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?”