His wife, thanks and perhaps blame to the wifely sense of dependence upon her husband, had fallen back upon him entirely after what he had said about his intention as to the future of the family, and she not only accepted his assurances as bearing upon the material requirements of several mouths from day to day, but she also built some air-castles which he was under the unpleasant necessity of knocking down.

The poor woman was not to blame.

She never had seen a ten-dollar bill since the day of her marriage, when, in a spasm of drunken enthusiasm, her husband gave a ten-dollar Treasury note to the clergyman who officiated on that joyous occasion.
One evening Sam took his small change from his pocket to give his son Tom money enough to buy a half-bushel of corn-meal in the village.

As he held a few pieces of silver in one hand, touching them rapidly with the forefinger of the other, his son Tom exclaimed,-- "You're just overloaded with money, old man! Say, gi' me a quarter to go to the ball game with?
I'm in trainin', kind o' like, an' I ain't afeard to say that mebbe I'll turn out a first-class pitcher one of these days." "Tom," said his father, trying to straighten his feeble frame, as his eyes brightened a little, "I wish I could: I'd like you to go into anything that makes muscle.

But I can't afford it.