John could not resign himself to being a mere burden on the home.
Enforced idleness so fretted him that at times he seemed all but out
of his wits. In despair he caught at the strangest kinds of casual
occupation; when earning nothing, he would barely eat enough to keep
himself alive, and if he succeeded in bringing home a shilling or
two, he turned the money about in his hands with a sort of angry joy
that it would have made your heart ache to witness. Just at present
he had a job of cleaning and whitewashing some cellars in Stoke
Newington.
He was absent from the kitchen for five minutes, during which time
the three sat round the table. Amy pretended to eat unconcernedly;
Tom made grimaces at her. As for Annie, she cried. Their father
entered the room again.
'Why didn't you tell us about this at once?' he asked, in a shaking
voice, looking at his daughter with eyes of blank misery.
'I don't know.'
'You're a bad, selfish girl!' he broke out, again overcome with
anger. 'Haven't you got neither sense nor feelin' nor honesty? Just
when you ought to have begun to earn a bit higher wages--when you
ought to have been glad to work your hardest, to show you wasn't
unthankful to them as has done so much for you! Who earned money to
keep you when you was goin' to school? Who fed and clothed you, and
saw as you didn't want for nothing? Who is it as you owe everything
to?--just tell me that.
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