When she reached her dwelling--and who needs a description of a drunkard’s dwelling?--her mother met her at the door, and hastily snatching the jug from her hand, drank off its burning contents. She then took the meal to prepare breakfast, and Mary was sent to gather some sticks to kindle the flame. The dough was then placed before the smoky, scanty fire, and the impatient children hovered round to watch its progress. Long, however, before it was sufficiently baked, they snatched it piece by piece away, till nothing but the empty tin remained. The little boys, with their hunger scarcely satisfied, then left the house, to loiter, as usual, in the streets, while Mary, as she saw her mother become every moment more incapable of attending to the wants of her infant, took the poor little creature in her arms, and in trying to soothe its sufferings half forgot her own. She had just succeeded in lulling the baby, when her father entered. He had been in the meadow, picking the cranberries which had been preserved during the winter under the snow, and which could now be sold for a few cents a quart. Though once a strong and active man, so degraded had he become, that few persons were willing to employ him, and he resorted to picking cranberries as the only means left him of obtaining what his appetite so imperiously demanded. On entering the room, and seeing the state his wife was in, he uttered a loud curse, and at the same time bade Mary leave the crying child and put on her bonnet, and hasten to the village to sell the cranberries, and call at the Yellow Shop on her return. Mary put on her bonnet, and with a trembling heart commenced her walk. On her way, she met her brothers, and stopped to tell them that, as their father was then at home, they had better keep away from the house till her return. She then called from door to door; but at every place her timid inquiry, “Do you want any cranberries here?” met the same chilling answer, “No.” At length, wearied out, and fearful that she could not dispose of them at all, she sat down by the road-side and wept bitterly. But the sun had long past his meridian, and was gradually lowering in the western sky. She _must_ go home, and what would her father say if she returned with the cranberries unsold? This she could not do; and she determined to try to exchange them at the shop for the spirit her father wanted. After waiting some time at the counter, till the wants of several wretched beings were supplied, she told her errand, and after much hesitation on the part of the shop-keeper, and much entreaty on her own, the cranberries were exchanged for rum. Mary then rapidly retraced her steps homeward, and with a beating heart entered the cottage.