Quotation from: The People of the Abyss

Written by: Jack London


They grew more cheerful as the hot "tea" soaked in, and talked more about
themselves. The Carter had buried his wife and children, with the
exception of one son, who grew to manhood and helped him in his little
business. Then the thing happened. The son, a man of thirty-one, died
of the smallpox. No sooner was this over than the father came down with
fever and went to the hospital for three months. Then he was done for.
He came out weak, debilitated, no strong young son to stand by him, his
little business gone glimmering, and not a farthing. The thing had
happened, and the game was up. No chance for an old man to start again.
Friends all poor and unable to help. He had tried for work when they
were putting up the stands for the first Coronation parade. "An' I got
fair sick of the answer: 'No! no! no!' It rang in my ears at night when
I tried to sleep, always the same, 'No! no! no!'" Only the past week he
had answered an advertisement in Hackney, and on giving his age was told,
"Oh, too old, too old by far."

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Old Dominion University CS Dept
Designed by Joan A. Smith for the CRATE project
Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z
Part of the CratePreservation Project
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Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.