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Title: New Lights on Old Paths
Author: Foster, Charles
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "New Lights on Old Paths" ***
NEW LIGHTS
ON
OLD PATHS
[Illustration]
BY CHARLES FOSTER,
AUTHOR OF THE “STORY OF THE BIBLE,” Etc.
350 ILLUSTRATIONS.
PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF
_CHARLES FOSTER’S PUBLICATIONS_,
No. 118 SOUTH SEVENTH STREET,
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
Copyright, 1885,
By CHARLES FOSTER.
ELECTROTYPED BY WESTCOTT & THOMSON, PHILADELPHIA.
[Illustration]
PREFACE
THE author is expected to say something by way of introducing, or
apologizing for, his book. What is its object? Why did he write it,
when there are already so many more than are wanted? In reply to these
questions he would say (what is evident, indeed, without saying) that
nobody adds another to the long list who does not believe that—on _his_
subject, at least—there is room for one book more. And he proves the
sincerity of his belief by making the venture.
The writer of this volume does not claim to present in it a single
new truth. In the sphere of morals, of which it treats, he believes
there is no such thing. It is not new truths that we need, but the
application of old ones to our daily life and practice. Any device that
may assist in securing so desirable a result is of value; in the hope
that these Fables may not be wholly useless to this end he hazards
their publication. As their title indicates, they will be found to vary
widely in subject and mode of treatment.
One word about the illustrations: these all, without exception,
were drawn for the book. Much time, labor, and expense have been
bestowed upon the effort to make them appropriate and entertaining.
The illustrations of a story may be compared to the music of a song.
We can bear with some defect in the verse if the music awakens the
sentiment the verse was intended to express. So the author hopes that
the excellence and originality of many of these designs will in some
measure make amends for whatever deficiencies the reader may discover
in the text.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CONTENTS]
Page
The·Innkeeper. 13
The·Brook·and·the·Waterwheel. 37
The·Court-House·Steeple. 41
Crooked·Horn·and·Old·Brindle. 46
The·Millers·Tenth. 51
The·Lark·and·the·Whippoorwill. 69
The·Gate·and·Gate·Post. 73
The·Weedy·Farm. 78
The·King·Seeking·Content. 84
The·Learned·Owl. 94
The·Horse·and·the·Grasshoppers. 98
The·Bark·and·the·Lightship. 101
The·Unhonored·Servant. 104
Wings. 107
Standpoints. 111
The·Man·with·a·Menagerie. 117
Two·Outlooks. 121
Job·Nickel. 125
The·Unused·Loom. 133
Crowing. 137
Peter·Crisp’s·Spectacles. 140
The·Two·Apple·Trees. 182
The·Spring·in·the·Woods. 186
The·Distant·View. 189
The·Two·Vines. 195
The·Old·Chestnut·and·the·Young·Oak. 199
Corn-cribs. 202
The·Old·Clock·in·the·New·Home. 209
The·Great·Secret. 213
The·House-Builder. 216
Pigeons. 223
The·Clock·on·the·Desk. 225
The·Watch-Dog. 228
The·Opened·Eyes. 231
The·Lantern·People. 235
Grand·Relations. 253
Fair·and·Foul·Weather. 255
Wreckage. 258
The·Robin. 261
Riddles. 265
The·Emigrants·Wagon. 268
Big·and·Little·Lanterns. 273
The·Cat·and·the·Tiger. 278
Charity. 281
The·Day-Laborers. 286
The·Artist’s·Answer. 291
The·Hemlock·and·the·Sugar-Maple. 294
Bread·and·the·Beautiful. 297
The·Harper. 301
The·Unappreciated·Gift. 305
The·Worn-Out·Team. 310
The·Wise·Farmer. 314
Wayfarers. 319
Other·Birds·Feathers. 323
The·Night-Watchman. 326
Single·and·Double. 332
The·Boastful·Fly. 335
The·Mended·Boots. 339
The·Cripple·and·his·Staff. 344
The·Search. 360
The·Swallows·and·the·Windmill. 365
The·Medicine-Man. 370
The·Eagle·and·the·Wren. 374
The·Two·Saplings. 378
The·Cog-Wheel. 382
The·Plough·and·the·Mowing-Machine. 386
Fat·and·Lean. 389
Half·Empty·and·Quite·Full. 392
The·Snake. 395
Rich·&·Poor. 398
The·Hawk·and·the·Chicken. 402
The·Servants·Money. 405
Future·Greatness. 411
The·Old·Mans·Watch. 415
The·Teacher. 418
Cloud·Shadows. 426
The·Penitent·Transgressor. 428
The·Dry·Well. 432
The·Fruit·Tree. 435
The·Deer. 438
Homely·and·Handsome. 442
The·Colt·and·Old·Gray. 446
The·King’s·Almoner. 453
Pansies. 457
The·Birds·and·the·Bells. 459
Jack·and·Jenny. 465
The·Meeting·of·the·Winds. 476
[Illustration]
THE INNKEEPER.
THERE was once a man who kept an inn on a country road. Just back of
his house stretched a dark forest in which a number of bad men lived.
Some of these men were great fighters, some were robbers, some had even
murdered people. And they were all in the habit of coming to the inn.
They were very glad to have some place where they could meet together
and talk over the wicked things they had done, and lay plans for more
that they wanted to do.
[Illustration]
In that same country, but farther off, there was a rich plain which was
covered with beautiful farms. The people who lived on these farms were
very different from those who lived in the forest. They were honest and
industrious; they had ministers and schoolmasters living among them;
on every weekday they might be seen working in their fields, and on
every Sunday going to their churches. And they too used to stop at the
inn as they went to the city to sell the butter, and eggs, and poultry,
they had raised, and to buy the tea, and coffee, and clothing, and
other things, that they needed.
It happened, one day when these good men stopped at the inn, that the
bad men out of the forest were there. Then the good men went to the
landlord, and said:
[Illustration]
“Give us a room away from these men where we cannot hear their evil
talk.”
So the landlord put them in his parlor on the opposite side of the
house; but though the doors were shut tight, the noise came through,
and was so loud that the men in the parlor could hardly hear themselves
speak. Then they said to one another:
“What shall we do to get beyond the reach of these horrid sounds?
Truly, we can do nothing else but leave the place.”
So they went out and harnessed up their horses and drove off.
The next time they stopped at the inn the bad men were there again.
Then the farm-people called the landlord, and said to him:
[Illustration]
“We want to stay and take dinner here. Bring us therefore to a room
much farther away from these men than the parlor where you put us
before.”
So the landlord took them up stairs into the best room on his second
floor, and gave them the key of the door, that they might lock
themselves in and stay as long as they wanted. But the bad men had seen
them going up, and presently they seized the great clubs that they
always carried, and hurried up after them.
“Let us in!” they cried.
[Illustration]
But without waiting for any answer they broke down the door and rushed
at the men who were sitting around the table, until they had to run for
their lives.
That night, after everybody had gone to bed and the landlord had locked
up the inn, as he sat alone by the fire, he said to himself:
“I must do one thing or the other. I must turn away either the good
men or the bad men, for it is plain they cannot both come to my house.
Which shall it be?”
After thinking a while longer he said:
“I admit that the people from the forest buy a good deal more out of my
bar-room—wine, brandy, and whiskey—but then they get drunk and break my
furniture, and often refuse to pay for what they have had; so that, in
truth, I do not make any great profit out of them, after all—not near
enough to make up for the bad example they set my children and the bad
name they give my house. But the people from the farms, though they do
not buy any brandy, or whiskey, buy a good deal more of bread and meat,
and they always pay for what they get. By the end of the year I am sure
that I make more out of them than I do out of the others. Then they
are kind to my family, and they make my house respectable and give it
a good name. I am resolved what to do, and which to turn away. These
shall stay, and the others shall go; and to-morrow I will tell them.”
So, after making up his mind, he went to bed and slept all night.
[Illustration: INN
OUT OF THE HEART ARE THE ISSUES OF LIFE]
Early the next morning he opened his house. As soon as the door was
unlocked in came the men from the forest, and they kept on coming till
the bar-room was full. Then, while they were making a great noise,
talking very loud, and calling for drink, the landlord rapped on the
top of the bar and cried:
“Silence, and listen to me! You men have been coming here and doing as
you pleased, until you seem to think the house belongs to you, and that
you can turn people out of it whenever you like. But I am the one who
has to pay the rent, and I think it is for me to say who shall come and
who shall go. And now I say that I want you to go and never come back.”
[Illustration]
As soon as the landlord had spoken in this firm way the men out of the
forest—who, in spite of their boasting, were great cowards—began to
steal off one by one, until they were all gone; at which the landlord
was glad, for he thought he had gotten rid of them altogether. But in
this he was mistaken, for in a few days they were back again, standing
about the doors and watching for a chance to get in.
To keep them out the landlord shut up all but the front door, and
tried to keep his eye on that. But so impudent had the men grown that
they began to climb into the windows when no one was looking. Then the
landlord sent for the blacksmith and had iron bars put across every
window. But after he had done this the men even got up on the roof in
some way, and came down the chimney like so many sweeps; at which the
landlord told his hired man to build a hot fire, and to keep it blazing
no matter how much wood it burned.
[Illustration]
But it was not possible to close every door, and window, and chimney,
and keep them always shut. There was the side door, that opened into
the flower-garden, where sometimes persons wanted to walk; and there
was the back door, out of which the cook must go to the woodpile many
times every day. Some of the windows opened on beautiful prospects,
where the boarders liked to sit and look out. So that, do what he
would, the landlord often found places left open.
[Illustration]
And, beside this, the men out of the forest had lately changed their
plan. They came now dressed up like the farm-people, and sometimes the
landlord could hardly tell one from the other. In short, they were
too clever for him; and so, in spite of all he could do, they got in,
and every day he would meet some of them sneaking about the house, or
hidden in some closet or corner, or under a bed.
[Illustration]
While things were in this sad state he was sitting one night before
the fire by himself, just as he sat on the night that he made up
his mind to order the bad men out of his house. But how differently
he felt now from what he felt then! Then he thought he could have
everything his own way, but now he had done his utmost, and, instead of
getting better, things were getting worse and worse. He was very much
discouraged and low-spirited.
Then he began to think of some of the wrong things that he had done
himself. He had been too friendly with these bad men, and not as kind
as he should have been to some good men that he knew. Especially he
remembered how unkindly he had treated one good man. It happened in
this way.
When he first came to the inn, after renting it, he found a watchman
there. The owner of the inn had sent him to watch it, and keep it safe.
When the landlord came, this watchman did not go away, but stayed on.
The owner had told him to stay and watch the house; for, although the
owner had rented it, the house still belonged to him.
So the watchman stayed and tried to make himself useful to the
landlord. But the landlord paid no attention to him; in truth, he often
treated him rudely, until one day, when the watchman was warning him
against these very men out of the forest, the landlord told him he
could take care of his house himself, and that he did not want his help
any further.
Since that time the poor man had been staying about the inn wherever he
could find a place. Sometimes he slept down in the cellar, sometimes
out in the wood-house; and when he got anything to eat, it was always
after the servants were done, and only such food as was left from their
table. And now the landlord remembered all this. While he sat thinking
about it before the fire, there was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” said the landlord; and the door opened, and in walked this
same watchman. He did not say a word, but stood still, looking right at
the landlord.
“Watchman,” said the landlord, “I have treated you very unkindly, and I
am sorry for it. Are you willing to forgive me and be watchman again?”
“I am,” said the watchman, “if you will promise to pay attention when I
warn you of danger.”
“I promise,” said the landlord; “I will do anything to get out of the
trouble I am in.”
“Very well, then,” replied the watchman; “it is a bargain between us.
But now go to bed and get some rest, for you need it.”
So the landlord went to bed, and because his worry of mind had worn him
down a good deal he soon fell asleep.
Early the next morning, before any one else was awake, the watchman was
up and at work. The first thing he did was to build up the little room,
or watch-box, that used to stand in front of the house. It was placed
there on purpose for him when the house was first built, but because it
had not been taken care of it had long since tumbled down. But now the
watchman built it up again, setting in windows all around it, so that
as he stood there, he could look out on every side. As soon as he had
built up his watch-box he fixed the cord, or bell-rope, that reached
from there into the landlord’s chamber.
[Illustration]
And no sooner was this done than, seeing one of the forest-people
coming toward the house, he pulled the cord and rang the bell. At this
the landlord awoke. He knew what it meant. He did not need any one to
tell him, for he used to hear that bell long ago, although he then paid
no attention to it. But now he jumped up and dressed quickly, and ran
to the door just in time to shut out one of the very worst of the men
from the forest.
After that the bell went on ringing every day, and the landlord was
kept busy shutting doors and windows. It must be confessed that he got
tired of hearing it sometimes; but he was so much happier, he ate so
much better and slept so much sounder than he did before, that, even
when it put him to a good deal of trouble, he was always careful to
obey the bell.
[Illustration]
All this time the good farm-people were made welcome at the inn. The
door was always wide open to them, and the best of food was put on
their table. As they never went into the bar-room to buy anything to
drink, and as they disliked very much to see drunkards about, the
landlord concluded to take away his bar and make the inn a temperance
house. Being pleased at this, the farm-people came oftener and stayed
longer than ever before, until the landlord found himself growing rich
on the money they paid him. Then he painted his house inside and out,
and added some new rooms to it, and made it more comfortable every
year.
When the forest-people found that the watchman was always looking out
for them, and that the landlord always paid attention to his bell—and
when they saw, too, that the company in the house was such as would
make them feel ashamed, even if they should get in there—they did not
try to get in as often as they used, and so the bell did not ring
nearly so often. Then the landlord had time to walk in his garden and
to sit down in the shade of his favorite tree, which he had not been
able to do for long years before.
And so things went on from year to year. The landlord never ceased
to mind the bell, and gradually, as he grew older, it rang more and
more seldom, until, during his last sickness, while he was shut up in
his chamber, growing weaker and weaker every day, it stopped ringing
altogether. And this was not because the watchman (whose name was
Conscience) was unwilling to disturb him, but because the forest-people
(that is, wicked thoughts and bad desires) did not trouble him any
further.
[Illustration]
So the old man lay in peace and quietness until he died. Then his son
took the inn and carried it on. It is true that the men out of the
forest knew as soon as the old man was dead, and thinking that now,
as there was a new master, they might perhaps be able to get in,
they came and tried again and again. And the son had to fight his own
battles with them like his father. But he kept the watchman in his
house, and minded the bell; and in the end he gained the victory, as
his father had done before him.
[Illustration: LET NOTHING EVIL ENTER
TRUST
WATCH]
[Illustration]
THE BROOK AND THE WATER-WHEEL.
THE water-wheel in a grist-mill went round and round, by day and by
night, without stopping. Said the brook one day, as it passed over the
wheel:
“Are you not tired of being always at work, and of doing the same thing
to-day that you did yesterday? When I have done my work in making you
turn, I glide on and take my pleasure in flowing through the fields and
the woods.”
“But my pleasure,” replied the wheel, “is in continuing to work, and go
round and round, grinding up the corn.”
“Yesterday,” continued the brook, “as I flowed through the meadow, I
heard some people who were wandering there say how beautiful I was, and
what sweet music I made as I rippled over the stones.”
“And no doubt they said what was true,” replied the wheel, “but it
could never be said of me. How would I look rolling through the meadow?
I would not be admired by others, nor would I enjoy it myself.”
“You are to be admired for your humility,” said the brook, “in being
contented with so dismal a place.”
“Not at all,” replied the wheel, “for when this place was given me, I
was given also a liking for it.”
“But do you not long for the sunlight and the breeze and a sight of the
birds and the flowers?”
[Illustration]
“No more than you do for this dim chamber under the mill. Here I was
made to dwell, and here I am satisfied to be. I greet you tumbling
in from the mountain-side over my head, and I bid you adieu as you
flow out joyously under my feet; but I do not long to follow you. The
summer’s heat does not parch me here, nor the winter’s frost stop me
from turning. Ever in this dim twilight I revolve and listen to the
sound of the grinding. I delight to hear the farmer drive his team to
the mill door loaded with grain, and afterward haul it away when I have
made it into flour for his wife and children to eat. I am content
to stay here and labor—not by constraint nor for duty’s sake alone,
but because the place accords with my nature, and therefore it is my
choice.”
* * * * *
We often err in judging the lot of others by our own feelings and
preferences, forgetting that, from differences in taste or training,
what would be pain to us may be pleasure to them.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE COURT-HOUSE STEEPLE.
THE steeple on a country court-house was built to hold a clock. But
when a year or more had passed after it was finished, and no clock
appeared, it began to complain that the promise made to it had not been
kept.
“I expected to be of some consequence in the village,” it said, “but
with these ugly round holes in my side left boarded up, I am of no
more account than if I did not exist.”
The town council, having heard of what it said, met together to talk
over the matter, when they had to admit that the complaint was just;
so an extra effort was made to raise the money needed, and, this being
successful, the clock was ordered, and in due time put in its place.
And now the steeple’s ambition was fully gratified. The clock kept good
time and was the standard for the whole village. The farmers went to
their work by it, and the children to school; the people also who drove
in from the country might be seen, as they passed the court-house,
leaning forward, with upturned faces, to get the correct hour.
Week after week passed, and month after month, and still the steeple
was gazed at by old and young a hundred times a day. But after a good
many months had rolled round, notwithstanding all this attention, it
began to be conscious of a change within itself.
[Illustration]
“It is true I have got what I asked for,” it said, “and my proudest
wishes have been fulfilled; but, after all, what have I gained by it or
how am I any better off? I am just as much exposed to the winter’s cold
and the summer’s heat, to the risk of storm and lightning and fire, as
ever. And, as for being looked at—which I once thought so much of—I’m
tired of it, and could wish myself back to what I was before, instead
of being forced to listen to the click of these wheels and the banging
of that great iron hammer by night and by day. I believe I’d rather be
the empty steeple on the church, across the street.”
At length its complainings reached the ears of one of the council, who,
though an old man, climbed up the steeple’s winding stair and listened
patiently to what it had to say. When it had finished, he answered:
“My friend, I think I can put my finger on the cause of your
discontent. You were very anxious to have the clock, you remember, but
perhaps you never recognized the reason, which was only a desire to
increase your own importance. You thought that all the watches and all
the little clocks in town would be regulated and ruled over by you.
Your motive was wholly selfish, and, as a consequence, when you got
what you wanted, it failed to satisfy.
“Now, as for taking the clock down again, that is out of the
question. It was put here for the benefit of all, and here it must
stay. Nevertheless, if you will take an old man’s advice, I think
your troubles will soon come to an end. Instead of thinking only of
yourself, your own comfort, and your own consequence, think of other
people. Remember the good you have the power to do them, and for their
sakes be willing to do it. Then you will find that the possessions
which yield no satisfaction while hoarded up only for self, impart a
real joy when shared with others in the uses of charity.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CROOKED HORN AND OLD BRINDLE.
A COW that had a crooked horn learned to open gates and let down bars
with it, and, as her master took no pains to keep her at home, she
roamed the roads unrestrained. One day, in passing a neighbor’s meadow,
she saw an old brindled cow inside hobbled by a rope and clog of wood
fastened to one leg.
“Who put that on you?” asked Crooked Horn.
“My master,” replied Brindle.
[Illustration]
“What for?”
“To keep me from jumping fences.”
“I’m glad he’s not my master. Why don’t you leave him and take to the
woods?”
“Well, he’s kind to me in other ways. He gives me a warm bed, and
plenty to eat, in the winter, and beside, I have a notion that I’ve got
myself to blame.”
“Nonsense! I’m allowed to jump all the fences I like. Whenever I see a
good dinner through the bars, over I go, no matter whom it belongs to.”
“I wish I could do so,” said Brindle.
“But you can’t,” cried Crooked Horn. “I’m on my way now into yonder
clover-field, over across the railroad.”
Saying which, she kicked up her heels and galloped away. But just as
she reached the track an express train dashed past, and old Brindle saw
the engine toss her boastful acquaintance into the air as a mad bull
tosses a dog. Another moment, and poor Crooked Horn lay in the ditch
mangled and dead.
“Oh,” cried Brindle, shuddering and looking down affectionately at the
rope and block of wood, “how glad I am now that my master hobbled me!”
* * * * *
[Illustration]
If we only knew how much worse ills our troubles save us from, we would
often welcome them, instead of trying to free ourselves from them.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE MILLER’S TENTH.
A YOUNG miller who had succeeded to his father’s business, made flour
for the people of his native village, and also for the farmers of
the country around, receiving for his pay, or toll, one-tenth of the
grain that he ground. He measured this out in a round box—called a
“toll-dish”—which contained just one-tenth of a bushel.
Among his customers was an old farmer who, having his farm all paid
for and well stocked, with some money out at interest beside, was
looked upon by his neighbors as a rich man. He used to come about once
a fortnight to the mill, bringing four or five bags of wheat to be
ground.
One day, after the old man had left, as the miller began pouring his
wheat into the hopper, the thought occurred to him that if he should
take a little more than a tenth the farmer would never miss it.
“Other millers do it,” said he, “and so might I as well. Beside, I will
make it up to him by extra care in grinding his flour.”
So, after he had taken out the tenth that he was entitled to, he filled
the toll-dish twice again and emptied the contents into a barrel of his
own wheat that stood near.
But the miller did not feel altogether satisfied with what he had done.
The thought of it disquieted him more than once. Yet he could not quite
persuade himself to put the wheat back.
“I think I’m fairly entitled to something more,” he said, “from such a
rich man.”
Then a bright thought struck him. There was in the mill some corn
that belonged to a widow. She had wheeled it there in a barrow—poor
woman!—with her own hands, and left it to be ground into meal.
“I’ll take something less than my full toll from her,” he said, “and so
will make matters square by remembering the poor.”
This seemed for a time to overcome his scruples, and, having made a
beginning, he gradually increased the extra toll that he took from
the rich farmer, but soon discontinued making any allowance on his poor
customer’s grist.
[Illustration]
But, though the miller had made a correct calculation concerning the
farmer—viz., that he would not miss what was unjustly taken from
him—he had made a wrong estimate of his own conscience. He found by
thus testing it that it was not of the sort to heal while he kept on
wounding it afresh, or to accept as true what he knew to be false. It
was rather of the kind that we find it so inconvenient to have when we
want to do wrong and still be as comfortable as if we were doing right.
The miller was in the habit of going to the village church on a Sunday,
where he sat in the pew with his wife and little children, taking
part in the service and listening to the minister’s sermon. But now,
whenever the eighth commandment was repeated, or so much as alluded to,
he grew restless and uneasy and anxious for the service to be over.
On week-days the stage-driver, as he passed the mill door, threw out
a newspaper that the miller subscribed for, and it had long been
his favorite pastime, as the great water-wheel was revolving and
the millstones were grinding, to sit among the bags of grain in his
flour-besprinkled clothes and read his paper through and through. But
of late he found himself avoiding all paragraphs headed: “DEFALCATION,”
“EMBEZZLEMENT,” “BREACH OF TRUST,” “CONSCIENCE FUND.”
[Illustration]
Now and then he stumbled on an account that was published there of some
honest debtor who as soon as he was able paid up his back debts, or of
some repentant thief who made restitution of the things he had stolen.
This was unpleasant reading to the miller.
In the village there lived a man who had done just the reverse of these
things, and in consequence bore a bad name. The miller disliked to meet
this man. Occasionally he had to go on business to the county-town, and
on his way passed the jail. Peering through the bars he often saw the
evil countenances of the prisoners.
“What are they in there for, I wonder?” he said to himself. “The truth
is I deserve to be there with them.”
And this finding of a rebuke in whatever he came across went on until
everything about him seemed to join in a dreadful chorus, accusing him
of his crime.
But at last the load on his conscience became too heavy, and he could
bear it no longer. But what should he do to get rid of it? To confess
his guilt would crush him to the earth. There was but one thing more
dreadful, and that was to go on hiding it. But was there no way of
escaping an open confession? Ah! happy thought! This would not be
necessary. The farmer was still confidingly bringing his grain every
two weeks to the mill.
[Illustration]
“I will go over my accounts,” said the miller, “and add up to the last
pound all I have ever taken from him, and this I will return gradually,
from time to time, with his flour, in quantities that will not be
noticed; so I shall pay my debt and clear my conscience without being
even suspected of wrong.”
Having made this resolve, he longed to put it in practice, and could
hardly wait for the next appearance of the farmer’s wagon. In a few
days, however, it drove up to the mill door as usual. The miller with
a glad heart (which he was careful to conceal) carried the bags it was
loaded with into the mill, and bade the farmer a cheerful “Good-bye” as
he drove away.
“Now,” he said, “I will take out of this grinding a part of my toll,
lest, if I should take none, the difference may be noticed and some
inquiry made.”
So he filled the toll-dish three times instead of six, as he was
entitled to, and ground up the rest of the wheat.
But while he was thus carrying out, in secret, his plan at the mill,
he little suspected how matters stood at the farmhouse. The farmer’s
wife, who was a more shrewd observer than himself in such things as
came directly under her charge, had noticed for some time past that
the returns from the mill seemed short in weight, and at length she
confided her suspicions to her husband.
[Illustration]
“Nonsense!” said he. “I’ve known the miller all his life, and his
father before him: his father had a conscience, and so has he.”
“Well,” replied his wife, “there’s one way of testing it that neither
you nor anybody else can object to. I weighed what we last sent him;
now we’ll weigh what he sends back to us.”
As the farmer could find no fault with this proposal, he called it a
bargain, and the next day went to the mill for the grinding. The miller
received him gladly and hastened to carry out his grist to the wagon.
As he drove homeward the farmer said to himself:
“How strange that wife should speak so about the flour! But women do
sometimes take up such queer notions. I’ll be bound, now, that she will
be waiting, when I get home, to have the bags put on the scales as soon
as they are unloaded.”
He was not wrong. As he drove through the gate around to the side porch
his wife appeared in her great white apron, hardly able to keep quiet
until the wagon was backed up, and as the bags were taken out of it
they were laid, one by one, on the scales that stood near.
[Illustration]
“How does it come out, wife?” cried the farmer as she set down the
pounds contained in the last bag.
But she kept on going over the figures again and again without
answering, at which the old man put on his spectacles and hastily
footed them up.
“Didn’t I tell you so?” he exclaimed, with a reproachful look for her
and a triumphant one for himself. “Why, instead of cheating us, he has
cheated himself! What a pity it is for a woman to be suspicious!”
