RICHLY POOR | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 16, 1881

RICHLY POOR.

WHEN Charles Platt and Mary Dean were married, they had just three dollars in hand wherewith to begin life. Charles was clerk in a “general store” in a small inland town. Mary was a farmer’s daughter who had taught district school for a living. They were now both orphans, and having known each other for many years had grown into love, rather than fallen into it, and were of the same mind that it was better to be happy together, than unhappy apart.

So Mary laid out her small savings in cheap furniture for two rooms, a few dishes, a good store of underclothes, two calico dresses and a merino; and Charles spent his on a stove, a clock, an ingrain carpet, a good bed for the bed-room, and a suit of Sunday clothes; this left them, as I said, three dollars; for Charles’ salary was only just increased to such small extent as made his marriage possible.

In this little town of Durham, all the children in their early lives went to school together, and grew up friends as far as their natural traits permitted; but some of the wealthy manufacturers and professional men, when their sons and daughters grew older, sent them to the county town, or even farther, for better education and more polish than they could obtain at home.

When Charles and Mary were married and came into church the first time one November day, they were nodded at and smiled to by many a kindly face, and more than one young girl of her own age ran her eyes over Mary’s bridal attire in a way not altogether pleasant to the bride; and she heard more than one whisper: “Nothing but a blue merino!”

Mary was a sensible girl, it is true, but she was a girl still, and she felt hot and uncomfortable. She would have liked a silk dress, but she could not buy one, and her mother’s earnest advice to her from the time she first earned a cent had been, “Don’t spend money you haven’t got, Mary, or you’ll buy trouble.”

There were a good many other things that were hard to bear, sometimes they seemed the harder because the poverty was mutual. She could not go out evenings, for Charles was busy in the store. She had to give up her girlish frolics of nutting, rowing on the lake, berrying, and all such things, because she had her work to do; and she knew all the time that her husband needed air and exercise even more than she did. One afternoon in such a mood she picked up her sunbonnet, put her work into her apron, and ran out to see an old neighbor, a poor lame woman, whom she had known all her life, and whose greatest pleasure was to have people come in to see her, since she could never get out to see them.

“I didn’t feel over and above chirk, Aunt Polly,” she said, “so I thought I’d run in and have a talk with you.”

“Dear me!” said Aunt Polly, “I thought you looked as bright as a butter-cup, Mary; ain’t you well?”

“Yes, I am always well.”

“What a thing to be thankful for!” said Aunt Polly, with a half-sigh.

“But sometimes I get down-hearted, aunty; we’re so poor, and so shut up, somehow. I can’t get out evenings, for Charley can’t leave the store, and I hate to go away anywhere without him; and then I never do go anywhere since I was married, for there’s work to do at home every day.”

“I suppose you’d be happier if Charles was to leave ye for good an’ all, then, and let you have liberty to go?”

“O aunty!” Tears choked her voice as she answered this seemingly cruel question.

“Mary,” Aunt Polly began again, with deep earnestness, “ef you’re a Christian woman, and want to live a Christian life, jest you stop right here, and don’t count your troubles no more, it’s them we had ought to look at: paid for with blood, not deservin’- His blood, who died that we might live.”

Mary colored painfully. She had not thought of her troubles in this light, and being a sensible, true woman, she went home with a new resolution.

Charles Platt was not a strong man, or a cheery one; his tendency was to be careful and troubled, and Mary saw now that she had hindered, not helped, him. She was young, honest, candid, and eager to do right; she made new resolves, and lived up to them. She let fresh air into her house, since she had scarcely more chance than Charles to go out and get it; she let the sunshine come in, too; and the little posy-bed by the front door was allowed her by the landlord, since the women who kept the milliner’s shop below had no time to use it. One neighbor and another gave her seeds and slips, and in winter her east window was gay with plants, and the south one gayer with her fresh face and bright smile. She was friends with everybody about her; for a kind word is like a caress, and she always had a friendly greeting, a kind inquiry, or a word of sympathy for all she met. Sometimes, of a holiday, she asked a few friends to come and spend the evening with her. She had the courage to offer them only a dish of apples, a basket of nuts, perhaps a bowl of popped corn, or, in sugar-time, a “sugaring off,” that entertainment peculiar to the country of maple-trees. But her welcome was so warm and genial, her hospitality so genuine and simple, and Charles was always so glad to see all who came, that it was one of the treats eagerly looked forward to by the young folks of Durham, and they were quite content with the even course of their quiet home life.

