And she used to say after she had finished. 'Now I can go to bed or to work, in peace; for now we may hopohope [sic] God will protect us.' I am sorry to say my father seldom joined with us. He used to pretend he was busy or tired; and yet it would not have detained him long neither, for we were never more than six minutes about it, and surely twelvotwelve [sic] minutes a day (six in the morning and six in the evening) is no great time to give to God. One thing often struck me, that if any thing went wrong and ruffled my dear mother's temper, or made her uneasy, the prayer seemed to set it all to rights. When she had been to prayers, all her grief seemed to be fled away. And indeed I observed the same thing with respect to my father; if he ever did join with us, it always seemed somehow to compose and sweotensweeten [sic] his mind, and make him a great deal kinder to my mother and us.

As my father and mother were very industrious themselves, they were very desirous to make their children so; every child was employed as soon as he was able, in something or other. At about thirteen years of age my employment had been for some time to weed in the parson's garden, and run errands for him. At fourteen he took me into his house, and not a little proud was I at obtaining the title of his 'little footman.' The morning I left my father's cottage, my dear mother, who was as kind as she was good, appeared to be very much