“Don’t brag too soon,” said his wife, piqued at his words; “you’d
better put that off till we’ve weighed another grinding.”
The hungry mouths on the farm soon demanded a fresh supply of flour,
and before many weeks had passed another load of wheat, after being
weighed with extra care, was hauled to the mill. The miller, in the
mean time having found some relief to his conscience by the little he
had already done, was more eager than ever to carry out his plan and
remove his burden altogether.
“It is certain,” he said, “they have not noticed anything unusual in
the last grist. I might just as well hurry matters up a little. This
time I’ll take out no toll at all, and after this will begin adding
some of my own flour.”
Putting off other farmers who had brought their grain before him, the
miller ground the old man’s wheat first, out of its turn, and sent
him word it was ready. His wife, still smarting under the charge of
being unjustly suspicious, hurried him away after it, and waited his
return even more anxiously than she had for the former load. It came in
due time, and was promptly laid on the scales as the other had been.
But if she was surprised before, she was dumb with wonder now, and
her husband—who, in truth, thought there was no better woman—seeing
her embarrassment, was considerate enough to do no more than join in
expressing his astonishment at the unlooked-for result. The flour
was quietly put away in the store-room, and other matters requiring
attention about the farmhouse were looked after.
That evening, just before bedtime, as they sat together in their
old-fashioned comfortable kitchen, the farmer said to his wife:
“I’ve been thinking about that last grist. There must be something the
matter with our young miller’s scales, and you know that we don’t want
to take without paying for it what belongs to him. I mean to go over to
the mill to-morrow on purpose to look into it.”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do,” replied his wife, seriously.
“Short of weight more than once I know the grinding was, and
over-weight twice we both know it was; the thing keeps worrying my
mind, and troubling me.”
The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, the farmer harnessed
up his horses and drove to the mill. The miller, who was standing in
the door, looked surprised to see him when there was neither wheat to
bring nor flour to haul away. And not only surprised: there came a look
of apprehension over his face, for there is always a lurking fear of
evil in the heart that is conscious of hiding some wrong.
“I don’t believe you can guess what I’ve come over about,” cried the
farmer as he got down from the wagon.
The miller said nothing.
“Did you weigh the last grinding?” asked the old man.
“Yes.”
“And the one before that?”
“Yes.”
“And don’t you know they weighed too much? But perhaps you wanted to
make us a present,” he continued, good-humoredly, “or maybe, as winter
is coming on, you thought we stood in need.”
The miller’s face grew scarlet. He attempted to speak, but his voice
stuck in his throat and he could not utter a word. Perceiving at a
glance that he was in trouble, the farmer’s manner changed.
[Illustration]
“Tell me all about it,” he said. “I was your father’s friend, and am
yours.”
Then the miller took the old man into the mill, and, shutting the door,
told him, in a trembling voice, the whole sad story.
“I’ve found out,” he said, “that the wrong way is a hard way, and I’m
in that way yet, but I long to get out of it. I’d give this mill—yes,
and all that is in it—were that needful to make me feel myself once
more an honest man. I have set it all aside. Those bags over there
contain every pound I have ever taken. But I shall never know a happy
moment till I see them hauled away from here and put into your barn.”
“My dear young friend,” said the farmer, drawing his sleeve across his
eyes, “I care nothing for the flour, yet it is mine, and it is right
I should take it. Carry it out yourself and load it on the wagon, and
I’ll soon put it where you want it to be. I believe you have been
taught, by the best of teachers, such a lesson as you’ll never forget.
And be assured that after it I will never fear to trust you. Take my
word for it, too, that no one but wife—and she can keep a secret—shall
ever hear of this.”
[Illustration]
The next Sunday the miller went to church, and, whatever else he
might dread to hear about, it was not the eighth commandment. And the
following week, and for many a week afterward, he read his newspaper as
he did in former times—all through, skipping nothing, from beginning to
end.
* * * * *
The way out of the path of uprightness is smooth and easy; the way back
to it, rough and difficult. The one is ever open to the erring, but the
other is never closed against the penitent.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE LARK AND THE WHIPPOORWILL.
A LARK had nearly fallen asleep in the dusk of the evening, when a
whippoorwill began calling loudly to its mate, that was lodged in
another part of the wood:
“Whippoorwill! Whippoorwill!”
“Why do you disturb me,” asked the lark, “here at the close of the day,
when I am so tired and just ready to take my rest?”
“I will try to be quiet, then,” replied the whippoorwill.
So, with a great effort, the bird kept still. Occasionally, when its
mate called from a distance, its bill _would_ open and a faint note,
“Whip! Whip!” escape. But a look at the lark, with its head under its
wing, was enough to quiet it again. And so all night long it hopped
about in silence hunting its food.
At last the rosy dawn appeared, and it flew down to its humble perch
near the ground and made ready to go to sleep for the day. But just
then the lark suddenly burst forth with a loud song, and started up in
its flight toward the sky.
“Stop! stop!” cried the whippoorwill. “How is this? You made me keep
silence when you wanted to sleep, and now, when it is my turn, you make
more noise than I did.”
“It is my nature,” cried the lark, “in the early morning to shout out
my glad song.”
“And it is mine,” replied the whippoorwill, “in the quiet twilight to
call to my loving mate.”
“I suppose what you say is true,” said the lark, “but I am sure that I
can’t help singing. Why do you not sing in the daytime, as I do? That
is the proper time.”
[Illustration]
“Nay,” replied the whippoorwill; “as you are made to wake and sing in
the daytime, I am made to wake and sing in the night. Now, as we can
neither of us have the woods alone, let us try and put up with one
another’s songs, and so each of us enjoy its lot.”
* * * * *
As long as we live we shall find something to put up with in other
people. It will be easier to do this if we remember that they in like
manner have to put up with something in us.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE GATE AND GATE-POST.
A GATE and the post that it latched to could not get along peacefully
together. The gate swagged somewhat, and the post, instead of leaning
back a little to accommodate it, seemed purposely to lean forward. As a
consequence, there was difficulty whenever they met. The gate accused
the post of getting in the way, and the post charged the gate with
striking against it. Things remained in this unhappy condition for a
long while, and very often the gate might be seen swinging back and
forth in the wind, unable to latch itself, while the post showed ugly
scars on either side, which were growing uglier and deeper every day.
Neither seemed willing to yield, or even to make the first movement
toward a reconciliation.
At length, on a gusty morning, after a squall had banged the gate
against the post with unusual violence, the latter said:
“You needn’t think I’m going to give in. That last blow did you as much
damage as it did me.”
“I don’t want you to give in,” replied the gate; “all I ask is that you
lean back a little, so that I can swing free and fasten my latch as I
used to do.”
“It’s your own fault that you cannot do so still,” said the post; “you
began to swag and bear down on me, and then, of course, I began to butt
against you.”
“Well, now,” replied the gate, “though I don’t agree to all you say, I
am willing to admit this much—that there may be faults on both sides.
But here we are together, and here we’ve got to stay. I can’t go off to
look for another post, and you can’t go and hunt up another gate. Why
can’t we try and get along as we did at first? I’m sure we were a great
deal more comfortable then.”
[Illustration]
“Agreed,” said the post; “I’m as tired of it as you are. Let us from
this time do all we can to keep out of each other’s way.”
As this conversation took place in the early spring, when the ground
was freezing and thawing almost every day, the two had the best
possible chance of carrying out their good resolutions; and by the
help of wind and rain, with an honest purpose on both sides, their
efforts at last were crowned with success. Then all was pleasant and
serene again. The gate swung free, the latch caught on the post without
fail, and they upheld and supported each other, without either one
trespassing on the other’s rights.
But after this tranquil state of things had lasted for some time, one
day the latch, in passing, left a slight scratch on the post’s fresh
paint. At once there was scolding and faultfinding on both sides. It
was only a scratch, to be sure, and neither seemed disposed to make it
any more; but, on the other hand, neither would recede enough to make
it any less. And so, after they had overcome far greater difficulties,
and proved that peace and harmony were attainable, they sacrificed
them both because they could not overlook a very small offence. The
consequence was that discord reappeared between them. When I last saw
them, they were still giving each other (not at all times, but every
now and then, when the wind was from a certain quarter) this irritating
little scratch. I suppose it is thus with them still, and probably will
be so to the end.
* * * * *
After surmounting great and serious difficulties in the way of our
happiness, we often allow insignificant ones to keep us back from its
possession.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE WEEDY FARM.
A POOR but industrious man who rented a farm that was badly overgrown
with weeds set his heart on getting rid of them. To do this he worked
early and late. By the dawn of day he might be seen ploughing his
fields, and because his own team (two rather sorry-looking horses) were
not strong enough to turn up the deep soil he hired a pair of oxen and
ploughed with them.
Afterward he went over the ground with his harrow, from one side of the
field to the other, and again across it from end to end. He did this to
break up the hard clods and throw out the roots of the weeds, that the
sun might scorch and kill them. Then he sowed the ground thickly with
good seed, so that if any of the roots were left they might be crowded
out by the grain. He kept on patiently working in this way until he had
gone over every part of his farm.
And his labor was not in vain, for in the fields where the corn and
the oats and the rye were growing the weeds almost disappeared.
Nevertheless, as soon as it came in turn for a field to rest and lie
fallow for a season, they were sure to show themselves again. And in
the pasture-land, that was never ploughed, they sprang up plentifully
among the grass and the clover.
In vain the farmer took out his scythe, searching for the places where
they grew, and cutting them down with his own hands. There were some
places that he did not reach, and some where the roots were hidden from
sight; so that every summer they continued to mar the prospect around
him. And, as time went on, instead of getting used to them, it seemed
as if he worried over them more and more.
At length, after he had been worrying thus from year to year, he went
out one gloomy autumn afternoon to walk alone, and, seeing patches
of the hated weeds here and there all over his farm, he grew very
despondent. He turned, and came back with a heavy step to his cottage.
His wife, having gotten through the rest of her work, was sitting by
the window mending his well-worn coat.
“You know,” said he as soon as he came in the door, “how I’ve tried to
get rid of these weeds. I’ve worked early and late, in season and out
of season, and yet there’s not a field that has not got some of them in
it. And down in the low-lying land back of the meeting-house—I’ve just
been there—it seems to me they’re thicker than ever. I’m discouraged.
I feel like throwing up my lease and giving up the farm, and fighting
against them no longer.”
“Well, now,” said his wife as she threaded her needle and sewed away
at his patched coat, “I think you’re looking only on one side. You
haven’t worked all these years for nothing. You’ve had pretty good
crops, I think, and it seems to _me_, the way I look at it, that this
is a very good farm, after all, the way farms go. As for getting rid of
the weeds, they were here when you came. It’s a weedy country. I don’t
believe you’ll ever be able to get them clean out of the land. But then
you’ve succeeded in keeping them under. I reckon that if we work hard,
with the help of a kind Providence this farm will do till we get a
better. For you know we hope to move to a better country some of these
days, and to get new land that hasn’t any weeds in it.”
[Illustration]
“I declare, wife,” said the farmer, brightening up, “I do believe
there’s something in what you tell me. I never looked at it so before.
I’ve been looking at the weeds, and nothing else. We ought to look
at the crops too, no doubt since they’ve been given us in spite of
the weeds. We must put up with something, I reckon, wherever we go;
so I think we’ll just do as you say, and stay where we are, trying
nevertheless, to get the weeds out, harder and harder. I’m glad I came
straight to you. You always were a good, sensible wife, and now I
admire you more, and set greater store by you than ever.”
* * * * *
We must not despair because evil is still present with us, but rather
take courage from whatever growth in good our past lives may show.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE KING SEEKING CONTENT.
A CERTAIN king who was weary of the cares of his high office determined
to seek among his subjects for a perfectly contented man, and, when he
found him, to exchange his throne for that man’s place, whatever it
might be. “For,” he said, “peace of mind is worth more than even royal
honors and dignities.”
So he disguised himself in a way that no one would know him, and went
forth on his search through the streets of the city. And first he came
into the house of a man who by long years of labor had heaped up
great riches, and now, having withdrawn from all business affairs, was
living in ease and luxury. But in a little while the king saw that this
life, so different from that he was accustomed to, had become irksome
and tedious, and that in his heart he wished himself back at buying and
selling again. He looked out of his front window and said:
[Illustration]
“Oh that I were only in the place of my opposite neighbor, whom I see
going out early to business every morning!”
Leaving this man’s house, the king found an entrance into that of the
neighbor whom he envied, who was still engrossed in trade as the other
had formerly been. Already rich, he was adding to his wealth year by
year; but in doing this he had to labor so hard, and to carry so heavy
a load of care, that no time or space for enjoyment was left him.
“I am living but a slave’s life,” he said. “Would that I were well out
of it, like my neighbor across the way, whom I see driving out in his
carriage every afternoon!”
Passing out of this street, where many rich merchants lived, the king
went into another, near by, and entered the house of a man whom he
himself had appointed to a responsible post under his own government.
[Illustration]
“Without the weight of anxiety which oppresses me,” said the king, “yet
with honors sufficient, and an ample provision for all his wants, shall
I not here find a happy man?”
But it was not long before the king heard him, one day when he thought
he was alone, muttering to himself:
“Why did I ever accept this post, or choose this service for my
calling, only to bear the envy of those below me, and the scorn of
those above? How much better off and more independent would I have been
engaged in some business of my own, like my well-to-do friends around
the corner!”
“I will seek for my object in a lower sphere of life and occupation,”
said the king; and, passing into an obscure back street, he went into
the shop of a mechanic who was working at his bench with saw and plane
as a carpenter.
“Below the level of ambition and above that of want,” continued the
king, “surely here I shall find the object of my search.”
So he entered into conversation with the man, talked with him about his
trade, admired his handiwork, and said:
“Whatever else you lack, my friend, I am sure that here in perfect
independence you enjoy content.”
“Content at this trade!” exclaimed the man. “I would rather have been
brought up to any other. What with low wages and high lumber, there is
nothing left when your work is done. I don’t know who you may be; but
if you’re thinking of going into this business, let me warn you against
it. For my part, I don’t see why some people have it so hard and others
so easy. There’s a couple of rich men that I work for over in the main
street, that have both of them made big fortunes since I came into this
miserable little shop. And around the corner from them is another man
I do odd jobs for—one of the king’s officers; he has I don’t know how
many servants to wait on him, and plenty of money. Yes, and even the
king himself, if a poor man may look so high—there he is with nothing
to do but enjoy himself and rule over the rest of us. What justice is
there in all this? Everybody has all he wants, and is happy, but me.”
Discouraged at his repeated failures, the king turned away from the
crowded city and went into the country. There, as he walked along
a quiet road by himself, he came to a little cottage with a bench
beside the door. In front of it was a flower-bed filled with pinks and
lady-slippers; in the rear, a small plot of ground that appeared to
have been just digged. A shovel and a hoe were lying there, evidently
left only for the dinner-hour. The door of the cottage was open, and a
laboring-man well on in years was seen within at his noonday meal.
The king, in the guise of a wayfarer, stopped before the gate, and
was at once asked to enter and be seated at the table. Accepting the
invitation, he sat down and partook of the humble repast. As soon as it
was finished the two betook themselves to the bench beside the door.
Said the king:
“You have a hard time, I fear, my friend. This is but a little plot
from which to get your living.”
“But you’ve no idea,” replied the man, “how much this ground yields.
It is planted in potatoes, and a finer crop you never saw. I’m just
digging them, and shall have enough to last me on till spring, with
some to sell—yes, and a few to give a poor neighbor, beside.”
“But is that all you have to depend upon?” asked the king.
“Oh no,” replied the man; “I go out to day’s work on the farms around,
and, beside being able to pay for some new clothes, I’ve put by a
barrel of flour for the winter; it stands over in that far corner. And
you see my woodpile stretching along the fence yonder. I’ve had to work
hard for these things, but they are all that I need, and I am content.”
“‘Content’!” cried the king, as though he could not believe his own
ears. “But have you no other wants beside these?”
[Illustration]
“I might have,” said the man. “There are plenty that offer me their
company, but I refuse to entertain them.”
“Are you, then, quite satisfied?”
“Not with myself, but I am with my lot.”
At this the king was silent, for he saw that his companion was speaking
the truth, though he could not comprehend it.
“But understand me,” continued the man. “It is not because I have no
trials to bear that I am content, for I have my share of them. Here
is the rheumatism in this arm, which often will not let me sleep, and
sometimes keeps me from work for days together. And then, what is
harder still, my landlord is not always kind, or even just.”
“Why, is not this cottage your own?” said the king.
“Oh no,” replied the man; “I’m not so rich as that. And yet, as I
was going to say, taking it all in all, I have in my lot a bigger
proportion of good than most people, and a better chance to be what I
ought to be. And to this end I can see how even my trials are a help.”
The king, rising from the table, bade his humble friend adieu and went
his way, but pursued his search no farther.
“I have found content in another,” he said, “and learned, too, how to
get it for myself. It is to accept not only my good things, but also
my evil things, as a precious part of my portion. I will go back to my
throne esteeming even it in this light, and so, instead of trying to
cast them off, shall be happier in bearing the burdens which it lays
upon me.”
* * * * *
Were we able to look into the secret thoughts of those whom we envy, we
should often find that what we covet in their lot, is borne by them as
a trial and a cross.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE LEARNED OWL.
AN owl that had long separated himself from his companions that he
might devote his nights to study and become learned, employed himself
afterward in trying to impart his learning to the other owls. Having
called them together, he discoursed about different animals and
reptiles and fishes which they had never heard of before; but he
found that, while a few seemed anxious for instruction and listened
patiently, the most of his hearers made some excuse for flying away
while he was still talking, so that by the end of his discourse
scarcely a half dozen of them remained.
As he was ambitious to be considered an interesting as well as
instructive speaker, he was greatly discouraged at this result, and
at once retired to the woods, into a thick clump of hemlocks whose
dark shadows never admitted a ray of the sun, and there, all alone, he
thought over the matter, trying to decide what was best to be done.
[Illustration]
He remained for several days thus engaged, when suddenly, as if the
whole difficulty were solved, he gave a cheerful hoot, and flying
forth, summoned all the owls to a meeting in the apple-orchard near
by at twelve o’clock the following night. When the time arrived, but
a small audience appeared in the trees immediately around him, though
many were on those farther off—as we might say, on the back seats—from
which, in case they grew weary, they could retire unseen.
“I’ve come this time,” he began, “not to talk about animals or reptiles
or fishes, but about owls.”
At once he could see an awakening of interest in the birds that
were near him. Then he went on to tell all he knew about owls—their
ancestors who had lived long ago, the different kinds that are
living now, the big owls and the little owls, their habits, their
dispositions, their pleasures, and their pains, not, of course,
omitting courtship and marriage. Very soon he saw the birds that had
lodged on the distant trees flying nearer, and as he went on they came
one by one into the very tree where he stood, until all the owls that
lived in the neighboring woods were gathered close around him; nor
were they willing to leave while he continued his discourse. And after
that, all he had to do was to vary somewhat his treatment of the same
theme to secure a punctual and full attendance.
* * * * *
This fable proves that owls, like men, prefer to hear about things in
which they feel the interest of kindred. The speaker or the book that
can awaken our human sympathies is the one, as we know, that commands
the largest audience and the closest attention.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE HORSE AND THE GRASSHOPPERS.
A HORSE, while feeding in a meadow, frightened the grasshoppers at
his feet, so that they flew up thickly on every side. Some chickens,
discovering this, gathered around and accompanied him, eagerly
devouring the insects. The horse did not notice them for a time and
continued to move slowly along, thus providing them with an abundant
supply. But, at length spying them at their repast, he suddenly raised
his head, saying:
“How are you going to pay me back for all this trouble I am taking for
you?”
At which one of the chickens replied:
“You don’t eat grasshoppers yourself, neither are you going out of
your way to stir them up for us. Why, then, should we pay you at all?”
[Illustration]
The horse, not able to answer this question, began sullenly to feed
again, when the chicken continued:
“If you had done us this favor willingly and kindly, we would have
eaten the grasshoppers and returned you our thanks; but, as you do
it against your will, we will eat them just the same, and return you
nothing.”
* * * * *
In serving our own interests we sometimes, without intending it, serve
the interest of others. It is better to do this graciously and make
them our friends than to do it grudgingly and make them our enemies.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE BARK AND THE LIGHTSHIP.
A BARK on her outward voyage passed the lightship moored on a shoal
that lay in the track of vessels near the coast. Said the bark as she
sailed by:
“Here you are still, held fast by your chain, for ever tossing and
uncomfortable, but making no headway, or profits, either.”
“True,” replied the lightship. “Yet this is my appointed work. I am no
idler.”
Long months rolled around; the bark had crossed the ocean, and was
on her homeward voyage. She neared the land in stormy weather. Night
came on, and the lead, though it was kept going, failed to show just
where she was drifting. Then anxious fears arose, and were growing each
moment more intense, when suddenly a bright flash gleamed through
the darkness. It was the lightship, giving warning of the shoal and
pointing out the deeper channel.
Once more the vessels lay side by side.
“You have saved me,” cried the bark, “and the rich cargo that I carry.
Now I understand why you seek not selfish profits, and most gladly, out
of gratitude, will I share mine with you.”
“Oh no,” replied the lightship; “you have sailed over perilous seas to
gain them, and they justly belong to you. That is your calling; and the
greater your gains, the better am I pleased. But my calling is to lie
here and do what good I can. For this I receive wages sufficient for my
need, and with them I am content.”
* * * * *
While some men devote their lives to business and accumulate
fortunes—properly and honestly, it may be—others devote theirs to the
good of their fellow-men, knowing they will receive in return a bare
living, and nothing more.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE UNHONORED SERVANT.
A CERTAIN king was accustomed from time to time to appoint the members
of his household, some of them to be rulers over provinces, some over
cities, and some to fill private positions of honor and profit. It was
considered not only a reward of obedience, but a special mark of his
confidence and approval, to receive such appointment.
After many had been thus promoted, one remained in the palace who
seemed to be overlooked and neglected. It was evident that this was not
from any fault of his own, or from any want of regard on the part of
the king, for all could see that he was loyal and upright and enjoyed
the king’s favor; yet others who had come later into the palace were
chosen before him.
[Illustration]
At length one of the king’s counsellors ventured to ask him the reason
of this, saying:
“This man for many years has obeyed you with all faithfulness and
devotion, yet others are sent forth to fill stations of honor, while he
remains here in his place as a servant. Why is this?”
The king answered:
“I keep him thus, not as a mark of my displeasure or of his want of
desert, but because he is the one whom I cannot part with, even to
bestow honors and riches upon him, but must have ever near me. Neither
will he be a loser by it in the end.”
* * * * *
A place in the heart is better than a gift from the hand, and he whom
the King will reward may well wait patiently.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
WINGS.
ONCE a caterpillar, as it fed on a tree, was given the power of speech.
It said:
“What wonderful eyes I have! I can see the whole of this leaf at one
time—not only the part I am feeding on, but its whole length and
breadth.”
“Let me tell you,” replied the tree, “there are eyes that can see
not only one leaf, but all the leaves on a tree—yes, and on a whole
woods—at a glance.”
“It may be so,” said the caterpillar, “and then it is only doing what
I do, though on a larger scale.—And what wonderful feet I have!”
continued the caterpillar. “I can creep from the ground up to your
topmost bough, between the rising and the setting of the sun.”
“And I can tell you,” replied the tree, “there are feet that can pass
over a space equal to that in a moment, and in one short hour can go
farther than you in all the days of your life.”
“It may be so,” said the caterpillar, “and then it is only doing what I
do, though on a larger scale.”
“But this is not all I have to tell you,” continued the tree. “There
are beings that can dart from the ground up to my highest branch
without so much as touching me with their feet, and that can pass
swiftly from tree to tree, borne through the air on wings.”
“That is impossible,” said the caterpillar. “There may be stronger eyes
that can see farther even than mine, and quicker feet that can travel
faster; but, as for wings to fly through the air with, that cannot be.
You are talking of things you know nothing about, or else are only
trying to deceive me. After such an absurd statement, I will not listen
to you any more, or believe anything you say.”
The summer passed, and autumn came with its cloudy days and chilly
nights. The leaves of the tree shrivelled up and dropped to the ground,
and one frosty morning the caterpillar was found suspended from a naked
twig by a thread of its own spinning, shut up in its cocoon. And there
it slept, unconscious from day to day, and month to month, through the
long winter. The fierce storm could not weaken its hold, or shake it
loose, as it hung secure, tossed to and fro by the blast.
[Illustration]
But at length spring approached. The buds began to swell and the young
leaves to appear. The blossoms on the fruit trees opened, and the birds
sang among them. And one morning the imprisoned caterpillar revived in
its narrow cell, and, rending its walls asunder, came forth and basked
in the sunshine. But what are these at its side gently expanding and
unfolding? It spreads them forth, and, loosening its hold upon the
twig, floats away on the breeze. It mounts up, it flies, it lodges on a
lofty bough, and flies from one to another again and again.
“Was it I,” it says, astonished, “that declared there were no beings
with wings, and that to pass from place to place through the air was
impossible? Now am I made to see that it was not the tree, but myself,
who spoke about things I knew nothing of; now am I made to feel the
denseness of my own ignorance. If this, which is so unlooked for and
so far beyond the reach of my understanding, has been done to me, I
will wait and see what yet remains to be done, nor ever again limit the
power that created me at first, and still goes on perfecting its own
work.”
* * * * *
He who can speak most wisely within the circuit of his knowledge if he
venture beyond it utters foolishness.
[Illustration]
STANDPOINTS.
A POOR man who supported his family by daily labor used to deal with
the two storekeepers of his native village. Of one he bought flour and
meat; of the other, materials for his own and his children’s clothing.
Being a good workman and honest as well as industrious, he was
accustomed to settle his accounts at both stores every Saturday night.
All went on well and to the satisfaction of both buyer and seller
as long as health lasted. But at length sickness came, and Saturday
brought the laborer no wages. Still, he hoped for the return of
strength by another week, and then to be at work again. But strength
did not return. Week after week passed, and it seemed farther away than
ever. The storekeepers’ accounts remained unsettled. The matter was
becoming a serious one for them. What should they do?
At this point one of them opened his ledger, went over every item set
down there, and, after footing up the total amount, calculated the
interest on it to the last cent. Then he sat thinking about what he
could do with the money if he only had it in hand; and this was the
standpoint from which _he_ looked at the debt.
