Earlier text: THE CROSS FAMILY.My friend Peyton was what is called a “fine, generous fellow.” He valued money only as a means of obtaining what he desired, and was always ready to spend it with an acquaintance for mutual gratification. Of course, he was a general favorite. Every one spoke well of him, and few hesitated to give his ears the benefit of their good opinion. I was first introduced to him when he was in the neighborhood of twenty-two years of age. Peyton was then a clerk in the receipt of six hundred dollars a year. He grasped my hand with an air of frankness and sincerity, that at once installed him in my good opinion. A little pleasure excursion was upon the tapis, and he insisted on my joining it. I readily consented. There were five of us, and the expense to each, if borne mutually, would have been something like one dollar. Peyton managed everything, even to paying the bills; and when I offered to pay him my proportion, he said:— “No, no!”—pushing back my hand—“nonsense!” “Yes; but I must insist upon meeting my share of the expense.” “Not a word more. The bill’s settled, and you needn’t trouble your head about it,” was his reply; and he seemed half offended when I still urged upon him to take my portion of the cost. “What a fine, generous fellow Peyton is!” said one of the party to me, as we met the next day. “Did he also refuse to let you share in the expense of our excursion?” I asked. “After what he said to you, I was afraid of offending him by proposing to do so.” “He certainly is generous—but, I think, to a fault, if I saw a fair specimen of his generosity yesterday.” “We should be just, as well as generous.” “I never heard that he was not just.” “Nor I. But I think he was not just to himself. And I believe it will be found to appear in the end, that, if we are not just to ourselves, we will, somewhere in life, prove unjust to others. I think that his salary is not over twelve dollars a week. If he bore341 the whole expense of our pleasure excursion, it cost him within a fraction of half his earnings for a week. Had we all shared alike, it would not have been a serious matter to any of us. “Oh ! as to that, it is no very serious matter to him. He will never think of it.” “But, if he does so very frequently, he may feel it sooner or later,” I replied. “I’m sure I don’t know anything about that,” was returned. “He is a generous fellow, and I cannot but like him. Indeed, every one likes him.” Some days afterwards I fell in with Peyton again, and, in order to retaliate a little, invited him to go and get some refreshments with me. He consented. When I put my hand in my pocket to pay for them, his hand went into his. But I was too quick for him. He seemed uneasy about it. He could feel pleased while giving, but it evidently worried him to be the recipient. From that time, for some years, I was intimate with the young man. I found that he set no true value upon money. He spent it freely with every one; and every one spoke well of him. “What a generous, whole-souled342 fellow he is!” or, “What a noble heart he has!” were the expressions constantly made in regard to him. While “Mean, stingy fellow!” and other such epithets, were unsparingly used in speaking of a quiet, thoughtful young man, named Merwin, who was clerk with him in the same store. Merwin appeared to set a due value upon time and money. He rarely indulged himself in any way, and it was with difficulty that he could ever be induced to join in any pleasures that involved much expense. But I always observed that when he did so, he was exact about paying his proportion. About two years after my acquaintance with Peyton began, an incident let me deeper into the character and quality of his generosity. I called one day at the house of a poor widow woman who washed for me, to ask her to do up some clothes, extra to the usual weekly washing. I thought she looked as if she were in trouble about something, and said so to her. “It’s very hard, at best,” she replied, “for a poor woman, with four children to provide for, to get along, if she has to depend upon washing and ironing for a living. But when so many neglect to pay her regularly”—343 “Neglect to pay their washerwoman!” I said, in a tone of surprise, interrupting her. “Dashing young men, who spend their money freely, are too apt to neglect these little matters, as they call them.” “And do young men for whom you work really neglect to pay you?” “Some do. There are at least fifteen dollars now owed to me, and I don’t know which way to turn to get my last month’s rent for my landlord, who has been after it three times this week already. Mr. Peyton owes me ten dollars and I can’t”— “Mr. Peyton! It can’t be possible!” “Yes, it is though. He used to be one of the most punctual young men for whom I washed. But lately he never has any money.” “He’s a very generous-hearted young man.” “Yes, I know he is,” she replied. “But