A few more sticks
lay by the hearth. Aunt Ri glanced at them anxiously. A poor
provision for a night in the snow. "Be ye warm, Jos?" she asked.
"Not very, mammy," he said; "but I ain't cold, nuther; an' thet's
somethin'."
It was the way in the Hyer family to make the best of things; they
had always possessed this virtue to such an extent, that they
suffered from it as from a vice. There was hardly to be found in all
Southern Tennessee a more contented, shiftless, ill-bestead family
than theirs. But there was no grumbling. Whatever went wrong,
whatever was lacking, it was "jest like aour luck," they said, and
did nothing, or next to nothing, about it. Good-natured,
affectionate, humorous people; after all, they got more comfort out
of life than many a family whose surface conditions were
incomparably better than theirs. When Jos, their oldest child and
only son, broke down, had hemorrhage after hemorrhage, and the
doctor said the only thing that could save him was to go across the
plains in a wagon to California, they said, "What good luck 'Lizy
was married last year! Now there ain't nuthin' ter hinder sellin' the
farm 'n goin' right off.
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