By and by the rooms grew smaller, for a baby helped furnish them, but she was far more welcome than the guests, even. Mary had hands and heart full now, but strength came with its need. She missed most of all her weekly evening meetings, but she lived so near the church she could still hear the old sweet hymns float over, and on Sundays Charles took care of baby while she went to her Sunday-school class, and on alternate Sundays they went, one or the other, to church. Whatever Mary gave in charity was as the widow’s mite to her, for she was sorely pinched for the real needs of life. She could, and did, give away mended and faded garments; stockings she knit “between daylight and dark;” some food to the absolutely starving, some small delicacies to the sick poor; time to visit the lonely, the sad, and the ailing she also gave, for she could carry her baby along, and found over and over again that the bright unconscious face, the innocent smile, the unsympathetic calm and sweetness of the child, did really more good to sick or sufferer than her own words of feeling. Her life was so quiet, her opportunities so small, that it ran on like a hidden brook in a meadow, whose course you only trace by the greener and stronger grasses that conceal it. Yet there was not a sick or sad person who did not want to see Mary Platt, and her happy laugh did “good like a medicine,” wherever it was heard. After several years they were able to take a little house to themselves, and from its garden, solely Mary’s care, came the first strawberries, the freshest radishes, the crispest lettuce, not only to add to their own meals, but to share with the neighbors, and the one early apple-tree that shaded her kitchen door was a blessing to everybody who liked the fruit. “Give, and it shall be given unto you,” was abundantly realized; when, time after time, the delicate baby sickened and fought its way back to life again with a tenacity babies only possess, watchers were always ready to take the mother’s place at night, dainty food sent in, every kindness that country neighborhoods can show lavished upon her, for all her neighbors had some debt of kindness to pay.

Then her cellar never was empty, for one would send her a barrel of apples, another a bushel of potatoes, and still another a few parsnips, a head or two of cabbage, a jug of cider vinegar. “I never saw such good people in my life,” she said once to Charles, with tears in her eyes; “they’re always doing something for us.”

“Strange, ain’t it?” said Charles, smiling with a queer smile, but he said no more: he knew very well why they were so kind, but he would not tell Mary; he loved her with all his heart, but he was too shy to praise her, after the reticent New England fashion.

So the days passed, carrying with them their little cares and little pleasures; and Charles and Mary found that if their life was not all sunshine, the sunshine which did come into it was all the sweeter because of the occasional shadow. The tastes of neither were expensive; they did not pine after luxuries which they could not afford, and were quite content with the even course of their quiet home life.

After a while Charles fell ill of a fever, and the extra necessities of sickness brought them into debt; this was a real trouble to Mary; to have all going out and nothing coming in seemed hard to her; her husband was not dangerously ill, but it was four long months before he resumed his place in the store, and they were almost two hundred dollars in debt. But Mary’s cheerful faith and courage held up her husband in this strait. If she was troubled he never knew it; she took in what sewing she could get, sold her vegetables and fruit to the tavern-keeper, instead of giving them away, and mended the old clothes for themselves instead of the poor about them: for she knew well justice is better than generosity. Slowly, almost cent by cent, she laid up a few dollars, and applied them in these small sums to their debts. Charles came home one night in a desponding mood enough; he had been dunned by the village apothecary for his bill, and though he did not mean to tell Mary, she soon coaxed out of him the secret of his weary face and aching head; she heard his story silently, and then went to the drawer where her coin accumulated, and brought out with the little box a bundle of bills,—for she had exacted a receipt even for the smallest sum paid in,—and now out of dimes, quarters, five-cent pieces, here and there a dollar-bill, she counted out ten dollars, and running over what she had already paid on account, found they were but five dollars in debt when that ten should be paid. The druggist was a careless man, and, eager for money, had gone to Charles with a bill on which none of Mary’s payments had been entered. Here was a pleasant enough surprise for the cast-down man; to be sure there were still debts remaining, but there was an outlook of hope before him; and as he sat down that day to a meal of potatoes, corn-bread, greens, and a bit of salt beef so small it was but a relish merely for the vegetables, a literal “dinner of herbs,” the text came involuntarily to his lips, and he smiled as he looked over at Mary and little Nelly, and repeated the words of the wise man; for he had indeed the love and faith that made poverty sweeter than many a rich feast.

Yet his naturally despondent nature gave way sometimes; he hated to see his wife working so hard, sparing so steadily, pinching in all her comforts, and one day the feeling found words, as he watched her thin fingers pulling in and out the little household dagger that has stabbed so many a life out with its countless thrusts.

“How tired you look, Molly!” he said sadly. “I hate the sight of a needle in your hands; it seems as if you were sewing yourself instead of Mr. Peters’ shirts. Oh, if we were only rich!”

“Don’t say that, Charley!” she answered, with a keen pain in her tone. “Don’t wish for money; aren’t we rich in ever so many things money don’t fetch? What a lot of friends we have got all round; what a nice little house and lovely garden; and Nelly, and each other, and”—here her voice fell with feeling and awe—“and treasure laid up where moth and rust don’t corrupt.”

“I know it, dear; but sometimes, when you work so hard, I do wish I could give you some rest and pleasure.”

“Why, I don’t want any!” she answered brightly. “I have enough. Do you suppose Squire Smith takes half the comfort in his beautiful house, all shut up and dark for fear of sun to fade and dust to tarnish, that we do in our sunny, fresh old house? Or do you believe he takes half the pleasure in spending his money we do in contriving and pinching and planning? Why, I’ve been as gay as a bobolink all day because, when this shirt is done, I shall have money to spare for a new tin tea-pot; and the debts are almost all paid, if it is after three years’ time. I’m happy every time I think of it. Why, Charley, I think we are the richest poor people that ever was!”

“I think I am the richest poor man, any way!” he answered. “Loving favor rather than silver or gold.”—S. S. Times.