extortionate; this yielded the boys about four dollars a month, which with the money they earned at their different employments enabled them to buy themselves two good suits of clothes, pay their parents for their board, and put a few dollars in the savings fund. But I ought to go on with the other gardens.
Next to the three boys came David Conolly—he looked so much better in health that Mr. Price did not recollect him—he produced his account; he had cleared fifty dollars. "Well done, David," said Mr. Price, "who could have believed this?—what! fifty dollars, and such good looks! I must shake hands with you—and your wife, which is she? let me wish her joy too."
Poor Mrs. Conolly stepped forward with her handkerchief to her eyes, and shook hands with Mr. Price, but her heart was too full to speak, though Bonny Betty punched her in the side several times and whispered to her to hold up a bit.
David Conolly, so long despised as a drunken vagabond, had undergone something of a change in his feelings too. He knew that, but for the assistance of his good son, his garden would have been overrun with weeds; and that, so often was he drunk, in the early part of the summer, when every thing required so much care and attention, that if Patrick had not turned in and helped, he would not have held up his head this day. All this came full to his mind; and he was not slow in giving his son this praise. Perhaps this was the most gratifying thing to Mr. Price that had occurred. Here, by the little he had done, was a poor creature restored to a moral sensibility, which had become almost extinct in his bosom. Here, through his means, was a husband and a father restored to the respect of his wife and child. "I am satisfied," said Mr. Price, inwardly, "and I humbly thank