The other storekeeper also went over his ledger and footed up the
amount. But after doing so he shut the book up again, and, putting
on his hat, went to see the man who owed him the money. Entering his
humble cottage, he sat down at his bedside and looked into his honest,
suffering face, and on his wife and children in poverty around him; and
here was the standpoint from which _this_ storekeeper looked at the
debt.
The sick man died, and his family was left penniless. The storekeeper
who had visited him, still looking at the debt, as it were, from the
lowly bedside, thought it was right to cross it off his books and
forgive it altogether. The other storekeeper, viewing it from his
counting-room only, thought it right to get the money if he could.
Had he not furnished all the articles that were charged for? Had not
the man’s family taken them and used them? The money was his, and
he meant to have it. So he held the dead man’s wife and children
responsible, and, though they had a hard time to earn their daily
bread, he made it harder by demanding something each month till the
last cent was paid.
[Illustration]
Time rolled on, and the years that gather, an ever-increasing
load, upon poor and rich alike, began to bow the forms of the two
storekeepers. Old age overtook them, and finally the hour when each
in turn must leave store and ledger to know them no more. Then it was
found that he who had remitted the poor man’s debt had left to his
family a moderate competency, with a good many accounts in his ledger
balanced by the one word written over against them, “FORGIVEN.”
[Illustration]
The other storekeeper had left his family rich, with scarcely an
account that had ever been due him unpaid, and the few that were,
remained so only because neither force nor persuasion could bring the
money. But in the village where they had lived and died it was noticed,
long after both storekeepers and their ways of doing business were
forgotten, that the smaller inheritance increased in the hands of those
who received it, while the larger one, in the hands receiving it,
seemed mysteriously to melt away.
* * * * *
According to the standpoint from which we look at a thing will be our
views of right and wrong respecting it; but we are accountable for the
choice of that standpoint.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE MAN WITH A MENAGERIE.
A MAN who kept a menagerie had trouble with several of the wild
beasts, which, although they were confined in strong cages, sometimes
became excited and made violent efforts to escape. There was one in
particular—a tiger—that caused him special concern. By continued
watchfulness and careful treatment, however, the animal was at length
brought into a quiet and submissive state, seeming to be asleep most
of the time. Nevertheless, knowing his savage nature, his owner was
diligent in examining the different parts of his cage—the iron bars in
front, and the bolts in the rear—every day.
But, after doing this for many weeks without a recurrence of any cause
for alarm, the man dismissed his fears and began to forget there had
ever been any cause for them. Then, insensibly to himself, he relaxed
his vigilance, until the matter passed out of his mind and he thought
no more about the tiger than he did about the antelope, the deer, or
any other harmless specimens in his collection.
This state of things had lasted without any mishap for a long time,
when one day, while passing through his menagerie, as he came in front
of the tiger’s cage he made a misstep; his foot slipped, and he fell.
Like a flash—as soon as he saw him fall—the tiger sprang to his feet
and dashed with savage fury against the bars in front of him, which,
not being properly secured, parted and allowed him to pass between them.
As he lighted on the ground all the weak and defenceless animals around
him were panic-stricken, uttering cries of terror. And truly it looked
for the moment as though he might slay both them and their fallen
master unrestrained. To make it worse, his keeper, who alone had any
control over him, was absent, but fortunately not beyond the sound of
the tumult. This man hastened to the rescue, and by skill in soothing
as well as courage in quelling succeeded after a time in getting the
brute back to his den.
Then was the owner glad, breathing freely once more. Yet for hours
afterward his face remained pale and his hand trembled.
[Illustration]
“I am thankful,” he said, “for this great deliverance. Never shall I
forget it, nor lessen my watchfulness over this furious beast’s cage;
for no matter how silent it seems, or how little danger appears to be
within, I know only too well that the tiger is there still.”
* * * * *
Our evil passions may lie dormant until we almost think they have
ceased to exist, and yet, if not sleeplessly guarded, may rise up and
gain the mastery over us at any time.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
TWO OUTLOOKS.
TWO persons live in the same house, which has both a front and a back
view. The front view is over a quiet lake, with green fields and
mountains beyond—beautiful always, in summer, in autumn, in winter. The
back view is hemmed in by old broken-down walls, ruinous outbuildings
and a pigsty.
One of the inmates of the house takes her work and sits habitually by
the front window. Her face is bright and beaming, and the neighbors
often hear her sing.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The other inmate sits constantly looking out of the back window. The
gloomy prospect depresses and sours her; and when she does open her
lips, it is generally to complain. Yet neither of these persons is
forced to gaze thus on the prospect which so affects her. Each sits by
the window she has chosen for herself.
Now, we all live in houses with front windows and back windows. At
which of them do we choose, for the most of our time, to sit?
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
JOB NICKEL.
A MAN by the name of Job Nickel, who was about emigrating to a new
home, bought a stout horse and strong wagon—the best his means would
afford—and, packing his family into it, with such household goods
as could be carried beside, started on his journey. He had not gone
far when he was overtaken by another family travelling in the same
direction, but driving a pair of fine horses to a handsome carriage.
The difference in outfit, however, did not prevent the occupants of the
carriage from making acquaintance with the family in the wagon. They
first looked at them smilingly, then nodded, and presently got into
conversation.
As their destination was the same and it was pleasanter to travel in
company than alone, Job gave his horse a sharp cut, to keep up with his
new friends; and the travellers kept together until night, when, coming
to a green spot with a spring of pure water upon it, they encamped
there, as is the custom with emigrants on the road.
The next morning, before harnessing up, the occupants of the carriage
begged Job to let his eldest daughter—a bright little girl of
twelve—ride with them. The child’s mother and Job himself were pleased
at this attention, and after fishing out her best dress from the bottom
of a chest, and hastily putting it on, the invitation was accepted. But
when they started for the day, the pair travelled so much faster than
the one horse that the carriage soon left the wagon behind; sometimes
it was visible a good way ahead, and sometimes was quite out of sight.
Yet, as his little girl was in it, Job felt bound to keep as near it
as he could, though this required, especially in going-up hill, the
constant urging of his horse and not unfrequent use of the whip.
While hurrying along the road in this way Job came up with a neighbor
who, like himself, drove only one horse. But so anxious was Job to get
on that he passed his old friend without speaking. It must be admitted,
too, that Job felt with his new acquaintance, if he could only keep up
with them, he was travelling in more distinguished company. Thus the
second day passed, and the travellers again encamped together, Job,
after taking the harness oil: his own horse, helping to unharness the
pair.
The next morning his friends consented to let the little girl return
to her parents in the wagon provided her brother be allowed to take
her place. So the girl went back, very much dissatisfied, and the boy
succeeded her. And thus the two vehicles continued in company day after
day. Sometimes the boy was in the carriage, and sometimes the girl; and
once one of the children from the carriage came and rode in the wagon.
Meanwhile, the intimacy between the families constantly increased,
no account being taken of their differing circumstances. While these
things were going on, both Job and his wife could not help secretly
thinking that, as their children happened to be of like ages, this
intimacy might some day become closer still; yet neither one (as they
felt in their hearts ashamed of it) mentioned this thought to the other.
[Illustration]
But all this time, notwithstanding his apparent friendship, the owner
of the carriage never once slackened his pace to accommodate Job. As a
consequence, the work of keeping up with him became harder than ever.
Job had now to lash his horse at almost every step, by doing which he
was just able to follow close at the tail of the carriage. But in dry
weather he was always in a cloud of dust, and in wet weather was being
splashed with the mud thrown up by the wheels in front of him; so that,
wet or dry, he was equally miserable.
[Illustration]
But the worst was yet to come. After Job had been thus laboriously
working his way for about half the distance he was to travel, one
morning, on going out early to feed his horse, the animal was found
still lying down; and when Job tried to rouse him, he refused to get
up—alas! with good reason: he could not. And within an hour the poor
overworked beast was dead.
By this time the sun had risen, and the carriage was all ready to
start; but before doing so the family that travelled in it came over to
where Job stood, showing great pity for him. They were loud in their
expressions of sorrow, but the father said, as he had promised to be
at a point beyond by a certain hour, he would have to go on. Just then
another carriage, containing some of his acquaintance, came along, and
he cracked his whip and was soon out of sight. As he drove off Job saw
for the first time the man’s name—S. Silver. It was printed upon the
end of a trunk which they had taken from the inside and put on the top
of the carriage.
“Ah!” exclaimed Job, “now I know who he is. His first name is Sterling.
He had a bank in the county-town next to ours, and a sad fool has poor
Job Nickel been in trying all this while to keep up with Sterling
Silver! I deserve all I have got.—Well, wife,” he continued, “here we
are with our horse dead, our grand acquaintances gone, and plenty of
time to reflect on our folly.”
[Illustration]
As he spoke his old friend with the one horse, whom Job had passed
on the road without noticing, came trudging comfortably by. Job turned
toward him ready to speak, but the man did not notice him. As he
disappeared Job looked around at his wife, and, seeing her wiping her
eyes with the corner of her apron, he said:
“Happily, my dear, we’ve got a small sum left in the bottom of the
chest, with which we’ll try to buy another horse—the best we can get
for it. But after this we’ll go along at our own gait, no matter who
goes before or follows after us.”
* * * * *
He who is dissatisfied and unthankful in his own proper sphere, by
trying to climb higher sinks lower than ever before.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE UNUSED LOOM.
A MAN who had inherited a plain but comfortable house with a lot of
ground around it went there to live. He found, on looking through the
house, that, beside the furniture it contained suitable to his daily
wants, there was in one of the upper rooms a curiously-made loom. It
was a complicated machine, and he could see at a glance a valuable one;
but he could see also that it would require his best skill as well as
a good deal of hard work to keep it in motion. Not caring to put these
forth just then, instead of attempting to run it, he let it stand.
As he had to earn his living, however, and was not, in truth, a lazy
man, he employed himself in other ways, tilling his ground and, when he
had that in perfect order for the time being, hiring himself out to do
farm-work for his neighbors. But he was, at best, a poor hand at this
sort of work, an ordinary day-laborer easily outstripping him; so that,
although he managed to live, by the end of the year, if he was not
actually behindhand, he was sure to have nothing over.
But while he worked in the soil he never forgot his loom. And sometimes
when the work was harder and money scarcer than usual he would go up to
the room where it was stored, and open the door and stand looking at
it. Yet as soon as he realized afresh the labor both of mind and body
required to run it, he shut to the door again and went back to day’s
work with his pick and shovel.
But at length his pressing needs and a deepening conviction that he
could better his condition induced him to undertake what he had shrunk
from so long; he began clearing away from his loom the dust and dirt
that had accumulated about it, determined to persevere until he had put
it in perfect running order. And, having once begun the work, he found
at each step of its progress that his interest increased, and that the
strength and skill required were forthcoming as occasion demanded.
[Illustration]
Finally, every part being ready, he put in the warp and the shuttle,
and set it in motion. Then he himself was surprised at the result. The
fabric it wove was both serviceable and beautiful, and there was at
once a demand for all he could make. The people of the village where
he lived, and of the neighborhood for miles around, flocked to his
house to secure it; and he felt for the first time, though after many
precious years had been wasted, that he was engaged in the work he was
best qualified for. And while serving others he was also benefiting
himself; for, instead of making but a bare living, as before, he was
able now to lay up a considerable sum from his earnings every year.
* * * * *
We may possess valuable talents without profiting by them. Talent
furnishes the machinery; application, the power to drive it. It is only
by putting the two together that we shall secure the prize within our
reach.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CROWING.
EARLY one morning, while the fowls were waiting around the kitchen door
for their breakfast, a spring chicken attempted to crow, but succeeded
only in uttering a feeble squawk.
A young cock, hearing this, stood up and crowed loud and clear, saying
to the other:
“You’d better be still till you can crow like that.”
To which a guinea-hen that was restlessly flitting about replied with a
shrill, high voice:
“It was only the spring before last when you did no better yourself!”
[Illustration]
“Impossible!” said the cock. “It must be some other chicken you are
thinking of.”
“Not so,” replied the guinea. “I remember you ever since you were
hatched—while you were a little chick sleeping under your mother’s
wing, when you grew bigger and first flew up to the roost, and how like
this spring chicken’s your crowing was then, only with this difference:
you were so conceited that the whole barnyard was laughing at you. All
this is forgotten now, luckily for you. But take my advice: be tender
of the failings of others, lest your own be recalled and displayed in
full light.”
* * * * *
Let us not refuse to pardon in others what we, through others’
kindness, have been pardoned for ourselves.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
PETER CRISP’S SPECTACLES.
PETER CRISP had something the matter with his eyes; he needed
spectacles to help him see. But this was no uncommon misfortune:
hundreds of people who do ten good hours’ work every day, use
spectacles, and cannot get along without them. No; the trouble
in Peter’s case was not in having to wear spectacles, but in the
particular kind of spectacles that he wore. They seemed to have the
strange quality of undergoing a change of color at certain times; so
that everything seen through them underwent a corresponding change.
[Illustration]
At one time they took on a dark color—almost black. And, as this made
everything look dark and gloomy, he was made to feel accordingly.
“I could iron these collars better myself,” he exclaimed one morning
as he was dressing, after putting on these glasses. And a few moments
later: “Not a single pin in this cushion, as usual!” And presently
again: “Who _has_ taken away my comb and brush?” though both of these
useful articles were lying within his reach, and just where he himself
had left them.
Had any of the children chanced to come into the room about that time,
it would have been an unlucky visit for them.
[Illustration]
When he sat down to breakfast, it was with a frown upon his brow, and a
deep wrinkle between his eyes, caused, apparently, by the weight of the
spectacles.
“Bridget never did make a good cup of coffee in her life,” he
remarked.—“My dear,” he continued, turning to his wife, “I do wish you
would take the trouble to go down once—_only_ once—and show her how.”
[Illustration]
Mrs. Crisp ventured to answer in a meek voice that she went down every
morning. Peter had no reply—especially no thanks—to offer for this; but
he took another sip, puckered up his lips as though he had swallowed a
dose of medicine, and pushed the cup away from him.
[Illustration]
After this cheerful breakfast he put on his hat to go to the store (for
Peter was a business-man); but when he had gone as far as the front
door, he came back with a quick step to the foot of the stairs, and
there stood calling out in a loud voice that he really felt ashamed
at the condition of the steps and the sidewalk. No others in the
neighborhood, he declared, looked so shabby.
[Illustration]
In the street a few minutes afterward he was joined by a fellow
business man, and as they walked down town together Peter was as gay
and lively as any one could have wished him to be. The two talked with
each other about the fine weather and their prosperous trade, and even
touched on their happy families. And when they spied a bachelor-friend
in the distance, Peter grew merry at his expense, and expressed pity
for him as a poor fellow who had no home!
[Illustration]
But when, a little later, he entered his counting-room alone, it
was plain he had the dark glasses on still. Not a man about the
establishment worked as he should do, he said. It used to be different
when he was a boy. Then he turned and went out of the house with a look
of disgust.
[Illustration]
As soon as he was gone the bookkeeper scolded the clerk, the clerk
scolded the boy, and the boy went out to the front door and abused the
porter. And after that, throughout the day, everything seemed to go
wrong with Peter himself and all who were about him; yet surely the
fault was his own.
[Illustration]
A few mornings after this it seemed as though Peter’s glasses had
undergone another change. They appeared now to be of a blue color. He
was in a milder frame, but low in spirits. He was sorry to see the
nursery carpet wearing out, for he did not know where another would
come from. At breakfast he watched the children taking butter, and
took hardly any himself. He begged Mrs. Crisp to put less sugar in his
coffee. The frown was gone from his brow but a most dejected look had
taken its place. Spying a hole in the toe of his boy’s shoe, he drew
a long breath; and, hearing that the dressmaker was engaged to come the
next week for his daughters, he sighed aloud. On his way down town,
walking alone (for he avoided company), he looked as if he had lost a
near relation, and at the store all day seemed to feel like a man who
was just on the eve of failing in business, though there was, in truth,
no danger of his doing any such thing.
[Illustration]
There was one more change that Peter’s glasses used to undergo. The
color which they then assumed could never be exactly made out, but
it seemed to be more of a smoky hue than anything else. This did not
come upon them so often as either of the others, but when it did it
had a very singular effect. The glasses then seemed to befog Peter
rather than help him see. For after putting them on when he got up of a
morning, he would dress without speaking a word. At breakfast he would
say nothing, and make it plain that he did not want anybody else to.
Consequently, the whole family, little and big, would sit and munch
their food in silence. Then he would rise up from the table and walk
out of the house as if he were dumb. And although it was a relief when
he had gone, and made matters something better, a chilling influence
remained behind him the whole day.
[Illustration]
Peter had been wearing these glasses a good many years, when, as he
was meditating alone one evening, he thought to himself that things
never looked very cheerful in his eyes and he was never very happy, and
it occurred to him that perhaps his spectacles had something to do with
it. Then he remembered that a neighbor of his, one Samuel Seabright,
who also wore glasses and often used to complain of them, now seemed
to have gotten over his trouble and always to have a pleasant face on.
Meeting Samuel the next morning, he said:
“Neighbor, if it is not making too free, may I ask what was the matter
with your spectacles when I used to hear you find fault with them so
often?”
“Certainly you may,” replied Samuel, “for I have not the least
objection to tell you. They used to get strange shades and colors over
them; so that nothing looked natural or as it ought to look, and of
course this affected my spirits.”
“Is it possible?” said Peter. “And have they got perfectly clear and
transparent now?”
“Clear as crystal; so that everything looks just right, and they give
me no trouble at all.”
“And would you mind telling me how you got them so?”
“I went to the doctor’s, and did exactly as he directed.”
“And can you tell me where that doctor lives?”
[Illustration]
“Of course I can. You remember that large stone building with a
beautiful stained-glass window at one end of it, and a high tower on
top, with a chime of bells in the tower?”
“Oh yes; I pass it every day.”
“Well, the doctor lives next door to that.”
That very day Peter stopped at the doctor’s house and rang the bell,
and was shown into his office. The doctor himself was there, and after
looking into Peter’s eyes began to ask him questions.
“Do you walk much in the open air?” said he.
“Yes, every day,” replied Peter, “but it is mostly in going down to my
store and back again. Though sometimes of an afternoon my wife and I
stroll out together.”
“What streets do you generally walk in?”
“Only the best-kept and most respectable streets.”
“Are you in the habit of visiting much?”
“A good deal.”
“I suppose, then, you are kept up late at night sometimes?”
[Illustration]
“I can’t help it. You see, my relations, almost all of them—I may say
all that I keep up any acquaintance with—are rich people. Now, last
night I was at my uncle’s house. He had just finished papering his
parlor with the most beautiful paper I ever saw. Then he had newly
covered his furniture with satin damask, and bought carpets and
curtains to match, and he kept me looking at these things ever so long.”
“Are you often kept up in this way?”
“Yes, quite often. The night before that I went to my cousin’s. He gave
a very handsome dinner. There were fifteen courses set on the table.
I am sure his dinner cost enough to feed a plain family of moderate
size, for half a year. But nobody was there except the most select and
fashionable people. To tell you the truth, doctor, these are pretty
much the only kind of people I visit. They live in fine houses, with
large rooms that are well ventilated and well lighted, and I don’t see
how my eyes, or my spectacles, either, can get any harm while I am
there. Indeed, I am longing all the time for the day when I can live in
such a house myself, instead of the little pinched-up dwelling I have
to stay in now.”
“Well, I have formed my opinion about your case,” said the doctor, “and
am ready to say what you should do. But I must tell you beforehand that
it will be different from what you expect, and probably from what you
would choose.”
“Oh, as for that,” replied Peter, “I am not at all particular; you will
find me willing to do whatever you say.”
[Illustration]
“The first thing I want is that you should stop walking in those broad,
sunny, handsome streets, and walk through the narrower and poorer
streets, where there is not such a glare of light.”
“I wouldn’t like to walk in them, for I don’t care to be seen in any
but the most respectable streets.”
“Well, then there is no use of my prescribing for you any further.”
“Oh, if it comes to that, I’ll do it; for I want to get my eyes well
more than anything else.”
“The next thing is that you should stop occasionally and rest while you
are walking there, and call at some of the houses in those streets.”
“Why, doctor, I can’t see how that could possibly do me any good. As I
have told you already, the houses where I visit are among the finest in
town, well ventilated and heated, and some of them are just getting in
the new electric—”
“Very well,” interrupted the doctor; “it is for you to say whether you
will do as I prescribe or not.”
“I suppose I will have to do it, then, though I have never visited such
places in all my life.”
“Stop here to-morrow afternoon, after business-hours,” continued the
doctor, “and, as you are not used to such calls, I will go with you to
make a beginning.”
[Illustration]
The next day Peter’s glasses gave him more trouble than usual, and he
was at the doctor’s office punctually by the time appointed. The doctor
did not keep him waiting, but put on his hat and led him a considerable
distance, to quite another part of the town from that in which he was
in the habit of walking. It had once been a fashionable part, but was
deserted long ago by the richer class, and was now tenanted by only the
poorest people. The houses had a decayed, tumble-down look; the front
doors (once so jealously guarded) were standing wide open, the halls
scarred and bare-looking, every room being occupied by an entire family.
Going into one of these houses, the doctor led Peter up to the third
story. There he knocked at a door.
“Come in,” said a faint voice.
Entering, they saw a poor woman sitting in an armchair. She was moving
her head from side to side in the effort to get her breath. A bottle of
medicine stood on a rickety table near by. The bedstead at her side,
covered over with a counterpane, was evidently without a mattress, or
anything else save the canvas sacking, to lie on. Two little girls,
pale and scantily clad, shrank back to a corner as the visitors entered.
[Illustration]
The doctor sat down beside the poor sufferer, and after inquiring
about her sickness led her on gently to tell something of her past
history—how in her youth, in her father’s house, she had every want
supplied; how she had married with bright prospects, and for a time
been happy, until her husband, fallen through drink from one depth of
poverty to another, had at last left her and her little ones to starve,
except for the kindness of those who took pity on them.
“Yet God has taken care of me,” she said, “in all my troubles, and I
know he will keep on doing so. Yesterday I awoke in the morning and
sat up on the edge of my bed, and cried, for I did not know where a
mouthful of food was to come from for me and my children. But before
night I had plenty.”
Peter looked from her face to the doctor’s while she was speaking. He
knew that the doctor was familiar with such scenes, yet he saw him put
his finger up to his eye and draw it across the lids to prevent a tear
from falling.
Coming out of this house and walking a little way, the doctor turned
into a narrow alley that led back from the main street. Here he entered
a house that was shut in from the air and the light by high walls on
every side. In a lower room of this house was a man, tall and of large
frame, once evidently very strong, but now pale and weak, looking as if
he were hardly able to stand. Five young children, in various degrees
of raggedness, and the man’s wife were with him.
[Illustration]
Peter looked around the room. The walls had been so often covered with
whitewash that it stood out in layers and ridges upon them, except in
some spots where the plaster had fallen off, leaving the lath bare
underneath. Peter could not help thinking of the beautiful paper in his
rich uncle’s house.
The doctor asked how they had got along since he last saw them. It
was but poorly, they said. The father had been able to work only a
few days—two or three in a week—and the mother had to make up for the
rest. Beside doing the work at home, she went out washing and scrubbing
almost every day.
“But it is hard on us,” she said; “he needs good food, and we can’t get
it. I do all I can, but it’s not a great deal, for it pulls me down so.
I feel tired all the time—when I go to bed at night, and when I get up
in the morning.”
As she spoke Peter thought that her thin, worn face told her story even
more pitifully than her words did.
It was quite late when they got through this visit, but the doctor
walked with Peter all the way to his home, talking with him about his
own ailment and telling him what he ought to do. “For,” he said, “the
trouble with your eyes is a serious one which comes from something
worse than poor spectacles, and is often more deeply seated even than
the eye itself.”
[Illustration]
As they parted he said:
“I want you to be at my office again at the same hour to-morrow
afternoon.”
Peter was there at the time named, and the doctor took him in still
another direction, to a street near the water. Here, entering a narrow
but very high house, the doctor led him up a dark winding stair. It was
so dark that Peter had to grope his way, for he could not see a step
before him. They came at last to the garret, which the doctor entered
without knocking. The windows of this room opened toward the river, and
the masts of ships were visible rising above the roofs of the houses
that stood between. A seaman’s chest, a chair and a broken, propped-up
bedstead were all the furniture the room contained.
On the bed lay an old white-haired man. He had been a sailor, and his
seamed and rugged face still told of his hard life upon the deck, and
on the mast, amid wind and storm.
“What is the matter with him?” asked Peter, in a low voice.
“Nothing but old age,” replied the doctor.
“And what has he to live upon?” continued Peter.
“Only the wages of his weak and sickly boy,” said the doctor, “who
leaves him in the morning to go to his work, and returns at night when
his day’s work is done. The long hours between he spends here alone.”
The old man put his hand upon his breast, saying that he felt pain and
a smothering feeling there.
“And what do you do, my old friend,” asked Peter, “while you are lying
here all by yourself, if you want anything? Suppose you want a drink?”
“I do without it,” replied the old man.
The doctor leaned over the bed and talked kindly to him, comforting
him, and then placed a piece of money in his trembling hand.
As he and Peter came down the winding stair together the doctor said in
a low voice, “It is not likely he will suffer long.”
When they regained the street, the doctor told Peter there was yet
another visit they could pay that same afternoon if they quickened
their steps; and he led the way to a neighborhood not far off, where
some great cotton-mills stood. Here, in a small house, and living in
one little room, were two old women who were sisters. A tiny stove
stood in the room with about a double handful of coal burning in it. A
bucket partly filled with coal (which they bought by the bucket only)
stood beside it. A single strip of rag carpet lay along the middle of
the well-scrubbed floor.
[Illustration]
In a tin cup over the fire a small quantity of meal was boiling, and in
a bowl on the table was a little milk. A few pieces of bread were lying
near it. (His cousin’s elegant dinner here recurred to Peter’s mind.)
One of the old women was bedridden, but was now sitting up in her bed;
and both were at work unwinding great skeins of yarn, parting the
different colors and winding these up again into separate balls. This
was for one of the mills in the neighborhood. Both of the old bodies
were cheerful, and showed great pleasure when the doctor came in. The
well one bustled about and set out a chair for him, and another for
Peter. The doctor sat down and talked with them, and listened to all
they had to say.
“Sister has been a good deal better for the past week,” said the well
one, “and the mills are busy, and we have plenty of work.”
“But your rent?” asked the doctor. “It comes due soon, doesn’t it?”
