England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Short stories, English
George Chandler had emigrated to Canada. Which rather gave his mother
a turn. Some people they knew had gone out there, purchased land, and
were doing well on it; and George resolved to follow them. George had
been placed with a good farmer in Gloucestershire and learnt farming
thoroughly. That accomplished, he began to talk to his mother about
his prospects. What he would have liked was, to take a farm on his own
account. But he had no money to stock it, and his mother had none to
give him. Her income, including the hundred and fifty paid to her from
the business, was about four hundred pounds, all told: home living
and her sons' expenses had taken it all, leaving no surplus. "There's
nothing for me but going to Canada, mother," said George: "I don't see
any opening for me in England. I shall be sure to get on, over there. I
am healthy and steady and industrious; and those are the qualities that
make way in a new country. If the worst comes to the worst, and I do not
succeed, I can but come back again." His arguments prevailed at length,
and he sailed for Canada, their friends over there promising to receive
and help him.
All this while Jacob Chandler had flourished. His practice had gradually
increased, and he had become a great man. Great in show and expense. It
was not his fault; it was that of his family: of his own will, he would
never have put a foot forward out of his plain old groove. Mrs. Jacob
Chandler, empty-headed, vain, and pretty, had but two thoughts in the
world: the one to make her way amidst fashionable people, the other to
marry her daughters well. Originally a small tradesman's daughter in
Birmingham, she was now ridiculously upstart, and put on more airs and
graces in an hour than a lady born and bred would in a lifetime. Mrs.
Jacob Chandler's people had sold brushes and brooms, soaps and pickles:
she had occasionally stood behind the counter and served out the soap
with her own hands; and Mrs. Jacob now looked down upon Birmingham
itself and every one in it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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