something is wrong with him. He looks worried whenever I ask him for money; and sometimes speaks as if half angry with me for troubling him. There’s Mr. Merwin—I wish all were like him. I have never yet344 taken home his clothes, that I didn’t find the money waiting for me, exact to a cent. He counts every piece when he lays out his washing for me, and knows exactly what it will come to; and then, if he happens to be out, the change is always left with the chambermaid. It’s a pleasure to do anything for him.” “He isn’t liked generally as well as Mr. Peyton is,” said I. “Isn’t he? It’s strange!” the poor woman returned, innocently. On the very next day, I saw Peyton riding out with an acquaintance in a buggy. “Who paid for your ride yesterday?” I said to the latter, with whom I was quite familiar, when next we met. “Oh, Peyton, of course. He always pays, you know. He’s a fine, generous fellow. I wish there were more like him.” “That you might ride out for nothing a little oftener, hey?” My friend colored slightly. “No, not that,” said he. “But you know there is so much selfishness in the world; we hardly ever meet a man who is willing to make the slightest sacrifice for the good of others.” “True. And I suppose it is this very selfishness that makes us so warmly admire a man like Mr. Peyton, who is willing to gratify us at his own charge. It’s a pleasant thing to ride out and see the country, but we are apt to think twice about the cost before we act once. But if some friend will only stand the expense, how generous and whole-souled we think him! It is the same in everything else. We like the enjoyments, but can’t afford the expense; and he is a generous, fine-hearted fellow, who will squander his money in order to gratify us. Isn’t that it, my friend?” He looked half convinced, and a little sheepish, to use an expressive Saxonism. On the evening succeeding this day, Peyton sat alone in his room, his head leaning upon his hand, and his brow contracted. There was a tap at his door. “Come in.” A poorly-clad, middle-aged woman entered. It was his washerwoman. The lines on the young man’s brow became deeper. “Can’t you let me have some money, Mr. Peyton? My landlord is pressing hard for his rent, and I cannot pay him until you pay me.” “Really, Mrs. Lee, it is quite impossible just now. I am entirely out of money. But my salary will be due in three weeks, and then I will pay you up the whole. You must make your landlord wait until that time. I am very sorry to put you to this trouble. But it will never happen again.” The young man really did feel sorry, and expressed it in his face as well as in the tone of his voice. “Can’t you let me have one or two dollars, Mr. Peyton? I am entirely out of money.” “It is impossible—I have n’t a shilling left. But try and wait three weeks, and then it will all come to you in a lump, and do you a great deal more good than if you had it a dollar at a time.” Mrs. Lee retired slowly, and with a disappointed air. The young man sighed heavily as she closed the door after her. He had been too generous, and now he could not be just. The buggy in which he had driven out with his friend on that day had cost him his last two dollars—a sum which would have lightened the heart of his poor washerwoman. “The fact is, my salary is too small,” said he, rising and walking about his room uneasily.347 “It is not enough to support me. If the account were fully made up, tailor’s bill, bootmaker’s bill, and all, I dare say I should find myself at least three hundred dollars in debt.” Merwin received the same salary that he did, and was just three hundred dollars ahead. He dressed as well, owed no man a dollar, and was far happier. It is true, he was not called a “fine, generous fellow,” by persons who took good care of their own money, while they were very willing to enjoy the good things of life at a friend’s expense. But he did not mind this. The want of such a reputation did not disturb his mind very seriously. After Mrs. Lee had been gone half an hour, Peyton’s door was flung suddenly open. A young man, bounding in, with extended hand came bustling up to him. “Ah, Peyton, my fine fellow! How are you? how are you?” And he shook Peyton’s hand quite vigorously. “Hearty!