“We have it all made up,” said the old woman, triumphantly. “It is in
yonder bureau-drawer, ready now. God has been very good to us. We don’t
want any help this time.”
It was nearly dark when the doctor and Peter came out of the little
house. As they were about to part, the doctor said:
“To-morrow I will take you to another quarter and introduce you to some
of my friends there.”
“I believe, my kind friend,” replied Peter, in a subdued voice, “that
this will be needless. Your wise treatment has reached the seat of the
disease. I feel my sight growing clearer every hour.”
Then, hastily bidding his companion “Good-bye,” Peter turned toward
his home. He walked with a brisk step, feeling, somehow or other, as
if he could hardly get there soon enough. As he entered the door he
heard the merry voices of his children up stairs. He went into the
dining-room. No one was there, but the fire was burning brightly in
the stove, and a plentiful evening meal was already spread upon the
table. Peter stood for a moment silent and alone. The sofa, the chairs,
all the objects around him—-not luxurious and elegant, but comfortable
and abundant—-looked different from what they used to look. The place
seemed filled with blessings.
“And is it possible,” he exclaimed, “my eyes have been so blinded that
I have never before been able to see them?”
Just then his wife came into the room. He went to her, took her hand
tenderly in his, and told her where he had been, what he had seen, and
how differently he felt.
“But,” said she, with a loving smile and an arch look, “how about those
badly-ironed collars that we heard of the other morning, and the
dusty steps, and the weak coffee?”
[Illustration]
“Oh,” he cried, “how could I ever let such trifles trouble me?”
“And then,” she continued, “the nursery carpet that is wearing out, and
the boy’s shoes, and the girls’ dresses?”
“As for them,” he said, “we will hope to get more when they are gone.
But with even half our present comforts and indulgences, and with you,
my dearest, and our precious children about me, I trust I may feel too
rich ever again to utter one complaining word.”
So the dark shadows were driven away from Peter Crisp’s spectacles, and
he and all his family ever after led a happier life, because he had
found what he never possessed before—A THANKFUL HEART.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE TWO APPLE TREES.
TWO apple trees that stood on opposite sides of the road, being both of
them neglected by their owners, used to sympathize with each other’s
misfortunes.
“Just look at the suckers that are allowed to spring up about my
roots!” said one.
“And see the great nests of caterpillars that remain undisturbed among
my branches!” said the other.
But after a while the farm on which one of the trees stood was sold,
and it soon became evident that its new owner was a very different
farmer from the old one. He began straightening up his fences,
whitewashing his buildings, and putting things to rights all over his
farm. His fields were ploughed, his garden planted, his fruit trees
attended to—among the rest, the apple tree that stood near the road.
Its dead wood was cut out, the caterpillars it had complained of were
cleared away, and the ground about its roots was loosened and enriched.
[Illustration]
As a consequence, when spring arrived, it was covered with blossoms,
and later in the summer loaded down with fruit.
But while all this was going on it had noticed a strange alteration in
its opposite neighbor. Formerly the two trees used to talk together
every day, but now very little passed between them. The one across the
road seemed unwilling to talk and grew more and more silent, until,
when autumn came and the great red apples were being gathered from the
branches of its old acquaintance, it would scarcely return an answer
when spoken to. The other bore this for a time, but at length could
bear it no longer, and then spoke out plainly, as follows:
“You will hardly answer me when I speak to you. What a change is this
in an old friend! Yet I have done nothing to make you dislike me. I
am left to imagine only one cause for it, and that is jealousy, and
regret, at my greater good fortune.”
“You wrong me,” replied the fruitless tree—“not in charging me with
unkind treatment, which I acknowledge, but in the motive you have
imputed it to. It is not because I am sorry for your good fortune, but
because I am ashamed of my own unhappy condition, that I am so silent.
I would not strip from you one green leaf or have you to bear one apple
less, but in looking at your prosperous state I am made more conscious
of my own poverty, and realize what a poor barren stock I am.”
“Pardon me,” said the other. “Instead of being angry I am sorry for
you, and hope with all my heart that by next spring you may fall into
better hands, and by autumn be more heavily loaded down with fruit than
myself.”
* * * * *
An appearance of ill-will does not always prove its existence. We
should be sure of the motive before judging the act.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE SPRING IN THE WOODS.
A SPRING of pure water bubbled up from the ground in the midst of
a wood, but the trees, after sheltering it for a season, began to
complain of it as an intruder.
“You take up too much of our room,” they said, “where more trees might
grow. Then, our underbrush, that we depend on for the future, is
trampled down and spoiled by the animals that come trooping every day
to your side. You have no right to occupy our space, and we warn you to
be gone.”
Hearing this, the spring sent word down to its hidden source, deep in
the ground, bidding its streams seek another outlet in a grove near by.
Soon afterward its waters began to disappear from the wood, sinking
lower and lower, until, instead of the glassy mirror in which the trees
used to see their branches reflected, only a dusty hollow remained.
Nor was this all. Hot and dry weather came on soon after, and the
trees, missing the moisture about their roots, many of them lost their
freshness and verdure, and some of them died.
[Illustration]
Meanwhile, the spring reappeared in the grove, with waters more
abundant than ever, and the trees there grew thicker and greener, and
bushes and wild flowers sprang up on every side. There, too, the birds
and the beasts, deserting the woods where they had formerly gone,
thronged to drink and rest in its shade.
* * * * *
Because we fear a little trouble and expense, or, it may be, the
humbling of our pride, we let those pass by our doors who would profit
us in the best things and perhaps prove to be angels entertained
unawares.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE DISTANT VIEW.
A MAN who came as a stranger into a country neighborhood bought a
cottage there which stood on rising ground. Before his porch, and
gently declining from it, was a velvet-like green sward, and farther
off a thick growth of trees on every side. These quite surrounded him,
and gave him from his cottage door a limited but beautiful prospect. A
neighbor who came to pay him a friendly visit, on seeing it, said:
“You are here in a little world of your own, with every object that is
disagreeable to look at shut out.”
But the man himself was not satisfied. Beyond the woods, on one side,
was a river, and beyond the river far-spreading green fields. He wanted
to bring these within sight. There was no way of doing this except by
cutting down some of his trees. So, regardless of what others might
think or say, he took his axe on his shoulder one morning, and went to
the spot where the trees stood that interrupted the desired view.
Upon examining them, he found they were among the handsomest on his
place. There was a chestnut already in tassel, an elm with spreading
top and fringed trunk, a sugar-maple that he knew would turn to crimson
and gold in the autumn, and beside it a tall evergreen. But he did not
hesitate. The end to be gained would more than compensate for his loss,
and he went to work with a strong arm and determined will, and soon
laid the trees low.
When the distant landscape burst upon his sight, he felt amply rewarded
for the sacrifice he had made. After this he was careful to keep the
avenue which he had cleared always open, coming down there again with
his axe whenever a young tree or a branch of an old one, or even a bush
or shrub, interfered with the view.
[Illustration]
And now it seemed as though he never wearied of looking at the river
and the green fields beyond. Every morning, before going to his work,
he stood a few moments gazing at them. Again, at the close of the day,
on returning to his cottage, he looked at them in the soft sunset
light. When working in his garden or about his lawn, they were in sight
all the time. And on Sundays, or whenever he had a few hours’ rest, he
would take his favorite seat before the door that looked out toward
that view.
Of course there were cloudy days when the view was interrupted, but
even then he used to gaze in that direction, knowing that the scene he
loved was there. And so he continued to do year after year. And though
you may hardly believe it when I tell you, yet it is true, that as the
years rolled on there came a changed expression upon his face—as if he
saw something which others could not see—which never again left it.
After this had become so evident (though unknown to himself) that his
friends and neighbors observed it, one of them made bold to ask him
whether there was anything more than a love of Nature that so attracted
him to the river and the green fields.
[Illustration]
Then for the first time he opened his heart to another, and said:
“You know, my friend, that I came to this country a stranger, but you
do not know that I came also an outcast, disinherited justly, and
banished from my Father’s house. That house stands across yonder river,
and through all these years I have been catching glimpses of it, and
hoping some day to return there. This reveals to you the reason for
what seems so strange in my life since I came here. And now I know that
I shall return thither. I am but a sojourner here, and am longing to
see my Father’s face—yes, and the face of my Elder Brother, who it is
that has brought about (at His own cost) a reconciliation between us.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE TWO VINES.
A MAN came out into his garden one spring morning to prune his
grape-vine. Wherever its branches were growing too freely, or in
a wrong direction, he cut them off. Then he bound them to a low
wooden frame he had placed there, so that they might grow only in
the direction he intended. Now, as the day was warm and the sap was
beginning to flow, the branches bled, as the vine-dressers say, in the
places where he had pruned them.
[Illustration]
It happened that just outside of the garden wall a wild vine was
growing, having twined itself around a tall forest-tree that stood
there. When this wild vine saw what was done to the vine in the garden,
it cried:
“I pity you, wounded and bleeding, and not allowed to grow aloft, as
your nature demands.”
“It is not because he delights in wounding me,” replied the other,
“that my master has done this. I was once a wild vine too, but he took
me up tenderly, and planted me in his garden, and has watered and cared
for me ever since. I am willing to submit myself to his hands.”
Not many weeks after this rich blossoms burst forth on both vines,
giving to each an equal promise of fruit. Before long the blossoms
dropped off and the embryo fruit appeared. As the summer advanced
_these were tried_. Such as were destined to ripen lived on through the
heat and the drought, and such as were destined to perish fell to the
ground.
At length autumn came. The wild vine had climbed up to the topmost
boughs of the forest-tree and was waving its unfettered branches in the
air, but on those branches were found only a few withered grapes. But
the vine in the garden, tied down to its low frame, was loaded with
purple clusters; and the gardener came, and gathered them into baskets,
and carried them to his home. Afterward he returned to his vine and
bound straw around it, to protect it from the winter’s cold. But going
through the forest with his axe in his hand, seeking for fuel, he cut
down the wild vine and cast it on the heap for the winter’s burning.
* * * * *
He who believes that a loving, and all-powerful Hand is ordering his
lot should see a token of future blessings in the visits of adversity.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE OLD CHESTNUT AND THE YOUNG OAK.
AN old chestnut tree that had been condemned to the axe a generation
ago, being overlooked by the woodman from year to year, still stood in
its place among the trees of the forest, and on the return of spring
feebly put forth a few leaves at the end of its branches.
A strong young oak that stood near, seeing this, said to it proudly:
“What is such a fag-end of life worth, any way? Why not give up the
struggle and die?”
[Illustration]
“It is not for us to die when we choose,” replied the chestnut, “but to
cherish what of life is left to us.”
A century rolled round. The chestnut had fallen and gone to dust,
but now the oak had grown old. A yawning cleft down its trunk showed
where the lightning had blasted it long years before. Its once mighty
branches were decayed, and broken off by winter storms; only here and
there a tuft of green remained amid the vast ruin. Viewing these sadly
one day, it said:
“I am made to look back a hundred years! It is my turn now to be asked
why I do not give up the struggle and die. Ah! how little I knew what
my own lot was to be when I mocked another with the question!”
* * * * *
Let us not add to the burden which old age will lay upon us hereafter
by want of sympathy for those who are bearing this burden now.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CORN-CRIBS.
A POOR man having died and left his widow with little children to
support, a neighbor of hers—who was known by the name of Kris, and who
was almost as poor as herself—borrowed a horse and cart to go around
among the farmers he was acquainted with, and beg some corn for her.
“All of them,” he said, “knew her husband and hired him now and then to
do day’s work; I’ll go and see what they will give.”
[Illustration]
He came to the first farmer, who listened to his story and without
saying a word went to his corn-crib, filled his bushel-measure heaping
full, and emptied it into the cart. Kris thanked him warmly for this,
but the man, not seeming to notice what he said, returned to his crib,
heaped up the measure once more, and emptied it also into the cart.
Then for the first time he spoke, saying:
“I can give to so worthy an object with a clear conscience. When she
wants more, come again.”
As Kris drove out to the road he said to himself:
“I’ve made a mistake: I ought to have borrowed a wagon instead of a
cart. This will be full presently, and I could just as easily have
hauled her a two-horse load.”
Turning in at the next gate, he told his story to the farmer there,
who, as soon as heard it, said:
“Why, if a man’s got any conscience at all, he can’t help giving to
such a hard case.”
Saying which, he walked to his corn-crib, but with not quite so brisk a
step as the first, and filled his bushel-measure, but not quite so full
as the other, and, handing it to Kris, let him carry it out and empty
it into the cart himself. Kris thanked him, but noticed that he did not
say he was welcome.
About half a mile farther on Kris came to the third farm. As he drove
in he met the farmer on the way to his barn. He stopped and listened to
what his visitor had to say.
“I thought maybe,” said Kris, closing, “you’d like to give her some
corn to help her out through the winter.”
[Illustration]
“Of course I would,” replied the farmer. “I hate tramps and beggars,
but she’s none of them. I knew her husband well; he gave an honest
day’s work for a day’s wages. Besides, it’s a duty to give. I’d do it
to ease my conscience if it wasn’t for anything else. Come over to the
crib.”
Kris followed him to the door and went in. The bushel-measure was lying
there, but the man looked around, as if something were still wanting,
and then hurried over to the stable.
“His big scoop is missing,” thought Kris. “He’s going to do the best
yet.”
In a moment he was back again carrying a peck-measure in his hand (it
looked scant even for a peck); filling which, he handed it to Kris,
who, mute with surprise, silently emptied it into the cart.
From this farm Kris drove on to the one beyond. He passed by the
farmer’s house—a comfortable stone dwelling—and turned into the
barnyard. As he did so he noticed how fat the cattle and the pigs
looked. The farmer came out to him, and Kris made his appeal.
“Well,” said the man, “I s’pose I’ll have to help too; and even if I
didn’t want to, my conscience would make me. But I should think such a
stout-lookin’, able-bodied woman ought to be able to help herself.”
[Illustration]
By this time they reached the corn-crib, which Kris noticed was full
up to the very top; and the farmer, gathering up a dozen ears in his
hands, pitched them into the cart, exclaiming:
“Whew! what a heap you’ve got there! Mind, Kris, don’t you come for any
more.”
Kris drove out of the gate and turned his horse’s head toward home.
“The cart’s too big, after all,” he said. “It’s of no use to go any
farther; the next one would want to take away some of what I’ve got.
It’s wonderful what a crop of consciences grows in these parts! But
I’ve a notion that a good deal of it’s only ‘cheat’ after all, and we
might as well call it by the right name.”
* * * * *
Men who can be satisfied without any conscience are very uncomfortable
without a base imitation of one to stand in its place.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE OLD CLOCK IN THE NEW HOME.
A CLOCK that had been handed down from generation to generation and
brought from the old country homestead to a new city home, as it was
being wound up one day, said, impatiently:
“I have been running for a hundred years. Let me rest now. Are not your
fathers, whom I served so long, at rest?”
“It shall be as you say,” replied its master, laying aside the key and
shutting up the glass door that enclosed its tarnished metal face.
In a few hours the old clock was silent. Its great leaden weights hung
suspended near the floor; its broad old-fashioned hands ceased to move,
and its pendulum, no longer flashing from right to left through the
little round pane of glass in front of it, hung motionless and still.
The day ended; the long night passed, and the morning appeared. The
same stirring sounds as on other mornings were ushered in from the
streets; the other clocks, within and without, went on striking as
usual. The family rose up for the duties of the day, but as they came
down to the morning meal each member stopped on the stairs and looked
regretfully at the old clock, saying:
“How we miss it! How strange it seems not to hear it going!”
“I lay awake last night,” said the mother, “listening for it to strike.”
And so the second day passed. But toward evening, as the master came in
sight, suddenly the old clock cried out:
“Come, wind me up and set me going again; and when at last I can go no
longer, take me to pieces and sell me for old brass. For I would rather
not be at all than to exist without taking part in the busy life that
is throbbing around me.”
[Illustration]
He who abandons his work (thinking to unburden himself) while he still
has the strength to perform it, lays down the lighter for the heavier
load.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE GREAT SECRET.
WE keep our hearts shut up, as it were, in a safe, or strong box, many
doors deep. The first door opens from the surface, or outside; it is
like the door to the vestibule of our house, and is open to all comers.
The second door admits to the halls and parlors, as we might say, and
is open to our acquaintances generally. The third door gives access to
the living-room of the family, wherever that may be; it is opened to
relatives and intimate friends. The door next to this admits into the
chambers where only the nearest and dearest may come.
[Illustration]
But beyond all these is another door, to which none in the house may
be likened; in this room are things which may not be shown—our most
secret thoughts and desires, the best and the noblest as well as the
lowest and the basest. The door to this room is never opened to human
eyes. And yet only the eye that can see within it discerns our true
character, for here, hidden away from mortal sight, dwells the real
man; and as the outward husk and shell are stripped off to come at the
kernel and the grain, so all the rest of us will be torn away and cast
aside when the final estimate comes to be made.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE HOUSE-BUILDER.
A CERTAIN man who owned a lot of ground determined to build a house on
it. There was a good quarry in his lot, but to get the stone out of
it required hard labor. This, however, was all that was needed; so he
went to work with a good will, and made a prosperous beginning. First
he laid the foundation, and then several courses of the superstructure.
But the toil was severe, the wall progressed slowly, and the work grew
wearisome.
[Illustration]
One day, while digging in his quarry, he discovered a new vein of
stone, which ran over his neighbor’s line, and he picked up a block
of it that came easily into his hand. He found that it was more
easily worked than his own, and that he could almost save the labor
of squaring, and dressing, by using it. The next day he took out some
more, until he had taken enough to lay one course of it all around the
walls of his house. But this carried him so far into his neighbor’s
premises that he dared go no farther; he filled up the opening he
had made with rubbish and earth, and went to work again on his own
land. Months, and even years, passed by; but he worked on faithfully,
day by day, and at last his house was finished. Then he furnished it
comfortably, and, taking his family with him, moved into it, to stay
there for the rest of his days.
Now, while his hands were busy and his mind engaged in building, he
never once thought of the course of stone that he had taken from his
neighbor. But after all was done, and his long task completed, as he
stood one day in front of his house, admiring it, he observed that
course. It had settled into a different color from the rest—not so
different as to be noticed by others, but enough to make it evident to
himself. He found the next day, as he passed through his garden, that
he saw it again; and after that it seemed to stand out conspicuously
whenever his face was turned toward his home. This began to annoy
him. It was only one course, to be sure; there were full fifty courses
in the wall between the roof and the foundation. Why did this single
one attract his attention before all the rest? His conscience answered
the question. It did not rightly belong there; it never had been, and
was not now, his own.
[Illustration]
A year passed from the time when his house was finished, then another
and another. It was astonishing how quickly they sped. Yet there was
not a day in all those years that his eye did not, some time between
the rising and the setting of the sun, rest on that course of stone.
At length old age crept on. He had time now to sit still and think of
the past, and he did not sleep at night as he used to. But both by
day and by night the course of stone was in his mind. Most willingly
he would have gone to his neighbor and paid him ten times its value
(for he had prospered and grown rich), but in doing so he would have
confessed himself a thief and disgraced his family for ever; he could
not do this. Or gladly he would have torn it from his walls and placed
it back in the quarry from whence he had taken it, but that was
impossible. So he lived on, brooding over it until it drove all better
and happier thoughts out of his mind, and at last he died, bowed down
and crushed, as it were, under its weight.
[Illustration]
There is an interest account, so to speak, running on against every
amount, be it small or great, that we have ever gotten dishonestly. And
the worst of it is that if it be not settled now we shall find it still
standing and accumulating in the long hereafter.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
PIGEONS.
SOME pigeons that had their home over a rich man’s stable came to visit
a pair that lived near by in a poor man’s barn.
“You’d better come and live with us,” said the rich man’s birds, “for
we not only have a beautiful new house with partitions inside for our
nests, but we’re fed every day on the best that the farm affords.”
“Who feeds you?” asked the poor man’s birds.
“Our master’s servants, of course.”
“But _our_ master,” replied the others, “feeds us himself. We thank you
for your invitation, but would rather stay where we are.”
Summer passed and cold weather came on, and one snowy morning the
pigeons at the barn were astonished to see their grand neighbors alight
near them again.
“We are of the same mind still,” the poor pigeons cried, “and can only
repeat what you have heard already. We will not go with you.”
“Ah!” said their rich neighbors, “we have not come, this time, to ask
it, but rather to ask whether you haven’t got a corner here in the
barn where we may come and stay; for our master has gone away for the
winter, and his servants have forgotten us, and we’re likely to starve
in our beautiful home.”
* * * * *
The nearer we get to the source of the good that we need, the more sure
we may be of a continued supply of it.
[Illustration]
THE CLOCK ON THE DESK.
A LITTLE round nickel-plated clock stood on a certain man’s desk
measuring out his hours of work. One day, after he had been wrestling
with his thoughts and vainly endeavoring to order them to his bidding,
he leaned back in his chair, and, setting them at liberty, let them
wander whither they would.
In a few moments, and while he still remained in this idle posture,
he was startled at hearing from his clock, instead of its accustomed
“Tick-a-tick!” the words, “Keep at it! Keep at it!”
“Do you mean those words for me?” cried the man, and then, before
the clock had time to answer, continued: “It is because I am resting a
moment you presume thus to rebuke me. Must a man be for ever at work?
May he not take time even to look round him, or to yawn or wait for a
new idea? Your words are insulting.”
[Illustration]
Here, being out of breath, he paused long enough for the clock to reply:
“Indeed, sir, I said nothing. You heard only my heart beat
‘tick-a-tick, tick-a-tick,’ as usual. When this stops, you know as well
as I that my life will be ended and my work for you done.”
“Pardon me,” said the man. “Because I deserved a rebuke, I was so quick
at finding one. Though you did not utter the words, they fit my case
well. I would that you ever might go on repeating them.”
* * * * *
When we feel conscious of deserving reproof, its arrow lights upon us
from many a bow that was drawn only at a venture.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE WATCH-DOG.
A MASTIFF that had received a severe kick from his master thus
soliloquized as he walked slowly and sadly toward his kennel:
“I guard his house by day and by night, securing for him undisturbed
rest, but hardly ever getting for myself so much as an hour’s sleep
at a time. He never comes near me that I do not show my pleasure by a
wag of my tail; and when he speaks to me and pats me on the head, my
delight is so great that I can hardly control myself, and behave as a
sensible dog ought to behave. And yet, because I happened, by accident,
to be in his way, he has thus ill-used and disgraced me! What a
shame, when he has the power so easily to make me happy that he abuses
it in making me miserable!”
[Illustration]
By this time the mastiff had reached his kennel, at the farther end
of the garden; but, as he was about entering it, one of his own pups,
that had been playing on the grass with a little terrier from the next
house, caught sight of him. In a moment both the pup and the terrier
let their tails drop and slunk out of sight. The old dog watched them
as they disappeared, and after pausing a moment said to himself:
“This ought not to be. The harsh treatment that I have received makes
me examine my treatment of others. I am afraid I’m as bad as my master.
It is because they are growled at and snarled at so often these pups
run away as if their innocent gambols might cost them a cudgelling. My
master did not mean it; yet when he kicked me, he did me a favor, for
so have my own faults been brought to my view, and from this very hour
I mean to correct them.”
* * * * *
Before we judge those who have the rule over us, let us stop and ask,
“What would they say whom we rule over?”
[Illustration]
THE OPENED EYES.
A BLIND man whose disposition had been soured by his misfortune refused
to credit anything his friends said about the objects that surrounded
him. He would not believe that the flowers he smelt were clothed in
brilliant colors, or that the birds he heard singing were covered with
beautiful feathers. He would not believe there was a regular succession
of night and day and light and darkness. He could give no reason for
his obstinate unbelief except that he could not imagine any of these
things; which, of course, was not to be expected of him, since he had
always been blind.
It happened that after a time the man recovered his sight; whatever had
obscured it seemed slowly to pass away. At first only a faint glimmer
of light was visible. This increased from day to day, until at length
the last film disappeared from before his eyes, and he looked out upon
the world and saw everything clearly.
Then he was like a person struck dumb and unable to speak with wonder
and astonishment. At this his friends followed him as he walked forth
unaided, and began to explain to him what he saw.
“Yonder,” they said, pointing up to the sky, “is the great sun that
we have so often told you about, though you would not believe us. But
for it your eyes would be opened in vain; you would still be in utter
darkness.”
[Illustration]
But the man, suddenly regaining his speech, cried out:
“Ah, my friends! I do not need to be told this now. Whereas all your
arguments failed to convince me while I was blind, now, though you
and all the world should tell me it was not the sun, I would know
differently. For I see him myself. He has shined into my eyes—yes, and
into my heart; and he is his own best argument. How can I remain in
ignorance of him while I am walking in his light?”
* * * * *
One clear view of the truth for ourselves is more convincing than all
that others can say to us in its favor.
[Illustration]
THE LANTERN-PEOPLE.
[Illustration]
I HAD been thinking how strange a thing it was that I disliked so many
people and liked so few. Only to look at some persons seemed enough
to put me out of humor and make me feel like saying cross things.
But there were others, though not near so many of them, whom I loved
to meet and whom I could hardly be cross to if I tried. I had been
thinking about this, when I fell asleep and had a dream.
I thought I was carried away to a strange country where it was always
dark. No morning ever came there, the sun never shone, and there were
no stars in the sky. Yet people were living there, and I could see
them walking about. But they were very strange people, such as I had
never seen before, nor heard of, nor even thought of. I called them
the lantern-people because they looked like great lanterns with lights
inside of them that shone through.
And they were of a very strange shape, for they had ever so many sides,
and on every side was a picture. Some were pretty and some were ugly
pictures. Every person I saw had both pretty and ugly sides.
Of course I was very much surprised and stood looking a long while, for
the people could not see me though I could see them and was close to
them. On some of their sides were pictures of snakes, wasps, and pigs;
on other sides, of doves, lambs, flowers, and such beautiful things.
And now I want to tell you a very curious thing about the way the
people acted when they met each other. I noticed, when a man met
another in the street, he would quickly turn around one of his sides,
so that the man he met could see it, and nothing else—that is, nothing
but the picture that was on the side turned toward him.
[Illustration]
While I stood watching I saw a man coming along who turned almost the
whole way around, so as to bring the picture of a dog in front, where
it could be most plainly seen. It was a bull-dog—one of the sort that
shows its teeth—very ugly and cross-looking. I could not understand
why he should take so much trouble to turn out that ugly picture (for
he had prettier ones that I could see) until I saw another man coming
toward him, who turned out a picture uglier still. It was of a bear.
