THE STRAWBERRY GARDEN: 



A VERY PRACTICAL STORY. 

 CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCES THE PEOPLE AND THEIR WOES. 



MR. JOHN WELLSON, wife, and three children, Mary, 

 aged seventeen, Kate, fourteen, and John Junior, or 

 Johnny, twelve, or thereabouts. These for people. Nu- 

 merous wants, and the lack of funds to supply them, for an 

 argument. Details directly. 



Time, evening, June 19, 186 . Scene, the Wellson 

 parlor. The whole family met in solemn council. Mr. 

 Wellsoji, head-master in a public school in the neighbor- 

 ing city, occupies the great arm-chair, and for the moment 

 is lost in gloomy meditations. 



Mrs. Wellson, familiarly known as ''mother," a bright 

 and cheery body, with a kind word and ready smile for all, 

 sits in her low rocking-chair quietly mending a stocking, 

 and thinking, thinking, and thinking to no purpose. 

 It is a trying subject they have under consideration, and 

 even her sharp wits cannot penetrate it. 



Mary, the eldest daughter, loveliness, common sense, and 



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