—and how are you, Freeman?” “Oh, gay as a lark. I have come to ask a favor of you.” “Name it.”348 “I want fifty dollars.” Peyton shrugged his shoulders. “I must have it, my boy? I never yet knew you to desert a friend, and I don’t believe you will do so now.” “Suppose I have n’t fifty dollars?” “You can borrow it for me. I only want it for a few days. You shall have it back on next Monday. Try for me—there’s a generous fellow!” “There’s a generous fellow,” was irresistible. It came home to Peyton in the right place. He forgot poor Mrs. Lee, his unpaid tailor’s bill, and sundry other troublesome accounts. “If I can get an advance of fifty dollars on my salary to-morrow, you shall have it.” “Thank you! thank you! I knew I shouldn’t have to ask twice when I called upon Henry Peyton. It always does me good to grasp the hand of such a man as you are.” On the next day, an advance of fifty dollars was asked and obtained. This sum was loaned as promised. In two weeks, the individual who borrowed it was in New Orleans, from whence he had the best of reasons for349 not wishing to return to the north. Of course, the generous Henry Peyton lost his money. An increase of salary to a thousand dollars only made him less careful of his money. Before, he lived as freely as if his income had been one-third above what it was; now, he increased his expenses in like ratio. It was a pleasure to him to spend his money—not for himself alone, but among his friends. It is no cause of wonder, that in being so generous to some, he was forced to be unjust to others. He was still behindhand with his poor washerwoman—owed for boarding, clothes, hats, boots, and a dozen other matters—and was, in consequence, a good deal harrassed with duns. Still, he was called by some of his old cronies, “a fine, generous fellow.” A few were rather colder in their expressions. He had borrowed money from them, and did not offer to return it, and he was such a generous-minded young man, that they felt a delicacy about calling his attention to it. “Can you raise a couple of thousand dollars?” was asked of him by a friend, when he was twenty-seven years old. “If you can,350 I know a first-rate chance to get into business.” “Indeed! What is the nature of it?” The friend told him all he knew, and he was satisfied that a better offering might never present itself. But two thousand dollars were indispensable. “Can’t you borrow it?” suggested the friend. “Try your best. You will never again have such an opportunity.” Peyton did try, but in vain. Those who could lend it to him considered him “too good-hearted a fellow” to trust with money; and he was forced to see that tide, which if he could have taken it at the flood, would have led him on to fortune, slowly and steadily recede. To Merwin the same offer was made. He had fifteen hundred dollars laid by, and easily procured the balance. No one was afraid to trust him with money. “What a fool I have been?” was the mental exclamation of Peyton, when he learned that his fellow-clerk had been able, with his own earnings, on a salary no larger than his351 own, to save enough to embrace the golden opportunity which he was forced to pass by. “They call Merwin mean and selfish—and I am called a generous fellow. That means, he has acted like a wise man, and I like a fool, I suppose. I know him better than they do. He is neither mean nor selfish, but careful and prudent, as I ought to have been. His mother is poor, and so is mine. Ah, me!” and the thought of his mother caused him to clasp both hands against his forehead. “I believe two dollars of his salary have been sent weekly to his poor mother. But I have never helped mine a single cent. There is the mean man, and here is the generous one. Fool! fool! wretch! He has fifteen hundred dollars ahead, after having sent his mother one hundred dollars a year for five or six years, and I am over five hundred dollars in debt. A fine, generous fellow, truly!” The mind of Peyton was, as it should be, disturbed to its very center. His eyes were fairly opened, and he saw just where he stood, and what he was worth as a generous man. “They have flattered my weakness,” said he, bitterly, “to eat and drink and ride at my expense. It was very easy to say, ‘how freehearted he is,’ so that I could hear them.352 A cheap way of enjoying the good things of life, verily! But the end of all this has come. One year from to-day, if I live, I will owe no man a dollar. My kind old mother, whom I have so long neglected, shall hear from me at once—ten dollars every month I dedicate to her. Come what will, nothing shall touch that. This agreement with myself I solemnly enter into in the sight of Heaven, and nothing shall tempt me to violate it.” “Are you going to ride out this afternoon, Peyton?” inquired a young friend, breaking in upon him at this moment. “Yes, if you’ll hire the buggy,” was promptly returned. “Nor I either. How much is your salary?” “Just what mine is. If you can’t, I am sure I cannot.” “Of course, you ought to be the best judge. I knew you rode out often, and liked company.” “Yes, I have done so; but that’s past. I’ve been a ‘fine, generous fellow’ long enough to353 get in debt and mar my prospects for life, perhaps; but I am going to assume a new character. No doubt the very ones who have had so many rides, oyster suppers, and theater tickets at my expense, will all at once discover that I am as mean and selfish as Mervin who has refrained from not only injurious, expensive indulgences, but even denied himself many innocent pleasures to save time and money for