As soon as they came close up to one another the pictures seemed to
be alive. I was astonished to see their eyes move and their mouths
open and shut, seeming to snap at one another. And all I could hear
were barkings and growlings until they were gone, the dog and the bear
trying to bite each other as far as I could see them.
[Illustration]
Next came a little girl. Happening to look behind her, she saw another
little girl following her. At once she turned round one of her sides,
that had the picture of a wasp on it. But the little girl who was
coming after her turned out the picture of a beautiful butterfly. As
soon as they met, the wasp began to buzz and dart out its sharp sting,
and I saw the butterfly fluttering and fluttering, till presently it
was scared away and the picture of a great spider came in its place.
Then the spider seemed to dart at the wasp, and the wasp tried to sting
the spider; and the little girls went off quarrelling as fiercely as
the two men had done.
Next I saw a young woman. She was prettier than any of the
lantern-people I had yet seen. I saw her coming from a long way down
the street, and she never turned her sides, no matter whom she met, but
always kept one picture in front, and that was of a dove. It had a ring
of black around its neck and an olive-leaf in its mouth. I thought to
myself:
“What a beautiful picture!”
Just then another young woman came up and pushed rudely against her,
and I saw this rude one turn out the picture of a snake. And the snake
hissed and darted out its forked tongue, but the dove would not go. All
it did was to coo softly and flutter with its wings and hold out the
olive-leaf.
[Illustration]
When the snake found that it could not frighten the dove away, it began
to creep off itself, as if ashamed; and what was my surprise to see,
presently, another dove come in its place! And the doves began to coo
to each other, and to look pleased and happy, and the two young women
took hold of each other’s hands; then they put their arms around each
other’s neck and kissed each other and so they passed happily by.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
After this I walked about the streets looking at the strange people I
met there, and, seeing a crowd of them going into a building that had
wide-open doors, I went in with them. I found it was a church. In a
little while the minister stood up in the pulpit and began to preach to
them about being kind to one another and loving one another, very much
as the ministers do that we hear. I was up in the gallery, and could
see all the people as they sat listening to him. As he went on in his
sermon I saw how they turned out their good sides, one by one, some
quickly, some more slowly, until hardly an ugly side could be seen in
the whole congregation.
[Illustration]
But no sooner was the sermon finished, and the blessing pronounced,
than there was a shifting round of sides again, some doing this before
they left their pews, some as they passed down the aisle, some as they
walked down the church-steps; so that most of them came out pretty much
the same as they went in.
[Illustration]
After leaving the church, I passed before a large private house where
a servant-man was standing at the door. As he could not see me I stole
by him softly and went into the house. I found everything very elegant
there. Beautiful furniture filled the rooms, and costly paintings
covered the walls. But I soon learned that these things were not for
use or enjoyment, but only for show.
The family was a fashionable one that had a great deal of company and
visited a great deal. The mother, a tall, fine-looking woman, was
evidently the ruling spirit among them. Whenever she and her daughters
were getting ready for a walk, or a drive, she turned out the picture
of a large peacock, and her daughters turned out little peacocks. I
followed them into the street, and as they walked along could see the
people bowing and smiling to them; but as soon as they had passed,
these same people made fun of them.
[Illustration]
In a second house that I entered the family was seated at dinner.
Though not so fine a house as the first, nor so expensively furnished,
I could tell at a glance it was a far happier home. I looked round to
see if I could discover the cause of this difference, and here again my
eye rested on the mother, who sat at the head of the table; but what
a contrast with the other! The dove was on her breast, and a brood of
doves on the breasts of the little ones who were gathered around her.
There was cheerful, innocent talk in which all took part, without a
word of unkindness for any one, present or absent.
I stayed about this house for the rest of the day—it was a pleasant
place to be in—and when, toward its close, the mother stole apart to a
little room alone, I peeped in and saw there a chair, and a table with
an open book on it, and a kneeling-cushion, well used, on the floor
beside the table. Then I said to myself:
“Perhaps here is the secret of the difference between this and the more
elegant home.”
I cannot close this account of what I saw while I was in that strange
country without telling of a difference that I noticed between the old
and the young people there. The young were constantly changing their
sides; the old did not change them nearly so often. It appeared that
if they had turned out their ugly sides for the most part during their
former lives, they lost the power, as they grew old, to draw them back
again. On the other hand, if they had struggled against the bad and
kept out the good, the good became fixed there.
[Illustration]
My dream seemed to last a long time, and I visited a great many places
and saw a great many persons that I have not told about here. But this
I noticed everywhere I went—that those who kept out their good sides
had the best time of it. They were contented and cheerful themselves,
and helped to make others so. The doves, as we have read, brought out
other doves, and the flowers brought out other flowers. Whoever turned
out these saw them turned out by other people also. And so, with a
pleasant prospect without and a kindly spirit within, the good-sided
people experienced a happiness which the ugly-sided people never knew.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
GRAND RELATIONS.
A BLACKBIRD that wanted to impress on his neighbor the wren a proper
sense of his great importance took occasion every now and then to
remark that he was related to still larger birds.
“My cousin the crow,” he would say, “did so and so,” or “invited me to
his nest at such a time.”
After hearing this over and over again, the wren answered one day,
“When I used to look at you alone and by yourself, you appeared as a
very large bird in my eyes; but since I’ve got to contrasting you with
the crow, you seem to have grown smaller even than myself.”
* * * * *
Better be satisfied with our own significance than seek to array
ourselves in the consequence of other people.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
FAIR AND FOUL WEATHER.
A SHOWER having come up suddenly while the chickens were scattered over
the barnyard, they ran from every direction to the chicken-house and
disappeared, one by one, through a hole near the ground that had been
left open for them to enter.
A young cock, however, that happened to be in an adjoining field, took
refuge under a tree, where he straightened himself up, letting his tail
droop, so that the water would trickle off from it. But when he found
that the shower did not pass over, as he expected, he too took to his
heels and joined the rest under shelter. And there they all stood,
chickens, ducks, and guinea-fowls, dolefully watching the rain.
After waiting for a time, and finding it likely to continue, the cock,
shaking out his feathers, said:
“I’m going out to hunt for my dinner.”
“What! in such a pour as this?” exclaimed an old hen.
“And what would you have us do?” replied the cock. “We cannot carry
umbrellas, like our master and mistress. And, for all we know, it may
rain the rest of the week.” So saying, he walked boldly out into the
shower.
Now, the wet having brought the worms to the surface, he soon picked
up a good meal; which the others descrying, they quickly came after
him, until the whole flock was scratching about the barnyard, quite
contented notwithstanding the rain. Seeing this, the rooster flew up on
a fence and crowed. Then, looking slyly at the old hen that had opposed
him, he said:
“Which is best—to work only in fair weather, or to keep on scratching
whether it rain or shine?”
* * * * *
He will gather most in the end who does not easily give way to
discouragement when success is hard to attain.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
WRECKAGE.
TWO men were walking along the sea-beach together. The sand, as far as
the eye could reach, was swept clean and smooth by the falling tide,
but here and there at intervals lay fragments of wrecked vessels, some
made of heavy timber, some of lighter weight. Now, the men, who were
both of them well on in years, lived in a port near by on that same
coast, and as they walked they recognized some of these wrecks.
“I remember the night when this came ashore,” said one, stopping before
a huge piece of keel half buried in the sand. “She was a fine ship,
well manned, and the bar on which she struck was laid down plainly on
the chart; but her master thought he could come close in, and yet
just miss it. But the current caught him, and he was lost.”
[Illustration]
Then, stopping before another fragment:
“And I recollect this one too: she was a stanch bark, and I saw
her heaving up her anchor on a fine morning with the promise of a
prosperous voyage; but she tried to go out without a pilot, and she too
came ashore. Ah, my friend!” the speaker continued. “As I look up and
down this coast, and see so many wrecks whose history I know, a gloom
settles over me that makes life seem, as I look back on it, more like a
time of clouds and storms than of pleasant, sunny weather.”
“There are wrecks enough to sadden us, that is true,” replied the
other; “but do not let us forget the good ships we have known that
sailed the seas for many a long year, and at last came back to lay
their old bones down in quiet waters on the flats behind our harbor.
Yes, and many another is still ploughing the deep, to return safe in
due time, bringing joyful crews and rich cargoes with them.”
* * * * *
The evil that sometimes darkens the path before us should not prevent
our seeing the good that is spread above, beneath, and around us on
every side.
[Illustration]
THE ROBIN.
A POOR widow who was all alone in the world earned her living by going
out to wash and scrub, day after day. She left her room early in the
morning, and did not return to it until night. Then she had but one
living thing to keep her company, a pet robin. That it might catch a
glimpse of the blue sky, from the narrow alley in which she lived, she
used to hang it on a nail quite outside of her window, before she left.
On her return she took it down and suspended it again near the head of
her bed.
One evening on coming home she found the cage with its door open, and
empty. After searching again and again, through every corner and cranny
of her room, thinking her bird could not have left her, she was forced
to admit it was gone.
Now, those who are surrounded with objects on which to bestow their
affections, know not what a loss such an insignificant creature may
be to one who has no other familiar thing to love. The poor woman
missed her bird when she awoke in the morning, when she went out to her
day’s work, and when she came back, tired and sad at heart, after her
work was over. The cage still hung near her bed; she looked at it and
grieved—yes, more than she ought to have done.
While it was thus with her she had, one night, a dream. She thought
she was walking through a forest. The air was pure, the shade was cool
and delightful, and every leaf around her looked fresh and green. She
stood comparing the scene, in her thoughts, with the crowded alley in
which she lived, when suddenly the silence was broken by a loud note
far above her head. She looked up, and recognized her robin. It was
leaping from bough to bough, and its song was not as it used to be,
with a note of sadness in it, but glad and full of joy—the song of
the prisoner set free.
[Illustration]
She awoke, rose up, took down the cage and put it in a closet out of
sight, not forgetting its former inmate, but thinking of it as she had
seen it, since its escape, in her dream.
“I am satisfied,” she said, “and would not call it back. Its prison
door has been opened; I will wait patiently until mine is opened for
me.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
RIDDLES.
THE ground was barren and wet, and covered with stagnant pools. Only
rank weeds grew on it, and venomous reptiles crawled through it. But
at length the husbandman came and labored over it. He dug trenches and
ditches that drained it, and turned a stream of pure water to flow
through it. Then he hedged it, and set up a fence around it; and now
flocks pasture there, and flowers bloom on every side.
* * * * *
A GARDENER planted some seed in his garden in the early spring, but
no sooner had it grown up than the frost nipped it. It sprang up a
second time, and a bird flew down and plucked off the tender shoot.
Once more it grew, but now, summer having come, the sun scorched it.
Nevertheless, because the root remained, it sprang up again and again,
until the gardener, rejoicing, gathered in his fruit.
* * * * *
A MOUNTAIN-STREAM ran over the edge of a precipice. In its descent
to the valley below it fell upon a point of projecting rock. On this
rock clods of earth were continually dropping from the ground it was
imbedded in. Sometimes they fell of their own weight, sometimes were
loosened by the foot of a wild beast in passing. There was never a day
that the rock was not soiled by them. But the stream, in flowing over
it, washed away each stain as soon as it appeared; so that to the eye
looking from above, it seemed always pure and clean.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE EMIGRANT’S WAGON.
AN emigrant who started in a new wagon for his far-off Western home
seemed to forget, because the wagon was new and strong then, that it
would ever wear out. As a consequence, he was very careless in his way
of using it, driving as fast down hill as up, and over rough places as
smooth. Sometimes he raced with other wagons, and occasionally loaded
his own so heavily and drove so recklessly, it was upset.
[Illustration]
In spite of all this ill-usage, however, the wagon seemed to remain
almost as good as new until it had travelled over about half of its
journey, when it began to show the effects of abuse. First some
rivets broke, leaving the floor-boards loose; next a spoke in one of
the wheels began to rattle; then a tire rolled off. After this, one
breakage followed another so rapidly that its owner was often forced
to stop for repairs. Neither could he always make these by himself, but
was obliged to call on the blacksmith and the wheelwright to help him.
As he waited at their shops day after day he could not help thinking of
his past folly, and saying to himself:
“Oh that I had the first part of the road to go over again!”
But, as this was impossible, it only remained for him to use the utmost
care while passing over the portion that was left.
And so he did, creeping along slowly, avoiding every little jolt and
rut by the way, and often turning out to let others, who had started
after him, pass by. For the farther he went, the weaker his wagon grew,
until it fell into such a decrepit state that it was threatening all
the time to break down under him, and travelling in it, instead of
being a pleasure, as it was at first, became only labor and pain.
But at last, though in miserable plight, he came to his journey’s end.
It is true that his wagon could not have remained new until then, no
matter what care he had taken of it; on the contrary, it must have been
well worn, and old, beside, for it had come a great distance and been a
long time in doing it. But if he had used it properly, and as a wagon
ought to be used, from the start, without doubt it would have carried
him all the way safely and comfortably.
[Illustration]
And then what a different account of his coming would have been
written! For, in the first place, he could have given the time to
pleasanter things that, as it was, he had to spend in patching up his
wagon. Then he could have occasionally helped some poorer and more
heavily-loaded emigrant that he came up with along the road. And lastly
(beside escaping numerous bruises and pains) he would have been saved
many poignant regrets and recollections, which added greatly to the
burdens he had to bear during the latter part of his journey.
* * * * *
We are all emigrants, and our bodies are the wagons given us to travel
in. If we abuse them in youth, we shall ride uncomfortably for it in
our later years.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
BIG AND LITTLE LANTERNS.
TWO countrymen who were neighbors started out on a dark night for the
nearest market-town, each carrying a basket of butter and eggs and
garden-produce on his arm. They took different roads, which were,
however, of about equal lengths. One of the men—the taller and stronger
of the two—carried a large and heavy lantern on a pole high above his
head, by means of which he was enabled to see far over the road in
front of him; and he set out with long and rapid strides.
The other man carried a light and small lantern, which he held down
close to the ground, by his side, so that he could see no farther than
the spot on which to plant his foot, as he moved on more slowly and
cautiously, step by step.
Some time during the night the latter reached his destination and
quickly sold out his basketful of produce to the early risers of
the town; but afterward, on looking around for his neighbor, was
surprised to learn that he had not yet appeared. He waited a while,
and then, fearing the man had met with some disaster—for the two were
friends—started back to find him; and about midway of the road he found
him, sure enough, fallen down into a pit that he had not seen, because,
instead of looking well to the ground that was close around him, he
was, by means of his great lantern, gazing far ahead.
But, though he could not get out, happily none of his bones were
broken; and when his friend had torn a rail from a fence near by and
thrown it to him, he managed to clamber up the side and escape from his
trap. Yet his butter and eggs were spoiled and his lantern damaged,
and, as he was badly bruised by the fall, he begged his neighbor to
remain with him, saying:
“There is nothing left for me but, by your help, to hobble back to
where I started from as best I can.”
[Illustration]
And so it came to pass that he who was the better furnished and more
confident at the start, came out a good deal worse off at the end.
* * * * *
Not always does he who can see the farthest travel most safely; and a
lowly talent well improved may gain more than a lofty one wasted or
misapplied.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE CAT AND THE TIGER.
A CAT that was a pet in a farmer’s family, understanding from the talk
of the children that a show of wild animals had come to the neighboring
village, stole off one morning to see it, and, creeping in under the
edge of the great canvas tent, proceeded to walk around the ring and
look in at the cages.
She had not gone far when she came opposite to the tiger’s cage, and,
looking up, saw there a creature of her own species so powerful,
so immense, and withal so beautifully marked, that she was lost in
admiration and felt almost ready to bow down and worship it.
[Illustration]
“Great king of our race,” she cried, “I admire, and am willing to obey
you!”
But the tiger, insensible to her praise, replied with contempt:
“You poor little mouse-eating creature, do you come here to claim
relationship with one so great and strong as I am?”
At this the cat, quickly regaining her composure, answered:
“If your strength is so great that it must be restrained, and causes
you to be shut up where it is only a torment to you as you walk up and
down before the bars of your cage, then I would rather be as I am, weak
and little, but suited to my place in the farmer’s kitchen.”
* * * * *
The qualities which make men great often make them miserable while they
see around them those of lowlier station, and humbler abilities, more
happy and useful than themselves.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHARITY.
A CERTAIN rich man appointed an hour when the poor people of his city
had permission to call at his house and ask for charity. When the hour
arrived, the man sat in his parlor, while his servant stood at the door
to question those who called and report what they said to his master.
The first one who came was a day-laborer. He was willing to dig or to
carry, or to work at anything he could find, but he could find nothing.
To him the rich man sent a piece of silver.
The second one was a sailor. Only a few weeks before, he had sailed,
full of hope, out of the harbor; but his ship was wrecked in a storm,
and he saved only the clothes that covered him. To him also was sent a
piece of silver.
The one who came next had seen better days; he had owned the little
house he lived in, with enough out at interest beside to keep the wolf
from its door. But misfortune had robbed him of all, and now he was in
want. To him were sent two silver pieces.
After him came a mechanic who long ago had worked for the rich man’s
father, and helped to build the beautiful house that his father once
lived in. To him the rich man sent a piece of gold.
Then came an old man who was still erect and vigorous, but with silvery
locks and flowing beard. In his younger days he had been a merchant. He
well remembered the rich man’s father when he was a merchant too, and
told of his honor and influence, and spoke feelingly of the favors he
had often done him. To him the rich man sent two golden pieces.
When the next person called, the servant came in and told his master
that this one seemed to be the most needy of all. He was bowed down
with age and leaning upon a staff, and had travelled a long and weary
journey from the place where the rich man’s father was born, and used
to live before he came to the city and made his fortune.
[Illustration]
“Your master’s father and I were boys together,” he said, “and, in
truth, I was a near relation to him, and so I am to your master. But
sickness and misfortune have left me without bread to eat, or a place
to lay my head.”
But when the rich man heard this sad story, he looked at his watch,
saying:
“The hour is past that I appointed to listen to the poor. Go tell the
man he is too late; and when he is gone, shut the door, and bolt it
after him.”
* * * * *
If we will analyze our motive in giving, and take from it all that
issues of pride, we shall, many a time, be astonished to find how
little is left.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE DAY-LABORERS.
A CERTAIN land-owner called two of his hired servants early in the
morning and sent them out to work in his field. On the way there one of
them said to himself:
“Though I do not care for my master, I care for the wages he will pay
me; therefore I will do a good day’s work, not for him, but for myself.”
But the other man said:
“Though I take wages, my master’s profit is dearer to me than my own;
therefore the work that I do is not so much for myself as for him.”
[Illustration]
So the men went out into the field to do their master’s bidding. And
while they labored there the sun rose up high above them, and his
fierce rays beat down on their heads. Yet they did not rest from their
labors, but toiled on until he passed through the heavens and began
slowly to descend again. And in the evening, after he had sunk below
the horizon, they came and stood before their master to give account of
the day.
The first one said:
“I have ploughed deep in your field and cast out the heavy stones that
were buried there.”
The second one said:
“I have gathered up the stones, and carried them to the edge of the
field, and set up a strong fence around it.”
[Illustration]
And as the master looked at their soiled and toil-worn garments and
their sunburned arms and hands, he knew that what they told him was
true. But when he looked in their faces, on one was the expression of
coldness and on the other was the expression of love. Then he gave to
each of them his wages, but the one who loved him he called into his
house, to be with him and wait on him continually.
* * * * *
The work brings the wages, but the motive the reward.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE ARTIST’S ANSWER.
A MAN who had accompanied an artist around his studio, admiring his
pictures, exclaimed,
“What an easy and privileged life is yours, calling forth and putting
into visible shape such beautiful forms from day to day! You give
delight to others, it is true, but surely the largest share must remain
for yourself.”
Said the artist,
“Name to me some object in nature that you admire.”
“This rose,” replied the other, “which you have placed as a model on
your table.”
“We will take that,” said the artist. “Now, what is its history? First,
the parent slip was laid in the ground, and at once began its struggle
for life. It put forth tender roots, doubtful of the result, but the
soil received them kindly, and it lived. Then the tiny stalk appeared
above, and at length an embryo bud. But suppose the sun had scorched
this bud or the storm destroyed it? They destroyed many another, yet it
was spared, and at last opened in full bloom as you see it here.
“Now, if the plant that bore it could speak, what would it say?
Something like this: ‘The rose you admire did not spring up uncalled,
like a beautiful thought, but is the result of slow development.
I could not but labor to bring it forth, for such was the work
appointed me. But the throes of effort were needed, and, now that
it is perfected, my delight is not in looking at it as a brilliant
flower, but as the fruit of my labor, hoping it may fill its place
among beautiful things and accomplish that for which it was called into
being.’
“So, my friend,” continued the artist, turning to his companion, “if
you think that these pictured forms which you delight in were of easy
creation, springing up spontaneous like a passing emotion, you have in
what the flowers says my answer.”
* * * * *
Each beautiful work costs labor, but how much only he knows whose hands
have formed it.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE HEMLOCK AND THE SUGAR-MAPLE.
A SUGAR-MAPLE tree and a hemlock grew close together, high up on the
side of a mountain. All summer they were, alike, covered with green,
so that they could hardly be distinguished one from the other. But as
autumn approached, the maple put on gayer colors. Branch after branch
changed to orange, and crimson, and gold, until the whole tree seemed
to be robed in these gorgeous tints. Seeing this, the hemlock said
discontentedly to its neighbor:
“Why am I not beautiful like you? While your branches are growing
brighter every day, mine do not change at all, unless it be to a duller
hue. I am tired of this stale, old-fashioned green.”
But the maple made no answer.
[Illustration]
A little while after this there was a change in the weather. Heavy gray
clouds covered the sky. A cold rain came on, and the sun was not seen
for several days. And now the leaves of the maple began to wither and
lose their bright hues, and as the gusts of wind shook them they fell
in showers from the branches. Then the maple, looking down upon them,
said to the hemlock:
“You envied my beauty, but where is it now? See the remains of it lying
scattered over the ground! My branches are being left bare for the long
winter’s cold, while yours are still clothed with their thick, warm
foliage.”
* * * * *
He whose good fortune we covet has also, linked with it, some
compensating evil which we would not be willing to take off his hands.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
BREAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL.
A MAN who was strolling through the country for his own enjoyment
came to the top of a hill, where he stopped to admire the view. While
he was standing there a laborer with pick and shovel on his shoulder
and dinner-basket on his arm passed by. The man spoke to him and the
laborer answered civilly, but, hurrying on, was soon out of sight.
After viewing the prospect from the hilltop, the man proceeded on his
way until he came to a waterfall on the edge of a wood. Here he rested
for a good while watching the stream break into foam and spray as it
flowed over the rocks into the deep basin below.
From here he proceeded along the lonely road, wondering what beautiful
object would next appear, when presently he saw, spread out before him,
a lake of blue water with bushes and wild flowers growing around its
edge. It was almost noon by the time he was satisfied with gazing on
this charming scene.
Then he started on his ramble again, but had not gone far when he spied
the laborer who passed him earlier in the day, digging away with his
pick and shovel in a rocky field beside the road. Leaning against the
fence, the pleasure-seeker stopped, and said:
“Rather hard work grubbing at these stones?”
“You are right,” replied the laborer, “but nothing else will bring them
out of the ground.”
“This is a pleasant country to look at,” continued the other, “but not
to make your living out of, I should think.”
“You’d say so if you tried it. I suppose you’re a stranger about here?”
“Yes; this is my first visit, and I’m just sauntering along feasting
on the beautiful view. You people who live in the country don’t half
appreciate its charms.”
[Illustration]
Here the laborer, looking up at the sky and seeing the sun just over
his shoulder, dropped his shovel, and, going to a shady spot beside
a spring, where he had deposited his dinner-basket, opened it and
began to eat. His new acquaintance looked on until he had seen slice
after slice of bread and meat emerge from the clean white napkin and
disappear, when he said:
“My friend, would you mind sparing me a bit? This walk has made me
hungry.”
“Well, now,” replied the laborer, “you’ve been feasting on the view all
the morning, while I’ve been grubbing at the stones. If I give you my
dinner, then you’ll have two feasts, and I’ll have none.”
* * * * *
If we cultivate our taste for the beautiful, to the neglect of earning
our bread, we cannot expect those who deny themselves this luxury, to
supply our needs when we come to want.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE HARPER.
A HARPER stood before the door of a house and played a number of tunes
without seeming to attract the attention of any one within until he
played a sad and plaintive air, when an upper window opened and a hand
reached out and dropped a coin into the hat that he held beneath.
From this house he went to another, and played the same air; but no
notice was taken of him until he changed from it to a more cheerful
tune, when a piece of money was again thrown to him.
After this he was careful to note down in a little book that he carried
what sort of music pleased the inmates of the different houses in his
round; and whenever he selected a new tune, it was always with some
special hearers in view, to whom he went and played it as soon as it
was learned. In this way he was kept busy from day to day, and by means
of his harp earned a good living.
Now, although he played a variety of tunes to please many different
hearers, he had strong preferences of his own. There were a few of his
pieces that he loved better than all the rest, and at the houses where
these were played his music was at its best, because he played it out
of his heart.
So, one day, as he was trudging along with his harp on his back, he
said to himself:
“A portion of my work is a joy and delight to me, but the rest is
labor and toil. Why should I not play that music only that I love, and
to those alone who can appreciate it? In it lies not only my chief
pleasure, but my real power as well. I am resolved henceforth to adopt
this plan.”
[Illustration]
So he gave up all but the few tunes in which he himself delighted,
and played only at the houses where these had been enjoyed. But in a
little while he noticed that he was not welcomed at these houses as he
used to be, and the cause (though he was loath to acknowledge it) was
not hidden from him. His favorite airs, by their sameness and constant
repetition, had ceased to stir his own heart as they once did; hence
his music had lost its fervor, and with this its power over the
hearts of others. Then he said to himself:
“The plan which necessity imposed on me was better than my own. Its
discords tended to heighten its harmonies. Experience having taught me
this, I will now return to that plan.”
So he took up all his old pieces, practising them over again, and
playing them, as he used to do, from door to door. And in thus doing
(mingling the bitter with the sweet) he soon prospered again.
* * * * *
In a higher state of being we shall be able to sustain the purest joys
uninterruptedly. But here, that we may only taste of them, our joy must
alternate with sorrow—our pleasure, with pain.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE UNAPPRECIATED GIFT.
