"I know the lady in that pretty carriage; she is the very one that is
going to marry the young gentleman who is to wear this embroidered
vest. She came to my home yesterday to get my mother to spangle the
wreath round her white satin dress; and it's just the same pattern
that is to be put on this vest; but she could not do it, 'cause her
eyesight is so poor, and the spangles shined so."
My tongue was silent. Could it be that these were to be the very
articles that were to be worn at my Ellen's wedding? For did I not pay
for spangles yesterday, and what was it that vexed Ellen but because
she could not find anybody to sew them on when she returned? She said
Mrs. Taggard was almost blind.
"My little girl," said I, "Is your name Taggard?"
"Yes, sir--'Gusta Taggard, and we live down in Sullivan court. Are
you going home with me?"
It was a sensible conjecture; for why else should I follow on?
"I am going to see you safely at the door, and to help you over all
the crossings."
"There's only one more, sir, and here it is; we live down there at No.
3, on the third floor back."
The child looked kindly, and as she sweetly bade me "good by, sir," I
thrust my hand in my pocket and drew from it all the change it
contained, which was a bright fifty cent piece, and placed it in her
little palm. 'Gusta Taggard gave me her heartfelt thanks, and was soon
out of my sight.
An hour before, I had started from my home an invalid. I had long
deliberated whether an exposure to a chilly east wind would not injure
rather than improve me. I was melancholy, too; my only daughter was
about to be married--there was confusion all over the house--the
event was to be celebrated in fashionable style. Ellen's dress had
cost what would have been a fortune to this poor seamstress, and I
moralized. But I had forgotten myself; the cough which had troubled me
was no longer oppressive. I breathed quite freely, and yet I had
walked more briskly than I had done for months, without so much
fatigue as slow motion caused, so that when I returned, my wife
rallied me upon looking ten years younger than when I left her in the
morning; and when I told her the specific lay in my walk with a little
prattler, and the satisfaction of having left her happier than I found
her, she took the occasion to press the purchase of a diamond brooch
for Ellen, affirming if the gift of half a dollar made me so much
happier, and that, too, to a little errand street girl, what would
fifty times that amount confer upon one's only daughter, upon the eve
before her marriage?
I gave the diamond brooch--I paid the most extravagant bills to
upholster's, dry goods establishments, confectioners and musicians,
with which to enliven the great occasion, and yet I found more real
satisfaction in providing for the real wants of little 'Gusta Taggard
and her mother than in all the splendid outlay of the wedding
ceremony; and it was not that it cost less which made the
satisfaction, but it was that all extravagant outlays, in the very
nature of things, are unsatisfactory, while ministering to the
necessities of the truly needy and industrious confers its own reward.
I had seen the glittering spangled dress--but it was made ready by
some poor, emaciated sufferer, who toiled on in patient trust, and the
embroidered vest as finished by the strained vision and aching head of
another, who was emphatically one of "God's poor," upon whom blight or
disgrace had not fallen, save by his appointment; and the diamond
brooch was borne off by admiring throngs but to be envied and coveted,
while the simple coin bestowed upon my little street acquaintance had
introduced me to a new species of enjoyment that never cloys in the
retrospective. I had learned to do good in small ways--my morning
walks have now an object and aim. I pass by splendid palaces to hasten
to Sullivan court, and thence on to yet other sources of enjoyment, so
that my invalidism is fast leaving me by the new direction which is
given to my thoughts.
I am free to acknowledge that while I cheerfully pay for flannel
robes, and silverware, and servants, and all the requirements which
fashion imposes, I derive far less pleasure from surveying them, than
in sitting beside some worthy recipient of charity, who tells me that
"the little sum you gave me saved me from despair and self-destruction,
and enabled me to become helpful, so that no other assistance is now
necessary." Such a confession fills a void which administering to a
luxury never can; and all the satisfaction originated in first helping
a little child over the crossing.