better purposes. I now wish I had been as truly noble and generous in the right direction as he has been.” Peyton went to work in the matter of reform in right good earnest, but he found it hard work; old habits and inclinations were very strong. Still he had some strength of mind, and he brought this into as vigorous exercise as it was possible for him to do, mainly with success, but sometimes with gentle lapses into self-indulgence. His mother lived in a neighboring town, and was in humble circumstances. She supported herself by keeping a shop for the sale of various little articles. The old lady sat behind her counter, one afternoon, sewing, and thinking of her only son. “Ah, me!” she sighed, “I thought Henry354 would have done something for himself long before this; but he is a wild, free-hearted boy, and spends everything as he goes.” “Here’s a letter for you at last, Mrs. Peyton,” said the well-known voice of the postman, breaking in upon her just at this moment. With trembling hands, Mrs. Peyton broke the seal; a bank-bill crumpled in her fingers as she opened the letter. A portion of its contents was:— “DEAR MOTHER—I have had some very serious thoughts of late about my way of living. You know I never liked to be considered mean; this led me to be, what seemed to everybody, very generous. Everybody was pleased to eat, and drink, and ride at my expense; but no one seemed inclined to let me do the same at his expense. I have been getting a good salary for six or seven years, and, for a part of that time, as much as a thousand dollars. I am ashamed to say that I have not a farthing laid by; nay, what is worse, I owe a good many little bills. But, dear mother, I think I have come fairly to my senses. I have come to a resolution not to spend a dollar foolishly; thus far I355 have been able to keep my promise to myself, and, by the help of Heaven, I mean to keep it to the end. My first thought, on seeing my folly, was of my shameful disregard to my mother’s condition. In this letter are ten dollars. Every month you will receive from me a like sum—more, if you need it. As soon as I can lay by a sufficient amount, I will look around for some means of entering into business, and, as soon after as possible, make provision for you, that your last days may be spent in ease and comfort.” “God bless the dear boy!” exclaimed Mrs. Peyton, dropping the letter, while the tears gushed from her eyes. The happy mother wept long for joy. With her trembling hand she wrote a reply, and urged him, by the tenderest and most sacred considerations, to keep to his good resolutions. At the end of a year Peyton examined his affairs and found himself freed from debt; but for nearly one hundred dollars of his wages he could not account. He puzzled over it for two or three evenings, and made out over fifty dollars spent foolishly. “No doubt the rest will have to be passed to that account,” said he at last, half angry356 with himself. “I’ll have to watch closer than this. At the end of the next year, I’ll not be in doubt about where one hundred dollars have gone.” It was but rarely, now, that you would hear the name of Peyton mentioned. Before, everybody said he was a “fine, generous fellow;” everybody praised him. Now he seemed to be forgotten, or esteemed of little consideration. He felt this; but he had started to accomplish a certain end, and he had sufficient strength of mind not to be driven from his course. In a few years he entered into business and succeeded beyond his expectations. He provided a home for his mother, and no one who saw her during the remaining ten years of her life would have called her unhappy. I know Peyton still. He is not now, by general reputation, “a fine, generous fellow.” But he is a good and respected citizen, and was a good son while his mother lived with him. He has won the means of really benefiting others, and few are more willing than he is to do it, when it can be done in the right way. He is still “generous”—but wisely so. “H, you dear little Flossy!” said Miss Adelia, picking up her sky terrier, “nobody has given you a crumb to eat today, nor brushed out your pretty curls. You are always neglected when Adelia is away. But you shall not be any more, pretty pet. She will take you with her the next time she makes a visit. Oh! run away, Freddy, don’t plague me with your lesson. I must go down and broil a mutton chop for Flossy; the little dear is almost starved.” So she pushed away her little brother, and made Flossy a snug bed on the sofa cushion, patting him softly as she left him, and then went down to the kitchen to burn her fingers, and disarrange Bridget’s tidy apartment, in the preparation of a breakfast fit for her “treasure.” Miss Adelia would have considered herself most unjustly treated if she had been obliged to take half the trouble for the accommodation of any one else in the family, but for her Flossy she