known what was good for them, and I am sure it is good for me; I am
stronger and healthier altogether, now that I have a day of rest; the
horses are fresh too, and do not wear up nearly so fast. The six-day
drivers all tell me the same, and I have laid by more money in the
savings bank than ever I did before; and as for the wife and children,
sir, why, heart alive! they would not go back to the seven days for all
they could see.
Oh, very well, said the gentleman. Don't trouble yourself, Mr.
Barker, any further. I will inquire somewhere else, and he walked away.
Well, says Jerry to me, we can't help it, Jack, old boy; we must have
our Sundays.
Polly! he shouted, Polly! come here.
She was there in a minute.
What is it all about, Jerry?
Why, my dear, Mr. Briggs wants me to take Mrs. Briggs to church every
Sunday morning. I say I have only a six-days' license. He says, 'Get a
seven-days' license, and I'll make it worth your while;' and you know,
Polly, they are very good customers to us. Mrs. Briggs often goes out
shopping for hours, or making calls, and then she pays down fair and
honorable like a lady; there's no beating down or making three hours
into two hours and a half, as some folks do; and it is easy work for
the horses; not like tearing along to catch trains for people that are
always a quarter of an hour too late; and if I don't oblige her in this
matter it is very likely we shall lose them altogether. What do you say,
little woman?
I say, Jerry, says she, speaking very slowly, I say, if Mrs. Briggs
would give you a sovereign every Sunday morning, I would not have you a
seven-days' cabman again. We have known what it was to have no Sundays,
and now we know what it is to call them our own. Thank God, you earn
enough to keep us, though it is sometimes close work to pay for all the
oats and hay, the license, and the rent besides; but Harry will soon be
earning something, and I would rather struggle on harder than we do than
go back to those horrid times when you hardly had a minute to look at
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