A HUSBANDMAN was at work in his field, earning his living by the sweat
of his brow, when there came a man carrying a young tree in his hand,
which he planted at one side of the field, saying:
“Give this the space that it needs, let it spread and grow, and wait
patiently: in due time its fruit and shade will repay you;” having said
which, he departed.
The husbandman heard the man’s words, but went on with his labor from
day to day without much regarding them. The tree remained where it had
been planted, putting out new branches and growing higher and stronger.
But after a time strange doubts and suspicions concerning the tree
entered the husbandman’s mind. As it took up more ground, he looked on
it grudgingly, and said to himself:
“This is not a fruit tree at all, but a thorn. If I let it stand, it
will send up its evil shoots all over my field.”
Then, taking his axe in his hand, at one stroke he severed the stalk
from the roots.
After this the seasons came and went as they ever had done. The
husbandman sowed in the spring and reaped in the harvest. And so he
continued to do from year to year, until his labors began to tell upon
his strength, and he felt stealing upon him the infirmities of an old
man. His field still yielded its crop, but was bare and sunny, without
a sheltered spot in which he could sit down and rest.
It happened one day after hours of toil that he sank exhausted, and
slept even under the burning rays of the sun. In his sleep he dreamed
that he was sitting in the shade. Over him green branches were spread.
They were loaded with fruit, which hung so near the ground that he put
forth his hand as he sat, and plucked and ate. Birds were also singing
in the branches, and a cool breeze passed through them, fanning his
brow. He said:
“Surely these have been growing, and their shadows deepening, to cover
my head and refresh me in my old age.”
[Illustration]
As he spoke suddenly the man who had long ago appeared to him again
stood before him, saying:
“Such would have been the tree that I planted on this spot had you not,
in unbelief and self-will, cut it down.”
The husbandman awoke from his sleep and found it was only a dream, and
that he was still lying alone and unsheltered under the burning rays of
the sun.
* * * * *
Not recognizing the Sender, we refuse the gift, to bewail our folly
when it is too late.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE WORN-OUT TEAM.
TWO horses, a bay and a gray, were bred on the same farm. Being
nearly of an age and about equal in size, they were mated in harness,
and, working well together, were kept as a pair. They went to the
plough, the harrow, and the hay-wagon season after season. In this
close companionship there grew up something of an attachment between
them, although they differed in disposition. The gray was patient and
uncomplaining, while the bay, though quite as good a worker, was not of
so good a temper.
[Illustration]
The seasons came and went. In the spring they toiled together turning
up the heavy sod, in the autumn hauling in great loads of hay and
grain, until at length, as years passed by, their bulky forms began
to shrink and ribs and thigh-bones to appear. More than this, the
gray lifted one hind leg higher than formerly, giving a hint of the
string-halt, and the bay panted so violently after a short journey as
to suggest a thought of the heaves. But they had done their share of
work, and the farmer was not the man to sell them off now to some hard
fate: they were allowed to stand in the stable or given lighter tasks,
while a pair of young horses, that had come on in the mean while, were
put to the heavy work about the farm.
One summer day, while the old horses were resting in their stalls, the
hay-wagon came in with a load from the field. As it drew near the barn
the farmer’s son shouted to encourage his young team up the rise that
led on to the barn-floor, and the old pair heard them, as they entered,
pounding overhead.
“That is what we used to do,” said the bay, “until they put the colts
in our place.”
“We never thought then of getting old and past work,” said the gray.
“But we’ve come to it now.”
“Many a heavy load have we hauled up that rise before them.”
“Yes, I think of it often,” said the bay, “and of something else too: I
think of that hard hill over across the bridge. I was not always good
to you when we were climbing up that.”
“You always pulled your full share, though.”
“But I needn’t have put back my ears and snapped at you angrily every
few steps.”
“Let that go; think no more of it,” said the gray.
“And not only the hill do I remember,” continued the bay, “but many a
hot day on the road, while you were doing your best, I jerked in the
harness and jeered at you because my nose happened to be a few inches
ahead.”
“Think of the pleasant trots we had together, instead,” persisted the
gray—“the gambols in the clover-field, and the rolls in the sand down
beside the creek. As for the rest, they’re past and forgiven; let them
be forgotten.”
“You may forgive them,” said the bay, “but I can’t forgive them myself.
And now, while I stand here by your side, both of us grown old, they
come back and worry me—yes, more than ever the heavy loads did, or even
the driver’s whip.”
* * * * *
Youth is the time of anticipation and of sowing the seed; age is the
time of recollection and of reaping the fruits of what we have sown.
[Illustration]
THE WISE FARMER.
A FARMER came into possession of some new land. It consisted of three
fields that lay adjoining each other, but on going to examine them he
was astonished at the difference in their quality. The first was stony
ground; the next, though not stony, was of a thin and light soil; while
the third, lying lower and being meadow-land, was covered with rich,
dark loam. As a whole, the ground was not what he had expected, and
in his disappointment he hardly knew what to do. But after consulting
with his wife, who was a prudent adviser, he concluded to do his best
with all three fields, and not, on account of its inferior quality, to
neglect either one.
[Illustration]
The stony field was hard to cultivate. The ploughing was laborious, and
so were all the other processes of farming it. Yet he persevered till
it was well seeded down with grass and clover. The middle field—the one
with the thin light soil—required a great deal of help. He had to spend
largely for different kinds of fertilizers, and afterward was at much
trouble in clearing the ground to receive them. But by hard work he got
this field also planted with oats in good time.
The rich loamy field, which from the start he had longed to begin on,
was left, purposely, till the last. As he took down the bars and drove
his team into it day after day he chuckled to himself, saying: “I do
love to farm this field!”
It required but half the expense and labor to make it ready that either
of the others required, and no sooner had he drilled in the wheat than
there came a shower that made it spring up, so that he could almost see
it growing.
The planting being done, he waited patiently for the harvest. Then the
stony field yielded him a good crop of hay, which he got safely into
his barn without a single wetting; the field with the thin light soil
gave a fair crop of oats—enough to feed his stock during the winter;
and the rich loamy ground yielded a splendid crop of wheat—sufficient
not only to furnish his family with flour, but also to let him sell a
portion, that brought in enough money for all his other needs.
[Illustration]
“How much better are we off,” he said to his wife one day after the
harvesting was over, “that we took the land willingly, just as it came
to us, instead of finding fault with it and neglecting the poorer
fields because they did not equal our expectations! And, now that we
have got them so well started, we may expect them, with proper care, to
go on improving from year to year.”
* * * * *
Among those who come under our care (our own children, it may be) we
shall find some less answerable to our wishes than others. But our duty
to all is alike, and by performing it we shall not only do justice to
them, but secure a recompense, in the end, to ourselves.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
WAYFARERS.
A MAN who had an ugly limp in his gait, but was nevertheless a good
walker, sat down on a bench by the wayside one day, saying, impatiently:
“This lameness embitters my life. I cannot for a moment lose sight
of it. I go limping along, my legs are unlike, my steps are uneven,
and, though I do not suffer positive pain, I very often experience
discomfort. Beside all this, I fear, as I grow older, my halt will
increase upon me, so that I shall be even more of a cripple then than
I am now. How I wish I could change places with yonder cheerful-looking
man who is coming this way with such an even, measured tread!”
As he ceased speaking the man he referred to suddenly turned toward the
bench on which the speaker was resting and took a seat at his side, but
rather closer than was needful, as they two had it alone.
“Excuse me,” said the new comer as he felt himself crowding his
neighbor; “I am blind, and, although I know this path so well that I
can walk along it without a guide, I could not see that another was
seated here before me.”
“I am sorry for you,” said the lame man, feelingly. “Surely, no one
would suspect you were blind from your firm step and your cheerful
countenance. May I ask how it is you preserve so happy an aspect under
so great a misfortune?”
“By looking at what I have, and not at what I have lost,” replied the
blind man. “Though I cannot see, I can hear the voice of my friends,
the sound of music, the singing of birds. I can taste three good meals,
and enjoy them, every day. I can smell a rose in bloom farther than you
can, for all my senses that remain are keener for the absence of the
one that is gone. My health, too, is good, and I have learned to work
so skilfully at basket-making that, with a little I have beside, I am
able to pay my own way without being a burden to others. Thus, in the
apportioning of my lot, so much more has been given than taken, that I
consider life’s bargain a good one for me.”
[Illustration]
Having thus spoken, the blind man, after a few moments’ rest, bade his
new acquaintance “Good-bye,” and, rising from the bench, felt his way
cautiously, counting each step, until he reached the middle of the
sidewalk, when he wheeled around and proceeded on his way with the same
measured tread that had first attracted his companion’s attention. As
he disappeared the latter said:
“What is my limp, which still permits me to walk wherever I will,
to his blindness, which shuts out every ray of light? Yet he is the
happier of the two! After all, blind as he is, I was doing myself no
unkindness in wishing I could take his place.”
* * * * *
How often does he who has the most go poor because he is unconscious of
it! while he who has the least is made rich by being able to appreciate
what he has.
[Illustration]
OTHER BIRDS’ FEATHERS.
A GANDER and a cock lived on the same farm. They were young and
handsome birds, each well satisfied with himself, but, unfortunately,
jealous of the other. This made them always ready to pick a quarrel.
Chancing one day to meet beside a brook that ran by the farmhouse, the
cock straightened himself up and said:
“Look at my long and graceful tail-feathers, and compare them with the
short stubby quills in your tail.”
To which the gander replied:
“Look at the soft white down on my breast, and compare it with the
frowsy black stubble on yours.”
“I can crow,” said the cock, “but you can’t.”
“I can swim,” said the gander, “and you can’t.”
“I can!” “I can!” cried both birds in a rage; and with that the cock
jumped into the water and nearly drowned himself in attempting to swim,
and the gander strutted up and down trying to crow.
Just then a goose, with her brood of goslings passing by, looked at
them, and said:
“My children, take warning from these two fools. Be content, when you
grow up, to wear your own feathers, and to let other birds wear theirs.”
* * * * *
There are always persons about us who possess some gifts that we lack.
To deny them credit for these only makes our defects more plain, and
brings disgrace on what good qualities we have.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE NIGHT-WATCHMAN.
A CERTAIN man who prided himself upon his infidel opinions desired to
employ a watchman around his house during the night. This it was no
more than prudent for him to do, as he was very rich, keeping up an
expensive establishment and known often to have a large amount of money
about his person.
[Illustration]
Many came to apply for the position he wanted filled, some of whom
he dismissed at a glance, some after a brief interview; but others
appeared well qualified for the place. Of these, three came equally
well recommended, and he determined to make his choice from among
them. He therefore took them apart separately, and after inquiring more
particularly into their former occupations and history wrote down the
places of their residence, and also, without letting them know it, a
careful description of their dress and appearance. As soon as they were
gone he called three of his servants to him and said:
“You know I am looking for a man as night-watchman; I think he can be
found among those who have just left, and I want you to assist me in
making a selection. To-morrow will be Sunday. Be up, all of you, bright
and early, and one go and stand near the lodging-place of each of these
men. Watch them when they come out in the morning, keep near them all
day, and come here at night and report what you have seen.”
The servants, promising obedience, retired, and the next night,
according to orders, returned to their master.
“And what have you to tell about your man?” he said to the first who
appeared.
“He spent the day in the country,” replied the servant.
“Sensible fellow!” said his master. “And did you go with him?”
“Indeed I did—got off at the same station, took dinner at the same
table, and came back in the same train.”
“And how did he behave himself?”
“Like a sensible fellow, sir, as you called him. He had a friend with
him, and they just smoked their cigars and lay about in the shade all
day; took a glass of beer now and then—nothing more. I believe he’s the
very man that would suit you.” Here the second servant came in.
“And what have you to say?” asked his master.
“My man,” replied the servant, “went to the tavern.”
“He’s none the worse for that, if he didn’t take too much after he got
there.”
“And he didn’t; only three glasses—I counted them—between breakfast and
dinner.”
“Little enough!”
“You’d have thought so if you had only seen how his friends pressed
him, a dozen times, to take more.”
“But he wouldn’t?”
“They couldn’t make him. He’s just the man for a watchman, I’m sure.”
The third servant now appeared.
“And where did your man go?” asked his master.
“To church,” replied the servant.
“Did you follow him?”
“You told me to, and I did, and sat in the pew right behind him.” At
this the other men laughed.
“Well, did he gape around at his neighbors, and then fall asleep, like
the rest of the hypocrites who go there?”
“No; I must tell you the truth.”
“Let’s have it, then.”
“I watched him and never took my eyes off him, and I tell you he’s in
earnest.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s among them that believe there’s a God, and have made up
their mind to serve him.”
“That’ll do,” said the master. “Yon have made your report, and now you
may go.”
The next night there was a new watchman around the rich infidel’s
house. It was he who went to church on a Sunday.
* * * * *
When they must commit themselves, or their substance, to another’s
keeping, both good men and bad men want good men to serve them.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
SINGLE AND DOUBLE.
A FARMER who owned a lazy horse was riding him barebacked one day, when
the beast began to complain of his load, saying:
“Such a heavy man as you ought to ride in a wagon and have a pair
instead of one poor overworked horse to carry him.”
The farmer made no reply, but jogged on quietly. Presently he came up
with one of his neighbors afoot. The farmer slackened his pace and the
man walked beside him in the road, the two talking together about their
corn, and oats, and clover. They had not gone far before the farmer
noticed a limp in his neighbor’s gait.
“What is the matter?” said he.
“A sharp peg in my boot,” replied the other, “seems to object to my
walking.”
[Illustration]
“Then you’d better get up and ride behind me,” said the farmer.
“That I will,” said the man—“gladly; and thank you.”
As he clambered on to the horse from the top of a fence beside which
his friend had stopped, the animal said to himself:
“Ah! I did not know when I was well off. Willingly now would I carry my
master alone, but another behind him almost breaks my back. Never again
will I complain of my load until I have asked myself how I should feel
if it were suddenly made twice as heavy.”
* * * * *
When real discomforts come, we look back and wonder how we could have
fretted under those which were only imaginary.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE BOASTFUL FLY.
A FLY that had lodged on a crumbling wall, seeing other flies swarming
around it, began to boast about their numbers, saying:
“Look at us! Multitudes in this little space! We are everywhere—in the
garden among the flowers, in the field amid the clover, in the woods
darting in and out of the sunbeams that fall between the branches.”
Here a humming-bird lighted in a trumpet-vine that grew over the wall.
Said the fly:
“You are a traveller, sir, I hear, and have been to other countries.
Pray, have you ever been in any place where there are no flies?”
“Never,” said the humming-bird.
“Oh that I had your strong wings,” cried the fly, “to carry me where I
could see the flies that live far away as well as those that live here!
But you have seen them; maybe, now, you can guess how many flies there
are?”
“Impossible!” said the bird. “You cannot be counted. Why, all the
bluebirds and blackbirds, the humming-birds, and birds of every kind,
put together, are as nothing compared with you!”
“We are the people,” continued the boastful fly, raising its tiny
voice—“not so big as some others, we’ll admit, but look at our numbers:
myriads upon myriads!”
“Great in numbers, it is true,” said a mossy stone in the wall, “but
one thing you’ve forgotten.”
“What is that?” asked the fly.
“That midsummer is already past, and in a few short weeks the green
will have faded from the fields, and frost will cover the ground; and
then, though we look diligently for you, not one of all your myriads
shall be found.”
* * * * *
[Illustration]
That which seems great in the light of the present, when looked at in
the light of the future shrinks into nothingness.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE MENDED BOOTS.
A MAN who had a pair of boots that needed mending carried them to the
cobbler’s and dropped them beside his bench, saying, “They’ll do any
time to-day; send them home as soon as they are finished,” and without
waiting for an answer departed.
While the cobbler was examining the boots and preparing to go to work
on them, another man, with a badly-worn pair in his hand, came into the
shop, and said:
“I want you to mend these at once; I’ll send for them in the evening.”
At this the cobbler let the first pair fall upon the floor, saying to
himself: “As he will send, I must be sure and have them ready.”
And, going to work on them, he kept at it until they were done. In the
evening the man’s little son called, and carried them away with him.
The next day, after breakfast, as he sat down on his bench, the cobbler
said:
“Now I must get at the other pair, that was left first.”
But just as he was putting the last into one of them, a man entered the
shop with a quick step and handed him a pair of shoes that were almost
worn to pieces:
“I must have these, without fail, in the morning,” he cried, “and will
call for them myself. On no account disappoint me.”
The cobbler at once dropped the boot that was in his lap, and, seeming
to have caught the man’s ardor, thrust the last into one of his shoes
and continued to work diligently until evening, and so finished them.
In the morning the man appeared, with as rapid a step as ever, and,
finding his shoes done, paid for them, and was quickly gone.
A little while after this, as the cobbler sat calmly reading his
newspaper, the man who left the first pair strolled into the shop.
[Illustration]
“As I happen to be passing,” he said, “I’ll just take my boots with
me.” But, seeing a confused look on the cobbler’s face, he added:
“Of course they’re ready; you know they were to be done the day before
yesterday.”
Then, looking on the floor, he saw them lying exactly where he had left
them.
“I’ve been so very bu—busy,” stammered the cobbler, “that I haven’t got
’em quite finished yet.”
“‘Quite finished’!” exclaimed the man. “Why, you haven’t touched them!”
“But I’m going to begin this minute,” said the cobbler, “and you shall
have them to-morrow, for certain.”
* * * * *
He who is the least urgent is apt to be the last served.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE CRIPPLE AND HIS STAFF.
A POOR cripple who had to go on foot to the hospital (where only he
could be cured) cut a staff to help him in walking. It was the best he
could get from the woods that grew by the way, and was just like those
that other cripples used on that same road.
[Illustration]
For a time, as long as the road was smooth, the staff seemed to be all
that he needed; but when he came to an uneven place, he found that it
did not answer. It was too short, though as long as that sort of wood
grew, and it was too rough, hurting his hand as he leaned upon it.
Beside this, it did not take a firm hold on the ground, but slipped
from under him, giving him many falls.
[Illustration]
After one of these falls, while he was lying prostrate and hardly able
to rise, a man came to him with a pair of crutches in his hand. The man
raised him up from the ground, put the crutches under his arms, and
showed him how to walk with them.
[Illustration]
And now the poor cripple was overjoyed to find that he could walk with
comparative ease and with perfect safety. Yet he kept the staff that he
had cut for himself, carrying it, thrust under his girdle, across his
back, behind him.
He walked leaning on his crutches for a considerable distance and over
a good deal of rough ground, and then came to another smooth spot.
[Illustration]
Here a desire seized him to try his staff again. But why should he want
to do this? In the first place, he had forgotten in that short space of
time the falls it had before given him. Then it seemed as if the staff
would be lighter and more easily handled than the crutches. But perhaps
the chief reason was that he would not appear so great a cripple with
the staff as with the crutches; for above all things else the cripple
desires to appear not a cripple, and to seem to walk as if nothing were
the matter with him.
So he tried his staff again, and for a time got along quite well.
[Illustration]
While he was walking at his best, hardly limping, as he thought, a man
came to him saying:
“How well you walk! That staff is just the thing for you. But you don’t
need the crutches; why do you cumber yourself with them?”
With this the man took hold of the crutches to take them from him,
but the cripple would not let go of them. The man stood and reasoned
a while with him; but when he found it was of no use, he turned away,
disgusted, saying, as he left him:
“Any way, you are a fool, to keep both.”
[Illustration]
The cripple had not gone much farther, leaning on his staff, when he
came to some more rough ground, where he floundered about for a while
and then fell to the earth, striking his head and bringing the blood.
Then he was glad that he had not parted with the crutches. He drew them
out from behind him, put them under his arms, and proceeded on his way.
Now we should think that he would never trust to his staff again.
But it was not so. He hardly ever came to a smooth place that he did
not draw it forth and walk with it, till he learned again, by sad
experience, that it would not support him; so that this was, in fact,
the history of his going—toiling along with his staff and falling, and
then betaking himself to his crutches once more.
[Illustration]
At last he came to the foot of the hill on the top of which was the
hospital. But the ascent of that hill! he was terrified as he looked at
it. It was covered with rocks and rolling stones, and beside its steep
path was a yawning chasm. He stood gazing at it for a moment, and then,
as if realizing for the first time his actual needs, he drew forth his
staff and cast it from him as far as his strength would send it.
Now, he had not known himself what a weight that staff had been to him,
for no sooner was he rid of it than it seemed to him almost as if he
had wings. Then, resting wholly on his crutches, he addressed himself
to his last labor. And, truly, those who looked after him saw that he
made that most difficult ascent (up to the place where he knew there
was a Physician who would heal him) as if it were the easiest part of
his journey.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE SEARCH.
A MAN had a never-failing spring in his grounds, the water from which
he brought through pipes to his house. There it was used for drinking,
cooking, washing, and all domestic purposes. After a time, however, the
family became aware that, from some cause, the water was tainted. They
were loth to acknowledge this, but it was so evident that all their
wishes to the contrary could not deceive them.
The first thing the man did was to go to the spring and examine it. No
water could look purer. He dipped a cupful from the surface, and drank
it without detecting any unpleasant taste. What was next to be done?
He had heard of a filter for sale at the village store. It would cost
several dollars, but the doctor’s bill might come to a great deal more.
There was no help for it: the filter was bought and placed where
every drop from the spring passed through it before being used at the
house. Reluctant indeed were the man and his family, after such an
expense, still to recognize, without being able to detect the cause of,
the impurity.
[Illustration]
But one course was left, and that was to take up and examine every
foot of pipe through which the water ran. This required a whole day’s
labor. Nevertheless, it was done. No dead toads or frogs were found in
it, so it was carefully cleaned and laid back in its place. The water
was turned on again, and, although there was in reality no reason to
look for an improvement, the family felt disappointed when it became
evident, after all this additional trouble, that the disagreeable taste
remained.
[Illustration]
The man sat silent all the evening after his hard day’s work,
discouraged, but still trying to devise some means of prosecuting his
search. The next morning he rose up bright and early, and without
saying a word to any one put his long post-spade over his shoulder and
walked out to the spring. There, beginning a little way back from its
edge, he began to dig. Finding nothing but good top-soil, with clay
underneath, he pursued his labors until he had gone almost the whole
way around it. Then he came suddenly upon a dark spot in the earth.
He dug into it still deeper; the odor that arose from it revealed its
nature: it was a mass of decay. He uncovered it to the spring’s
side, and found that it cropped out there at the very spot where his
pipe opened into the water. At last the cause of all his trouble was
revealed.
It was no small task to dam back the rising tide, so that the foul
matter could be removed and replaced with pure earth. But, now that
he could see where to direct his efforts, this was a simple matter,
requiring only persevering labor, which was willingly bestowed; and
so in due time the work was well and thoroughly done and the object
attained. And the man and his family continued ever afterward to enjoy
the pure water of the spring.
* * * * *
As long as we allow the source to remain impure, we will try in vain to
purify that which issues from it.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE SWALLOWS AND THE WINDMILL.
A PAIR of swallows, while looking for a barn in which to build, came
across a windmill, with its sails furled and its great wheel standing
motionless.
“What sort of a place is this?” they said. “Surely no better can
be found for our home. We’ll let other swallows go into the old
tumble-down barns around, but this beautiful tower we will secure for
ourselves.”
Then, flying below the dome-like roof of the mill, they discovered a
small window, just under the eaves, with a pane of glass broken out,
through which they darted, and soon picked out a spot under a rafter
inside for their nest. At once they went to work building it. A pond
near by supplied them with mud. Working up little balls of this with
their bills, they carried them into the mill and fastened them against
the rafter they had chosen. In this way, adding little by little, as a
bricklayer builds up a house, they built up the walls of their nest.
Then they brought grass to line the inside, coiling it around nicely
that it might be smooth and even. Last of all, above the grass, they
made a bed of soft feathers.
Now, it happened, the very next night after all this was finished, that
a strong wind sprang up, and the next morning early the miller appeared
and went into his mill. Presently he came out again, and, standing on
the ground, under the great wheel, began to unfurl the sails on each of
its four arms, one after the other. As soon as this was done, loosening
its fastenings he let the wheel go; and the wind, filling the sails,
began to turn it around—at first slowly, but gradually faster and
faster, until it was running at full speed.
The swallows, that were taking a holiday after their labors, and flying
about joyously up in the air, looked down surprised at what was going
on. But their surprise was turned to dismay when they found that the
wheel was revolving directly in front of the little window through
which they gained entrance into the mill. They flew from side to
side, hour after hour, hoping the wheel would stop; but it never once
rested through the day or the night, and continued to go until another
morning appeared. Then, wearied out and in despair, they lodged on a
fence near by.
[Illustration]
Here another swallow, that had her home in a neighboring barn, saw them
perched with drooping wings. Lighting beside them, she asked what was
the matter.
“‘Matter’!” cried they. “We are ruined. The man in yonder mill tied up
his horrid wheel just long enough for us to build our nest under his
roof, and then set it going. Look at it! Were we inside, we could never
get out; and now that we are out, we can never get in. So cruelly have
we been deceived!”
“You have been deceived, my friends, that is true,” replied the other,
gently, “but not by the miller: you have deceived yourselves. What does
he care for swallows? It was your place to inquire how the building was
used, before making your nest in it. Instead of doing this, you took
the risk, and so have lost your labor. But do not despair as though all
had been lost. If you will be satisfied to lodge like other swallows,
and will come to our barn, across yonder field, there is plenty of room
left over the haymow, and time enough too, for you to build another
nest; and there you may yet rear your brood in peace and content.”
* * * * *
When we take for granted what we ought to prove by careful research, we
are apt to be disappointed in the result; especially is caution needed
when, leaving the old beaten track, we venture to mark out a new path
for ourselves.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE MEDICINE-MAN.
A MAN who lived in an unhealthy region of country supported himself
by preparing and selling a medicine which acted as an antidote to the
malarial or other poison prevailing there. This poison was taken into
the system through the air the people breathed, the water they drank,
and the food they ate. The entire population was suffering from it.
Unless its effects were arrested, they became in the end fatal. The
medicine, however, was a certain cure. Nature had evidently provided
it as a remedy for a people otherwise incurably smitten, and the man
who made a business of preparing it put it up in such quantities that
there was an abundant supply within the reach of all by whom it was
needed.
But here was a curious thing: The man himself neglected to take of the
medicine. This was not because he had escaped the prevailing infection.
Signs of it in his own person were evident enough to his friends, and
some of them who had been cured through his means took occasion to
speak with him on the subject. Said one of them:
“No one knows better than yourself the value of this remedy. And though
it be not always pleasant to take, and requires some self-denial while
using, what is this to the risk of one’s life?”
To this reasonable appeal the man at first made no answer; but when
further pressed, he replied as follows:
“Am I doing any harm, that I should be thus annoyed and interfered
with? Is it not better that I should deal out this medicine than poison
to the people?”
“It is indeed,” said his friend. “You are doing no harm, but good, to
others, but are not resisting the harm that is being done to yourself.”
“That is a personal matter,” said the man, “with which nobody else has
anything to do. I can attend to my own health, and have no wish that
another should prescribe for me.”
So they could do no more, but had to stand by and see the fatal malady
increasing upon him.
It was like looking at a man standing in the water, breast-deep, with
the vessel sinking under him, and he, after handing all the rest into
the lifeboat, turning a deaf ear when they begged him to come too, and
be saved.
* * * * *
Leading another into the right path does not excuse me for continuing
in the wrong one. Neither can his reaching the goal help me to get
there while I walk in a different way.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE EAGLE AND THE WREN.
A WREN that came into a mountainous region where mining was carried on,
having found a deserted pit, made her nest in a hole in its side. One
hot summer day an eagle lodged on the branch of a pine tree that stood
near the pit, and spied the little wren coming up out of its mouth.
Said the eagle:
“So you are not satisfied with getting down on to the ground? You must
burrow under it to make your nest! Well, every creature finds its own
proper level; but can you see so far as that lofty crag on the top
of yonder mountain? There, up among the clouds, is where I sit with my
young, looking down on you little birds that dare not fly to the height
of our home.”
[Illustration]
The wren, overawed by the eagle’s voice, made no answer, but flew down
into the pit again.
The day grew hotter and hotter; the birds through the woods ceased
singing and the insects chirping; all nature seemed oppressed by the
heat. In the afternoon a small black cloud appeared in the west. It
rose rapidly, and soon spread over the whole sky. Then there was a
strange sound heard in the distance. It grew louder and nearer. As it
approached, tall forest trees bent over and snapped asunder, and great
branches, and heavy stones even, were seen flying through the air. It
lasted but a moment, and then all was still again.
Now, the wren, hidden in the hole in the pit’s side, had not heard the
noise of the storm; but, coming up soon afterward to hunt for a worm,
she was dismayed at the scene of desolation that met her eye. Great
trunks of trees, and rocks, were strewn over the earth, while among
them lay prostrate the eagle and her young. The young ones were dead,
and their mother, with a broken wing, in her effort to rise, was vainly
beating the ground.
“Alas!” cried the wren, “what has wrought such sad ruin? And how is it
that I have escaped, when a strong eagle has been cast down?”
“Ah!” replied the eagle, “had I been a wren with a lowly nest, like
you, instead of a proud eagle with her nest built on high, the tornado,
which you did not even hear, would have left me and mine, too,
unharmed.”
* * * * *
Persons who fill lofty stations are subject to dangers which others
know not of, and many a time, when no one suspects it, would be glad to
change places with those who envy them.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE TWO SAPLINGS.
TWO slender saplings were planted on the same day—one before the house
of a rich man, and the other at a poor man’s door.
The summer passed, and winter came. Then, as the rich man saw his young
tree tossed to and fro by the storm, he was afraid it would be broken;
so he went to it and built a fence around it and spread a roof over it.
But the poor man, because he had to labor out in the storm himself,
never thought of sheltering his tree.
Season followed after season; the rich man was still nursing his tree,
and, as it grew, building his fence up higher and higher. But the
poor man’s tree was left to the sunshine, the wind, and the rain.
[Illustration]
And now long years have gone; youth has fled, and age has come. The
rich man can no longer keep up his watchful care, nor the poor man go
forth to his labor. But, as they sit resting at their doors at the
close of the day, the poor man sees, towering above him, a strong oak
in its prime, spreading its protecting branches over his roof; while
the rich man sees a weak and unhealthy trunk that is already decaying
at the root, and destined hardly to outlast himself.
* * * * *
Parents who shield their children from the hardships which they ought
to bear in youth, unfit them for the hardships which they must bear in
maturer years.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE COG-WHEEL.
A SMALL cog-wheel in the upper part of a great printing-press came to
the conclusion that it was not turned by the steam-engine, but turned
of its own accord. Having taken up this notion, in a little while it
brought itself to believe that it drove the whole press.
“It is easy to see,” it said, “that the other wheels keep time with my
movements, going slow when I go slow, and fast when I run at greater
speed. From this it is plain that I give motion to the whole, and that
all the work of the press depends upon me.”
Then it began to boast about that work.
[Illustration]
“Look,” it said, “at that great sheet of white paper. It is laid
on my feed-board blank and meaningless, but comes out from under my
cylinder covered with the clearest print. It is a newspaper, which is
distributed by tens of thousands over the land. At other times I print
books. Some are learned ones, for scholars to read; some are children’s
books filled with pictures, and of these last I assert that nothing
made of paper and ink can be more beautiful. But it is all my work,
neither could it possibly be done without me, as I will now prove by
holding back for a moment the entire press.”
Saying which, the wheel turned a little on its side, thus hindering
the one next to it. But just at that moment the pressman, stepping up
and seeing some derangement in its movement, stopped the press. Then,
calling to a boy, who was covered with printer’s ink from head to foot,
“Run quickly,” he said, “to the store-room and bring me another
cog-wheel.”
No sooner had the boy brought it than the pressman, slipping off the
old wheel, put the new one in its place.
“Take this,” he said, handing the old one to the boy, “and throw it on
the scrap-heap.”
In another moment the press was running again at full speed.
* * * * *
Because some good work prospers in our hands we presently think
ourselves the author of it, forgetting that we are only instruments
appointed to carry it on, and that there are many others who are ready,
if need be, to take our place.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE PLOUGH AND THE MOWING-MACHINE.
A FARMER, having bought a new mowing-machine, brought it home and put
it in the barn where his plough was housed, waiting for the opening of
spring.
When the mower, in its bright paint and glossy varnish, saw the soiled
and toil-worn plough, it said, with a scornful look:
“Why am I placed in such low company?”
[Illustration]
“You think yourself better than I am,” said the plough, “but where
would you be without me? If I did not first turn up the soil for the
planting, you would never be wanted for the mowing. You only finish
where I have begun, and on my work your very existence depends.”
* * * * *
We sometimes look down on those who are not only our equals in
usefulness, but whose honest labor has helped to make us better off
than themselves.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
FAT AND LEAN.
A STRONG fat ox stood with his eyes half shut, chewing the cud, while
his driver heaped up a heavy load of stone on the cart he was yoked to.
A neighbor, who chanced to be riding by on a fast but very lean horse,
stopped to speak to the man. The horse, on being held in, began to paw
the ground, as if impatient to go on, then, looking around scornfully
at the ox, said:
“What do you stand there chewing the cud for now?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” asked the ox. “What harm does it do?”
“When I’m in harness,” replied the horse, “I like to work, and not go
to sleep.”
“I have to do my share of work,” said the ox; “there’s no doubt about
that. If you’ll wait till I get the word, you’ll see how I pull. When I
come to a heavy hill, I stop chewing the cud; but as soon as I come to
a level place, I begin again. For even while I’m at work I take all the
comfort I can.”
“‘Comfort’!” exclaimed the horse. “Is that your aim? Mine is to pass
every other team on the road.”
“Ah, well!” said the ox, “that sounds very fine,
But just look at your ribs, and then look at mine!”
* * * * *
He who cannot be happy as long as he sees another more fortunate or
successful than himself, whatever else he may gain, will never know
peace and content.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
HALF EMPTY AND QUITE FULL.
IN a quiet, lonely spot, beside a mountain-road, a half barrel stood
partly sunk in the ground. A small wooden trough resting on its rim led
the water from a spring that was hidden a little way back in the woods.
The water was for ever running into it, yet the half barrel was never
full. Its hoops were loosened, its joints opened, and much of the pure
stream that it received escaped, trickling down its sides and sinking
into the earth. But while it was never full, except perhaps once or
twice in a summer, when there fell such a flood of rain as overcame all
its leaks and openings, neither was it ever quite empty; for, although
it was a poor leaky vessel at best, it had never quite fallen to
pieces.
[Illustration]
A few miles beyond this spot, on that mountain-road, stood what looked
to be the other half of the same barrel. A trough exactly similar to
the first led a stream of water into it, but this half barrel, compact
and tight, was always full to the brim ready to spare some of its
refreshing contents to the tired traveller, who, after he had quenched
his own thirst, unreined his horse and allowed him to sink his mouth
deeply into it and drink.
* * * * *
Some men, retaining their gracious gifts, are ever ready to impart to
those who need; while others, suffering the loss of theirs, are ever in
need themselves.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE SNAKE.
A BEAUTIFUL and harmless little garter-snake was gliding across the
road, when a man who happened to be passing seized a club and struck it
a crushing blow. As it writhed in agony it turned to its assailant and
said:
“Why do you kill me?”
“Do you suppose,” replied the man, “I will let anything in the form of
a snake live, when I know there are venomous copperheads in this very
woods?”
“And are there no men,” asked the snake, “that are revengeful and
dangerous, and would you destroy all men for their sake?”
* * * * *
Let us not be prejudiced against a whole family for the faults of one
member of it, or be unable to see any merit in a thing because it is
not wholly free from defect.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
RICH AND POOR.
TWO men were neighbors—one rich, the other poor—and both of them had
children of whom they were fond. The children of the rich man received
many costly presents of such things as young people prize, but the
children of the poor man had only their food and clothing, and that of
the plainest sort.
Years passed by. Both families grew up like young trees in an orchard,
and in due season began to display the fruits of their training, when
the rich man, meeting his poor neighbor one day, said to him:
“I have been watching your children, and I notice they appear to feel
as though they could never see enough of you or do enough for you.
It is not so with mine. I wonder if you can tell the secret of this
difference?”
[Illustration]
“Perhaps it lies here,” replied the poor man: “As I am unable to draw
my children to me by what I can give them, I have to try and accomplish
it by what I can do for them. To this end I am careful about four
things—viz.: To be as sparing as I can of my censure when they do
wrong; to be as liberal as I can of my praise when they do right; to
take an interest in whatever interests them; and to let them see that I
deny myself to supply their needs as far as I can.”
“I see,” replied the rich man, “wherein our plans have differed: you
have worked for what I have tried to buy. I gave of my money, you of
what costs more—forbearance, consideration, and love. So I have been
shut out of my children’s hearts, while you have gained an entrance
into yours. I thank you for the lesson you have taught me, and purpose,
though I begin late, to profit by it.”
* * * * *
We cannot buy affection at any price, or retain it by the mere tie of
kindred, however close. We must secure it in each case by deserving it,
and hold it by continuing to deserve it from day to day.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE HAWK AND THE CHICKEN.
A HAWK, as it soared on high, seeing a young chicken in the field
below, rapidly descended, and seized it in his talons.
“Alas!” said the chicken, “I have no power to struggle, or any hope of
saving myself by resisting you in any way. But I pray you listen to me.
I am yet young, hardly grown, and am just beginning to enjoy roaming
through the fields by myself. Do not cut off my days. I beg you out of
pity to spare my life.”
“What you say may be all true,” said the hawk. “I don’t pretend to know
whether it is, or is not; all I do know is that I am hungry, and that
you are the only food provided for me. I can’t go into any reasonings
behind that.”
[Illustration]
Saying which, he dug his talons deeper into the flesh of his victim,
and, carrying it off, devoured it on a neighboring tree.
At this a horse that was feeding in the meadow below, and had heard the
birds speaking, said to himself:
“As I don’t wear feathers or fly with wings, I won’t presume to judge
those who do. But, as for me, I know it is my duty to earn my living by
honest labor and let other people alone.”
* * * * *
What may be lawful for others who are living under different conditions
from ourselves, affords us no excuse for ever departing from the strict
course of mercy and justice.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE SERVANT’S MONEY.
A CERTAIN king sent a message to one of his servants who lived in a
distant part of his kingdom, bidding the servant come to him, and
promising that henceforth all his wants should be supplied in the
king’s palace.
The servant, overjoyed at the message, prepared at once to obey it;
but, being a poor man who through long years of saving and pinching had
come to set great store by small possessions, it went very hard with
him to leave behind such things as he could call his own—the little
house he lived in, with the plot of ground around it, and the few
rude implements with which he tilled the soil. As it was impossible,
however, to take them with him, he sold them for what he could get
(which was not much); and then, packing up his clothes in divers
parcels and hiding his little store of money among them, he started on
his journey.
The first part of this, which led through well-tilled fields and among
people whom he knew, was very pleasant. Many who were his friends came
out, as he passed by, to meet him, begging him to stop and rest a while
in their houses. And when it happened to be toward evening, he went in
and supped and lodged with them.
But after leaving this part of the country he came to a bleak and
lonely region abounding in rocks and caves. Here, as he was pressing
on, hoping to get through it safely, some robbers rushed out from their
hiding-place upon him. Hastily looking through the bundles with which
he was loaded, and finding they were made up of old worn-out clothes,
they refused to take them. But, in making the search, they spied his
money, and, seizing it, quickly disappeared.
[Illustration]
When the poor man saw them hurrying away with his treasure—which,
small as it was, represented his lifelong labors—his grief overcame
him, and he sat down and wept. But, presently recovering himself, he
said:
“Shall I stay here crying in this wilderness, when I am sent for by the
king?”
Then he rose up from the ground, and pursued his way without further
interruption, though with a heavy heart and faltering step, until he
came to the gates of the king’s palace. There he found many others
assembled from different parts of the kingdom, who had also come at the
king’s command—some of them poor like himself, some rich; and they all
waited for the day when the gates should open.
But while they were waiting for this what was his surprise to see the
poor draw forth their pence, and the rich their silver and gold, and
throw them away! For they had been told they would have no need of
them within the gates, and that until they had parted with them they
could not enter. So they all cast their money from them, whether it
was little or much, and it lay scattered over the ground, with none to
gather it. Neither was the servant any poorer than the richest of them,
though he had been robbed of all. Then he said to himself, “How foolish
was I to set such store by, and grieve so much after, what was of no
real value!”
[Illustration]
And after that, with nothing except the garments that they wore (and
even these had been given them), he and all who waited with him entered
joyfully into the palace-gates.
* * * * *
It is of little account what we lose by the way if we keep that which
alone has any value at the end of our journey.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
FUTURE GREATNESS.
TWO young colts, each by the side of its mother, were at pasture in
adjoining fields. The mother of one, coming to the dividing fence, and
putting her head over it, said to her neighbor:
“Just look at the color of my colt! Was there ever a lovelier bay?
Before another spring has passed over his head I expect to see him in
the stable of some millionaire. You know what a rage there is among
rich men for fast horses. Now, look at the points in my colt—his long,
clean limbs, his deer-like shape, his full eye and broad nostril. I am
as certain of his speed as if he had just been around the track and I
heard the time-keeper calling out:
“‘Two minutes ten and a half seconds!’”
“I have been looking at your colt,” replied the other, “and admit
he promises well; but what do you think of the little roan on this
side the fence? Now, I wouldn’t care to have him in a millionaire’s
stable, or put him there, if I could, by a wish. Those rich men think
of nobody but themselves, and keep fine horses only to swell their own
importance. Then they are speculators, to a man; there’s no telling how
long they’ll keep their money. Let that go, and their horses go with
it, to the jockey and the race-course, to be abused and betted on and
driven to death.
“No; I would rather see my colt in the hands of some grand, rich
lady—the gem of her stable, her daily companion and pet. And is he not
made for it? Look at his round, short body, so plump and easily kept;
his strong, arched neck, and his beautiful thick mane and tail. And
mark my words: it won’t be long before all that I predict about him
comes true. In fact, I think I know who the lady is already. She drives
by here in her barouche with liveried coachman and footman, each with a
bouquet in his buttonhole, and as she passes I can see her looking over
the fence.”
[Illustration]
Here we will imagine that several years have suddenly vanished, and we
are again visiting the fields where the above interview took place.
One of them is being ploughed, and a stout roan horse is stepping
briskly in front of the furrow; the other field its owner is clearing
of stones, and a young bay is hauling out a heavy cart-load of them.
Both horses are strong and willing helpers on the farm, earning an
honest living, valued and well cared for by their masters, and far
better off than they would be if left to the heedless servants of the
fashionable lady or the proud millionaire.
* * * * *
What weakness and folly do we often show in the secret expectations we
cherish concerning those who are to come after us! And how well it is
for them that the shaping of their destinies is not in our hands!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE OLD MAN’S WATCH.
AN old man and a young one were walking together over a rough and hilly
road. Said the old man:
“Though I detain you by being unable to keep up with your rapid step,
yet, in spite of this feeble frame, I am feeling in spirit as young as
you. Perhaps you can hardly believe this?”
“I can believe it if you say so,” replied the young man, “but confess
that when I look at your snowy locks and your bent form, I cannot
understand it.”
“Stop a moment,” said the old man, drawing out his watch and exposing
its works to view. “You see that, like myself, this watch has seen
its best days. Its case shows wear, and so do its works. These little
cog-wheels do not fit into each other as closely as they once did, and
they are growing farther apart, by wear, every day. But now look at the
mainspring, where it lies, here, coiled up by itself. It shows no wear.
The same power and elasticity it has had all along remain in it still.”
“I see,” replied the other; and, becoming so interested in the watch as
to forget it was being used only as an illustration, he continued: “Why
do you not have the rest of the works repaired?”
“Your question is natural,” said the old man. “So I might have these
worn-out works repaired, but not this worn-out body. Neither do I
desire it. It will soon have done its work and lasted out its appointed
time here. But in another state of being the immortal part—the
mainspring, so to speak—will live on, clothed with a new body as
immortal as itself. It is this that still remains as vigorous as ever,
and makes me feel, in spirit, as young as yourself.”
* * * * *
As we advance in years we are conscious of that within us which does
not grow old, but which, having learned that this world cannot satisfy,
grows weary of it, and peers anxiously into the next.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE TEACHER.
I DREAMED that I had started on a journey, and as I trudged along the
path alone a man carrying a mirror, stopped me, saying:
“I want to speak with you.”
I replied: “From whence do you come, and what may your calling be?”
He answered: “I come from beyond that steep hill in front of you which
you have yet to climb; and I am a teacher, teaching by the things that
I show in my mirror.”
Then he held his mirror up before my eyes and told me to look. I
obeyed, and saw a ship tossed in a storm. The sails were blown to
pieces, the boats were broken, the deck was swept by the waves, and
the ship was ready to sink. Then I saw the master come to the side,
and stand there pouring oil from a vessel in his hand on the angry
waters. And presently, although the storm continued to rage over the
rest of the ocean, the ship seemed to be rocked in a little basin that
was calm.
Said the teacher: “Gentleness overcomes where resistance would be in
vain.”
He held up the mirror again, and I saw two stone-cutters at work
dressing a great block of granite. On the wall above them was a clock.
Now, one of the men stood with his back to the clock, so that he could
not see it, and his arm dealt strong and rapid blows on the stone,
seeming never to tire. But the other man stood facing the clock, and
was constantly lifting up his eyes to it; and I noticed that his arm
was raised slowly and feebly, as if losing its strength, and his face
wore an expression of weariness.
The teacher said: “He who does not set his heart on his task, but on
the rest that comes after it, makes poor work for his employer and long
hours for himself.”
Again he held the mirror up, and I saw a vine planted in the ground,
with branches growing out of each side. Now, the vine was as if it
were made of glass, so that I could see the sap running from the stalk
into the branches. And as it did this they all put forth leaves and
blossoms. But suddenly, as I looked, the sap ceased to flow into one
of the branches. Then the buds and blossoms fell from it to the earth,
and the branch withered and died before my eyes.
[Illustration]
Said the teacher: “It is not what the branch gives, but what it
receives, that makes it of value in the vineyard.”
He held up the mirror again, and I saw a man with a lantern leading
a company that followed him on a dark and narrow path. But presently
he closed his eyes, and, as he did so, stumbled and fell. Then one of
his followers seized the lantern from his hand and led the others in
safety, but the one who had fallen did not return again.
The teacher said: “Even the guide who points out the way must tread
carefully, or he may step aside and be lost.”
Again he held up the mirror, and I saw a great fire burning—not near,
but, as it were, in a far-off abyss. In it were being consumed what
I had always looked upon as the greatest works of men. And those of
my own works in which I had taken the greatest pride were also being
devoured by the flames. Only a few of the deeds that had seemed to me
of lesser value, but that had been done for love (the love of One who
first loved me), stood unconsumed in the fire.
And the teacher said: “Behold true and false immortality.”
[Illustration]
Once more he held up the mirror, and I saw a man carrying a heavy load
up a hill. The hill grew steeper at every step, and the man bent down
under the weight of the load until his forehead nearly touched the
ground in front of him. Then I saw one having a face full of love and a
strong arm come up beside the man. But just as I supposed he was going
to help him, what was my surprise to see this strong one pick up a
heavy stone and put it on the top of his burden! Then I looked to see
the man sink down, crushed, to the earth, but I saw the other touch
him, and by that touch new strength was given him; so that he bore this
heavy burden more easily than he had borne the lighter one.
And the teacher said: “No load is to be feared if only the strength be
given to bear it.”
Then he took the mirror from before me and held it up to his own lips,
breathing upon it. And I saw the vapor gather on its surface for a
moment and then disappear.
And the teacher said: “Such are good impressions when made on the heart
of man unless a higher Power fix them there.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CLOUD-SHADOWS.
A CLOUD came sailing on the wind, which died away just as it reached a
fruitful field.
“Pass on,” said the field, “and let me see the blue sky.”
The cloud spread itself out to catch the little air that was left, and
slowly passed on to a field beyond. There it hung motionless. In the
night it began to drop its watery contents upon the thirsty sward
beneath, so that every green blade glistened as the sun rose upon it,
and sprang up with renewed freshness and beauty. The field that had
complained, seeing this and being parched with the sun’s rays, said:
“Ah that I had borne the cloud’s presence a while for the sake of the
blessing it contained! I was impatient under its shadow, and now long
for that which my neighbor has gained who submitted to its visitation
without murmuring.”
* * * * *
We put out our hand and thrust away an imagined evil, to find out
afterward that, if we had but welcomed it, it would have filled that
hand with good.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE PENITENT TRANSGRESSOR.
A GOOD natured poodle-dog, while trotting along the street one day, saw
a friend of his, an ugly pug, lying on a doorstep looking very much
dejected and out of spirits.
“Why do you look so mournful?” asked the poodle. “What has happened?”
“I feel sorry for something I’ve done,” replied the pug.
“What is it? Have you been peeping into your master’s looking-glass?”
“No, but I’ve bitten another dog.”
[Illustration]
“Well, I suppose he took a bone away from you or snarled at you, or did
something else to deserve it.”
“He did snarl at me, that’s true, but I don’t think I ought to have
bitten him.”
“Didn’t he bite you back again?”
“No, and that makes me feel all the worse.”
“Oh, well, cheer up; it’s over now, and very likely you’ll never see
him any more.”
“Yes, I will, though, for he’s a relation of mine.”
“But you’ll never bite him again after being so sorry for it—I’m sure
of that—and that’s some comfort.”
“But I’m not sure, for I’ve done it before, and been sorry too. When
anything doesn’t please me, all at once I get so mad that I hardly know
what I’m about, and then I’m ready to bite my dearest friend.”
“Do you mean that you get crazy and lose your senses?”
“No, I only mean that I lose my temper. I’m sorry for it every time,
but I go on losing it and biting my friends over and over again; and
I’m discouraged about it, and don’t know what to do.”
“Well, if you haven’t got sense enough to stop it, right now and
without any more whining, the sooner you go and give yourself up to the
dog-catchers, the better.”
* * * * *
Persons who easily fly into a passion forfeit not only the regard and
confidence of other people, but also their own self-respect.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE DRY WELL.
A MAN who had always been able to get as much water from his well as he
wanted, on drawing up the bucket one hot summer day, found less than
a cupful in it. There was so little water at the bottom of the well
that the bucket could not turn over and fill itself. As soon as the man
discovered this he began abusing his well, saying:
“Is that all you can do? You are not worth the room you take or the
money you cost to dig. If there is any one thing more useless and
contemptible than another, it is a well that holds no water.”
“Does all my past service go for nothing, then?” asked the well. “I
have filled your bucket, year after year, with unfailing streams, as
you yourself know. And even now what I have I willingly offer, to the
last drop.”
[Illustration]
“‘Drop’ indeed, and little more!” said the man. “But what good will
that do me? What I want is a barrelful or a hogsheadful if I need it.”
“I have not the ocean to draw from,” replied the well, “or even a
river, but only one trickling spring. If that fails, I have no other
resource, but must wait till its dried-up current begins to flow again.
Can you, at all times, command the same fulness and excellence in your
own work? Pray, do your powers never fail?”
* * * * *
How often are we intolerant of a single failure on the part of those
who have generally succeeded in pleasing us, and who are still doing
their very best to accomplish that end!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE FRUIT TREE.
A FRUIT tree sprang up from a seed in the corner of a certain man’s
field. It grew rapidly and put forth branches. Great was the man’s
delight when he saw these bearing blossoms.
“Now I shall have fruit of my own,” he said.
Autumn came and the fruit appeared, but as it ripened, instead of
growing round and rich and mellow, it grew knotted and hard and bitter
to the taste.
“’Tis because it is young and the soil where it stands thin and poor,”
the land-owner said.
Then he loosened the ground around its roots and enriched and watered
it, and afterward waited for spring. Spring came, and again the tree
put forth blossoms and bore fruit, more abundantly than before; but it
was worthless and unfit to be eaten.
Another winter passed and spring returned once more, and one sunny
morning, as the land-owner stood looking at his tree and repining over
it, there came a gardener by that way.
“What troubles you?” he said, seeing the man’s sad face.
“My tree has proved worthless,” replied the other. “Yet I have done all
that could be done to it, and still it bears only evil fruit.”
At this the gardener took out his pruning-knife and opening it, he
came to the tree and at one stroke severed its top, with all its
spreading boughs, so that they fell down on the ground, as fit only for
the burning. Then he made a deep cleft in the stock of the tree, and
into this he inserted a young shoot that he carried with him. Next he
anointed, with clay, the wound that his knife had made, and wrapped it
about carefully, and, turning to the land-owner, said:
“Be patient; give it time. All yet will be well.”
Another season came. The new shoot put forth buds; it blossomed, and
then (after the gardener had grafted it, but not before) the tree
brought forth good fruit.
* * * * *
There is a life which is ours by natural inheritance, and another which
comes only as a free gift. Though both are housed in the same body,
they are received at different times and have each a separate existence
and destiny.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE DEER.
A DEER that lived in a country far from the abodes of men used to stay
during the winter on some low-lying lands where she could find patches
of grass growing through the cold weather, and thick coverts, also,
among the evergreens, in which to hide while the fierce snow-storms
were prevailing. But as soon as spring returned she left the low-lands
and hastened to a mountain many miles away, and there, roaming over its
wooded heights and drinking from a quiet lake that lay spread out on
its very top, she stayed, rejoicing, all the summer long.
After she had been doing thus for many years, and when she was no
longer young, it happened one winter that certain strange sensations
crept through her frame such as she had never before known. She rose
from her lair with more difficulty than formerly, and walked at times
with an unsteady step. She grew weak and thin, and afraid of the storms
that she used to face boldly when going forth in search of food. Then
she began to wonder, and say:
“What ails me, and what do these feelings mean?”
But presently she answered:
“I know what I need: it is a drink from the lake on the mountain-top.
When I can taste of it once more, these feelings will pass away.”
So she waited in her low-land home, through the cold and dreary winter
days that remained, for the opening buds and singing birds of spring.
As soon as these appeared she started on her journey to the mountain.
But now that journey seemed longer than it used to seem. She had to
rest oftener by the way. Instead of leaping from crag to crag as she
ascended the mountain-side, she found herself picking out the easiest
and safest paths. Still laboring on up the steep ascent, she at last
reached the summit and stood beside the lake that she loved. It looked
the same. The rocks around its shores were reflected in its bosom, the
water-lilies floated on its surface, the trees and wild-flowers grew
down to its very edge. All was as it had ever been. She said: “I shall
soon be well again;” and, putting her mouth down to the water, drank.
But presently she raised it slowly, saying: “Either it is changed, or I
am. It does not taste as it once did, or bring the refreshment it has
always before brought to my wearied frame.”
Then, turning with feeble step to the bed of moss under the thick
bushes where she had so often rested in years gone by, she lay down,
to rise from it no more. The fresh, pure mountain-breeze was still
blowing; other deer came and drank in new life and vigor at the lake;
it was as beautiful and its surroundings were as health-giving as ever;
but they could not recall the life that, having reached its farther
bound, had passed away.
* * * * *
There is a day coming when the scenes and influences that once revived
our failing strength will do so no more, and their failure will be a
token that to us the end of earthly things is at hand.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
HOMELY AND HANDSOME.
A HORSE and a cow that were turned out to pasture together cropped the
grass in company until they came to a tree in the middle of the field,
where they stopped to rest in the shade. The cow lay down and chewed
the cud, but the horse stood switching off the flies with his long tail.
While doing this he turned to the cow and said:
“I’ve just been thinking what a contrast there is between us two. I
am so swift, and you are so slow. You travel only from the barn to
the field in summer, and hardly get out of the barnyard in winter.
Your walk is clumsy and awkward; and when you try to run, you seem
to have our old master’s rheumatism in every joint. How different it
is with me, galloping swiftly over the country around, visiting our
neighbors’ farms and hearing of all that is going on! But then it is
not your fault that you were made to be only a cow, while I was made a
fleet-footed horse.”
“I’m very glad,” said the cow, “that you are so well satisfied with
your lot, but I don’t want you to think I am dissatisfied with mine.
When our mistress pats me on the side and calls me kind names, after
milking, I feel proud too. For this I go through the fields picking
out the freshest grass and the richest clover, saying to myself, ‘I’ll
give her a good pailful to-night.’ Then, when I see the red cheeks of
the children, I know I’ve had something to do with them; and when our
master drives you to market with his butter-tub well filled, I have a
notion he would miss me, as well as you.”
“I don’t deny,” replied the horse, “that you have your good points and
are useful in your way. I was only pitying you for being so slow and so
ugly.”
As he spoke these words he saw the farmer coming through the gate into
the field and bringing a strange man with him. They came directly to
the tree where the horse and the cow were resting.
“Yes,” said the stranger, looking at the horse; “he’s a smart,
good-looking colt, and by putting him through some pretty hard training
I reckon I can work him off at a fair profit. I’ll give you your price
for him.”
“Then you can have him,” said the farmer. “If he’s worth that, I can’t
afford to keep him; a lower-priced beast will do just as well for me.”
With that the old man slipped a halter over the horse’s head and led
him away. As he sadly followed his master he looked back at the old
cow, still contentedly chewing her cud, and said:
“I go from this pleasant farm, where I was bred and have lived so long,
to be driven and beaten, and then sold I know not where. Ah, my old
friend! I wish now that I was as ugly and as slow as you.”
* * * * *
If we have any gifts beyond our neighbors, let us possess them humbly;
for we cannot tell but what those very gifts may some day cause our
happiness to be less than theirs.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE COLT AND OLD GRAY.
A COLT that had just been broken to harness was driven in a milk-wagon
every day to the city, where he was fastened to a hitching-post, and
left standing, while the farmer went around to the neighboring houses
serving milk.
A boy on the way to his work one morning chanced to rap against the
post in passing, when the colt put back his ears. Seeing this, the boy
stopped and gave him a thrust in the side, when the colt snapped at him
and raised his hind foot, showing that he was angry.
Instead of checking the boy, this only encouraged him; so that the
next morning he repeated his offence, and continued to do it afterward
every morning, seeming to take a wicked delight in rousing the colt’s
temper. Yet the colt, being tied, could do nothing to revenge himself,
as the boy took good care to keep out of the reach of both his teeth
and his heels.
[Illustration]
One day, on going back to the stable, the colt told an old gray horse
that stood in the next stall how cruelly he was tormented, without
being able to stop his tormentor.
“I know how you could stop him,” said the old gray, “and that without
giving yourself the least trouble.”
“Tell me,” said the colt.
“What will you give me for my secret?” asked Old Gray.
“My share of the feed that we’ll get for our dinner.”
“All right,” said Old Gray; “I’ll tell you as soon as I have eaten it.”
In a little while the farmer passed through the stable, and poured out
six quarts of oats for each horse. And the colt, although he was very
hungry and his mouth watered for them, allowed the old horse to put his
head over and eat up every grain in his manger.
“Now,” said the colt, impatiently, “tell me, as you promised, how I can
stop that young rogue from poking at my ribs every morning.”
[Illustration]
“In this way,” said the old horse. “Let him do it, and pretend you
don’t feel it.”
“Is that all you have to say?” said the colt, angrily. “I could have
done that without being told, or being cheated out of my dinner,
either.”
“But you never thought of it till I told you,” said Old Gray. “Now,
just try it.”
As the oats were all gone and could never be gotten back, the colt
concluded there was no use in fretting any more about them. Yet he
found himself thinking over Old Gray’s advice, and before night
concluded to try it.
The next morning the boy came along as usual, and, stealing up softly
by the colt’s side, gave him a thrust in the tender spot just behind
his shoulder. The colt never winced, nor even turned his eyes toward
him. The boy tried it again and again, with no better success, until he
had to hurry away, for fear of a scolding from his master.
For several mornings after this he renewed the attempt (though with
less spirit each morning), until, finding it made no impression, he
gave it up altogether, and passed by whistling, with his hands in his
pockets, as if no colt were there.
Shortly after this, one evening about sundown, as the colt was drinking
in the stable-yard, Old Gray came in from ploughing.
[Illustration]
Said the colt, raising his head from the horse-trough:
“Your advice was good and worth the oats, after all. I ask your pardon
for being so rude the other morning.”
“I can easily forgive you,” said Old Gray. “Trifles do not worry me.
You are only a colt yet, just put to the milk-wagon. You’ll be wiser by
the time you get to the plough.”
* * * * *
By noticing small affronts, we give every passer-by the power to vex
us; by overlooking them, we take that power away.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE KING’S ALMONER.
A KING was told that his subjects in a certain city were suffering from
hunger and cold and nakedness. Then he said to himself,
“What man is there among them, of prudence and charity, with whom I can
intrust supplies for their relief?”
And one being named he sent to him stores of food and raiment and
money, with this message:
“These things are for the benefit of all the dwellers in your city.
Not that you should be neglected while others are provided for; on the
contrary, as you will have to wait on the rest as my almoner, you may
keep somewhat the largest share for yourself.”
So the man received what the king sent, and divided it in due
proportion between himself and the sufferers around him.
But after doing this justly and generously for a time he began, as new
supplies came in, to increase his own portion and diminish that which
he divided among his neighbors, thus making himself richer and richer,
while they became poorer and poorer.
Now, it was the king’s custom at certain seasons to leave his royal
palace and travel through his dominions, visiting his people in every
city; and, the time for his departure having come, he set out on his
journey, and at length came to the city which he had befriended. And he
went among the people, visiting them in their houses, and found great
poverty and distress among them.
Then he came to the house of his almoner, and walked through its
spacious rooms (for the man had built himself a new house) and saw his
children richly clothed and his table covered with dainties. And the
king sat down with them and partook of the rich fare that was provided,
and afterward went to his own home.
As soon as he came there he called his chief servant and commanded him
to send fresh supplies of food and money and raiment—greater and more
abundant than ever before—to the suffering city. And these, being sent
forth in haste, quickly reached their destination. And the king’s
almoner received them, and after giving a very little to the people
around him laid up the rest for himself. As he did so he said,
“Now am I sure of the king’s love and favor, for behold by his bounty
how my wealth has increased!”
But not many days after this the almoner’s servant who had charge of
his storehouse came to him, saying,
“The food which you have laid up has bred worms and is spoiled.”
Then the servant who kept his raiment came and said,
“The rich garments sent by the king, which you have laid by so
carefully, are being consumed by the moth and destroyed.”
And the keeper of his gold came, saying,
“The treasure-boxes which appeared so strong are falling to pieces;
much gold has already been lost from them, and because they are opening
of themselves they invite the hand of the pilferer and robber.”
Then the rich man was in great trouble, and he went in haste to the
king and told him of the losses which had so suddenly befallen him.
The king replied,
“How can that be lost now which was given long ago to the poor?”
The rich man answered,
“I have done wrong in keeping for my own what did not belong to me.”
So he returned to his house sad at heart, to find all his riches melted
away, and truly (as he knew) it was by his own act, and not by the hand
of an enemy.
* * * * *
He who will be richer than he ought to be shall be poorer than he need
to be.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
PANSIES.
TWO purple pansies opened their velvet-like leaves one summer morning,
but on looking around them saw that they had not the garden-bed alone.
On one side a clump of crimson poppies towered above their heads, and
on the other some tall golden lilies were nodding in the breeze.
When the lowly pansies saw their lofty neighbors, the joy which at
first they felt in their new being quickly waned. They looked up
enviously, first at the poppies, and then at the lilies, saying to one
another,
“Between these haughty flowers, there is nothing left us but to hang
our heads in shame.”
Just then the gardener passing by, they cried,
“Take us from here, we pray you, and plant us in a bed of flowers yet
lowlier than ourselves.”
“And why do you ask this change?” he said.
“Do you not see,” they replied, “how our gorgeous neighbors overshadow
us, and by contrast how poor and mean we seem?”
“Then it is nothing but pride,” the gardener answered, “that prompts
the request: you would be to others what these gorgeous neighbors are
to you. Be satisfied rather to remain where you are. And know that it
is not for the glory of the flower its place in the garden is chosen,
yet its greatest beauty may be attained where it stands in fulfilling
my design.”
* * * * *
A desire to be the greatest as well as a willingness to be least may
lead us to choose our place in a lower sphere.
[Illustration]
THE BIRDS AND THE BELLS.
A VILLAGE church was presented with a chime of bells, which were rung
for the first time on a bright spring morning. The country-people were
delighted with the unusual sounds, but there was one class of hearers
displeased. These were the birds. Heretofore they had made all the
music for the fields and hills, and the sound of the bells seemed to
them an invasion of their rights. They met together in an evergreen
hedge to talk over the matter.
Said the robin:
“My notes can no longer be heard.”
The bluebird said:
“I might as well have no voice at all.”
The wrens and swallows whose nests were in the church-tower declared
they were driven out of house and home. The meeting appointed the
oriole and the dove to wait on the pastor and lay their grievance
before him.
The next morning, as the good man was at work in his garden, the two
appeared in a pear tree near by.
“Good-morning, sir,” said the oriole.
“Good-morning, my feathered friend,” replied the pastor. “When did you
arrive from the South?”
“Only a few days ago, but it was to find a sad change here.”
“Pray, what may it be? Not gunners already, nor boys after your nests?”
“Not these, but the bells in your church-tower.”
“Why, do not they please you?”
“No, indeed! and all the birds have sent us to protest against them. We
and our forefathers have enlivened these hills with our songs time out
of mind, and we believe the air, for music, belongs to us still. And we
have come to give you your choice: Take down the bells, or we will be
still and never sing for you again.”
The pastor was dumb with astonishment as the birds flew away. He held
the hoe in his hand full five minutes without moving, deep in thought
concerning the strange interview. But of course submission to so
unreasonable a demand was not to be thought of, and the next Sunday
morning the bells again sent forth their glad peal. The ringers were in
earnest, and their chimes floated far over hill and vale. But for the
rest of the sacred day, and
[Illustration] for full twenty-four hours afterward, not a bird
uttered a note. They could be seen flitting through the bushes and the
trees, but all was perfectly still.
“How I miss their sweet voices!” said the pastor to his wife. “Though
the leaves are unfolding and the rosebuds are swelling, without the
birds’ voices it does not seem like spring.”
“Never fear,” replied his wife; “it will all come right again.”
Now, the birds, in resolving not to sing, had forgotten that, besides
disobliging the people, they might inconvenience themselves. The spring
was the season for their songs, and they soon found this out. After
being silent for two whole days, the robin said:
“I really cannot keep still any longer. I will fly down to the other
end of the woods, beyond the creek, where nobody can hear me, and sing
a little song to myself.”
But great was his surprise, on reaching the woods, to hear the oriole,
who had come there for the same purpose a little while before him. And
presently the cuckoo, and a number of other birds, joined them at the
place.
“What does this mean?” they said, looking round at each other.
“It is not hard to guess,” said the wren. “I don’t doubt we have all
gone through the same experience. To confess the truth, I believe we
are spiting ourselves more than anybody else.”
“Well, now,” said the owl, who spent his days asleep in that dark
woods, but had been waked up by the voices, “let us reconsider our
vote. Long ago, in the days of our fathers, these hills remained the
same from age to age; but now the world has changed, and we must put
up with it. The bells are not so bad as they might be, after all. They
don’t ring all the time, and though they are not as musical as your
songs, or as my hoot, yet they are not altogether without harmony. I
move it be left to each bird to do as he chooses.”
The vote was taken and carried, and the birds flew off merrily; but the
owl went to sleep again.
The next morning, as the pastor and his wife were in their garden
tending their flower-beds, and both longing for the songs of the birds,
suddenly the voice of the oriole was heard in the pear tree. He was
leaping from branch to branch, singing as if to make up for lost time
and as though he could not utter the notes fast enough.
“Here I am!” he said to the pastor. “We have thought the matter over
and concluded to let the bells ring.”
The pastor looked up delighted, and his wife shared his joy.
“Did I not tell you,” she cried, “that it would all come right? For
when no harm is intended and both sides mean to be fair, though they
may sometimes get crooked, they are pretty sure to come straight again.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
JACK AND JENNY.
A SPARROW that lived with many others in a public park offended his
neighbors by getting up too early in the morning and beginning to chirp
before they were willing to be waked. They called a meeting of all the
flock, and after considering the matter told him that he and his mate
must look for another home.
This he refused to do, saying that he had as good a right to stay where
he was as they had.
“These trees do not belong to you,” he said, “and you don’t pay rent
for the bird-boxes we live in. They were put up by the people who own
the park, because they love to see us building our nests and flying
about here.
“Beside this,” he continued, “I have done nothing with which you ought
to find fault, for I never wake till the break of day, and do not begin
to chirp for several minutes after that, when all industrious sparrows
should be ready for breakfast. This very morning I heard a cock crow
before I opened my bill, and what sparrow would not be ashamed to be
lazier than the chickens?”
[Illustration]
When the other birds heard this speech, they did not try to answer
it—for, indeed, it was every word true and they could say nothing
against it—but, having the power on their side, they all at once
fiercely attacked the sparrow with their beaks and claws. Nor did they
attack him alone, but they flew at his innocent mate also, and hurt
her more than they hurt him; for after they were both driven out of the
park and had lodged on a neighboring fence it was found not only that
her feathers were badly tumbled and torn, but, alas! that one of her
eyes was pecked out.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
As winter was just coming on, they knew not where to go or what to do.
For the first few nights they roosted on the roof of a stable; but this
was a forlorn, lonely place, and, as they had no perch to clasp with
their little feet, the wind almost blew them away. Beside this, the
man who kept the stable was so saving of his corn, and swept the yard
so clean, that they could hardly pick up as much as would make a good
meal in a whole day.
[Illustration]
From the roof of the stable they moved under the eaves of a
carpenter-shop, and thought they were nicely fixed, until one dark
night a cat stole softly along the roof to the spot where they were
sleeping, and, suddenly putting out her paw, almost caught them both in
her sharp claws. As it was, she caught poor Jenny’s tail and pulled
out every feather of it, which did the cat no good, but was a great
loss to Jenny, for she could hardly guide herself in flying, and looked
very odd beside.
After this they led a sad wandering life for the rest of the winter,
always sleeping in fear on clothes-lines and fences, and picking up a
poor living—mostly from frozen slop-buckets and around kitchen doors.
But toward spring better fortune came to them, for a little girl,
looking out of the dining-room window one morning, spied them hopping
about the pavement below, and threw them some crumbs. Her joy was great
when she saw them quickly eat what she had thrown and then seem to look
up for more. She ran back to the table, and brought them as much as
they wanted.
[Illustration]
The next day they came again, and after this, every day, almost as soon
as it was light, they might be seen waiting for their breakfast from
the hands of their little friend.
[Illustration]
But think of their surprise one April morning, when the sun was shining
brightly and the buds were just beginning to swell on the rose-bushes,
to see the carpenter come in at the garden-gate carrying a new bird-box
fastened to the top of a high pole, which he at once began to set up in
the middle of the grass-plot, digging a deep hole to set it in, so that
it would stand firm in spite of wind and weather.
[Illustration]
Their kind little friend ran out from the house and almost danced for
joy around the pole while it was being planted. And her father and
mother, and brothers and sisters, sharing in her delight, all left the
breakfast-table to watch the carpenter at his work.
[Illustration]
That very day the happy pair—little Jack and Jenny—went into their new
home, and before night were picking up dried grass and twigs with
which to begin building their nest.
[Illustration]
Now, it happened, not long after this, that a young sparrow who lived
at the park, in taking a longer flight than usual one morning, spied
the pretty bird-box with her old acquaintances perched at its door.
“Oh ho!” said she to herself, “is this where you have come? and to such
a fine house, too!” and in a lower voice, which no one could hear, she
whispered, “I would like to live in it myself.”
[Illustration]
She waited till Jenny had gone off in search of a twig; then she
quickly flew down to Jack, who was singing on the roof.
“Don’t you remember me?” she asked. “My parents lived next door to you
at the park. But I was not one of those who drove you away; indeed, I
never raised my wing against you.”
“I remember you,” replied Jack. “But how in the world did you get
here?”
“I came to admire your beautiful new home,” said Pert, “and to tell you
how glad I am that you have got up in the world.”
[Illustration]
“Thank you for your kindness,” replied Jack.
“There is something else,” said Pert, “that I want to say, but I don’t
like to mention it.”
“Speak out,” said Jack; “I want ever so much to hear it.”
“Well, then,” replied Pert, “to tell you the truth, I am afraid that
all the other birds, when they hear of your good fortune, will laugh at
your wife.”
“What ails her?” asked Jack.
“She is not the one,” replied Pert, “for so handsome a sparrow as you,
and for such a fine house.” Here Miss Pert turned all the way round to
show her fine feathers. “And I have come as a friend,” she continued,
“to ask if I can help you in finding a prettier mate.”
“I don’t want one,” said Jack.
“What?” exclaimed Pert. “And Jenny with only one eye and all her
tail-feathers pulled out?”
“Ah, but,” said Jack, “her other eye is the brightest and softest that
ever was seen. And, as for her tail-feathers, they are all growing
again.”
“Pooh!” said Pert, “she is too old for you, beside being ugly.”
[Illustration]
“Oh no,” said Jack; “she is just the right age. And if she _has_ lost
her good looks, she has lost them for me. When you were against me,
then she was my friend; and now, when you are willing to be my friend
because I have grown rich, I will not turn her off to please you. Go
home again, Miss Pert, for nobody but Jenny shall share my fine house.”
* * * * *
That person seems the prettiest whom we love the best; and the one who
was faithful to us when we were in trouble is the one we should remain
faithful to when our troubles are taken away.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE MEETING OF THE WINDS.
THE north and the south winds met one day in a field beside a river.
The north wind had brought some snow the night before, but the south
wind blew soon after, and melted nearly all of it. Only a few white
patches were left, here and there, along the sunny banks of the stream.
As soon as the winds came near each other the south wind said:
“Good-morning, brother! I am glad to meet you, though your cold breath
quite chills me.”
“But I am not glad to meet you,” answered the north wind. “Why did you
melt my snow so quickly? Could you not let it lie for one day?”
[Illustration]
“The time has come for the grass and flowers, you know, brother, and I
must be at work,” said the gentle south wind.
“There was no need of such haste,” said the burly north wind; “when
friends meet, they should be polite.”
“I have to call up the daisies and to waken the roses,” said the south
wind, “and to make all the fields green by the first of May. I have no
time to lose. Look at yonder meadow how brown it is, and at these trees
how bare! Scarcely a fly is buzzing in the sunshine, and not a tortoise
has yet crept out of his hole in the ground.”
“I do not care for your daisies and your tortoises,” muttered the north
wind; “you want to hurry me off, but I will not go so soon.”
[Illustration]
“Have you not had the whole winter to yourself,” asked the south wind,
“freezing the brooks, driving away all my birds and my butterflies,
and covering the fields and roads and bushes and barns with snow? If
I chanced to come then and pay you a visit some bright morning, how
quickly you drove me away again! Never might I stay till the sun went
down!”
“The winter is my time,” said the north wind; “it belongs to me, and
you had no right to come then.”
“And the spring is my time,” answered the south wind; “you know the law
is that I must have the fields now.”
[Illustration]
“You think a great deal of yourself,” said the north wind, angrily,
“but I am stronger than you. I can fly farther, and I see things that
you never see. Where do you think I came from this morning?”
“Tell me, I cannot guess?” answered the south wind.
“I came all the way from the icy pole, where the sea is frozen over,
and the land is covered with snow that never melts. The white bear
lives there. I saw one but a few hours ago, watching for fish by a hole
that he had broken through the ice.”
[Illustration]
“But you never saw my home, nor the strange sights that are there,”
said the south wind. “I come from the far-off torrid zone, where the
snow never falls, and the frost never kills the buds and the flowers.
There the panther lives. I passed by one last night in the forest lying
out on the branch of a great tree, watching for his prey, that he might
spring down on it as it passed beneath.”
[Illustration]
“But I see the Esquimaux,” answered the north wind, “in their strange
skin dresses, living in houses of snow. They fight the fierce walrus on
the ice, and spear the fur-covered seal from their little boats that
dance on the waves. I watch the Northern Lights, so red and beautiful,
shooting up like bright flames in the sky, and the night is almost
as light as the day. Then the Esquimaux harnesses his dogs, and the
Laplander his reindeer, and they travel swiftly over the frozen plain.”
[Illustration]
“Yesterday I blew with all my might until I loosed a field of ice
and sent it out to sea. A white bear was on it, and he sailed on his
ice-boat across the sea to Iceland. As I passed the steep, high rocks
on the shores of Greenland I saw the eider-ducks brooding there. Each
one had lined her nest with soft down plucked off of her own breast.
Then I frightened them with my hoarse voice, and thousands—yes,
hundreds of thousands—rose up in the air like a cloud.”
[Illustration]
“But let me ask you,” murmured the south wind, “did you ever hear among
your icebergs and your frozen wastes the song of the oriole and the
mocking-bird, that I hear every day in the woods where I live? You look
at your Esquimaux in their snow houses, but I peep in at the hut of the
Indian that stands under the forest shade, or I blow against the sail
of his canoe and waft it up some quiet river where the trees grow thick
on each side and meet overhead. The red flamingo wades out into the
water, and the monkeys and parrots chatter among the branches.
“I see the boa-constrictor coiled among the roots on the shore, or
watch the alligator floating down the stream. My home is among the
orange trees and in the fields where the sugar-cane grows. There I lie
still and sleep, or awake to go forth on my journeys over the earth—not
to freeze up the ground and make it barren and bare, but to cover it
with green and bring out the buds and flowers on every bush and tree.”
[Illustration]
While the winds were talking in this way, the river, that had been
listening to them, said:
“Why do you thus boast and provoke one another? Why not speak gently
and kindly of the wonderful things you have seen? You would not change
homes, would you?”
“No, indeed!” each one replied; “I love my own the best!”
“Then,” said the river, “what good can come of disputing when both are
satisfied? As for me, I love you both. I am glad for the north wind
to blow cold, and cover me with ice in the winter, so that the merry
skaters can come and glide swiftly over my smooth surface.
[Illustration]
“And I love the south wind to breathe softly in the spring, and make my
banks green again, and waken the frogs along my shore, and bring the
fisherman in his boat, and the boys to swim.
“Let us all be friends, then, and love each other, and be satisfied
with what our kind Creator has given us, and happy in doing what will
please Him.”
[Illustration]
Then the north wind said:
“I am willing to be friends again. It is true that the spring is your
time, gentle south wind; I will not stay to nip your opening flowers,
but will fly away to my cold home.”
And the south wind said:
“Forgive me if I was rude, brother. When November shall come once more,
I will leave the fields and woods to you. Take this sprig of evergreen
to remember me by, and may it not fade till we meet again! Farewell!”
[Illustration]
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 172, “lookod” changed to “looked” (Peter looked around the)
Page 457, “ou” changed to “on” (but on looking around)
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