could do anything. Just in proportion as her attachment358 for this senseless creature increased, her regard for every thing else appeared to diminish. She grew cross and fretful when asked to perform the simplest service for any one. But she could spend hours over her dog, bathing him, curling his hair in little rings, and sprinkling him with fragrant perfume. The pet endured it as well as he could, but would have been a far happier dog if he had been permitted to pick his bones in the court-yard, and go to sleep in the sun. “O mother, I can’t take that tiresome baby, he is so cross. I never could endure a baby just big enough to tear every thing to atoms. Besides, I want to curl up poor Flossy; he looks as shaggy as a street dog.” “I wish he was a street dog with all my heart,” said her mother. “It was a very unlucky thing for us all when your cousin made you the present of that dog. It takes up altogether too much of your time, and is making you very selfish, my child. Your father and I have decided that, unless you make a decided change in the matter, Flossy must be disposed of.” “Send away poor Flossy? O mother,” and Adelia burst into tears as she spoke. “Don’t359 you know, mother, he is worth his weight in silver. Cousin Charley said some of these terriers are worth their weight in gold. A gentleman refused a thousand-dollar span of horses for a pair he owned.” “I think the old Quaker’s remark on a parallel case would hold good then, that two fools met that time, one to make such an offer, and the other to refuse it. Pets are very well in their place, but when they take up so much time and attention they become a positive injury. It is always a pleasant sight to me to go into old Margaret’s little cottage, and see her great tortoise-shell cat purring away so contentedly on the hearth-rug, for I know how much company she is for the lonely woman. But poor Miss Hobson exposes herself to a great deal of ridicule by her attachment to her poll parrot. You know how much time she spends over him, trying to teach him new words, talking with him, and petting him like a spoiled child. It makes her seem very silly to other people who have far more important pursuits in life than tending a bird. I understand that she has bequeathed him a thousand dollars in her will, and a hundred dollars a year to a360 person who is to take care of him after her death. So it will be for the woman’s interest to prolong his life as long as possible. The poor old lady is very ill now, but screeching polly is seldom out of her room; she seems unhappy if he is out of her sight. Now, if Miss Hobson had only taken into her home and heart some poor motherless child years ago, what a blessing it might be to her now! Instead of being dependent for every comfort on hirelings, she might have a child’s loving attentions in her old age. “God never intended us to lavish so much time and attention upon a mere animal. He wishes us to be kind to even the humblest of his creatures, but he has given every one a higher work to do than curling and perfuming a dog. I have observed with great anxiety and pain how this attachment is growing upon you, and how it is injuring your mind and heart; and now, Adelia, you must give up devoting so much time to it, or I shall give Flossy away to any one who will take him. It would be better, indeed, to have him killed, than to have him the means of making my daughter selfish and ridiculous. You may think of this seriously,361 Adelia, and to-morrow morning you may tell me your decision. If you think you can keep him, and not have him interfere with one other duty, you may do so. Another thing I shall insist on. There are to be no more meals cooked expressly for him. It took Bridget half an hour to clean up after your breakfast-making this morning, and that must not occur again. He can eat scraps from the table like any other dog, or he cannot stay with us.” “O mother,” said Adelia, “I cannot think what Henrietta Bradshaw will say to that. She always cooks something nice for her King Charles, and feeds him on a china plate.” “Is it to imitate Henrietta you have been led into all this folly, my dear?” asked her mother, smiling. “I thought it was pure affection for your pet. But here comes aunt Sophia, perhaps she can help us solve the knotty question of what shall be done with Flossy.” Aunt Sophia listened to an account of the matter, and at length proposed to take Flossy to board. Not that she was particularly fond of pets, but she was anxious that so fine362 a girl as her niece might make, should not be spoiled for a little terrier dog no bigger than your fist. As school commenced the next week, Adelia at length consented to the arrangement. It would be a good excuse to offer to Miss Henrietta, and it would sound well, too, to say that she had sent him into the country to board for awhile. Floss seemed to enjoy country air, and romped and frolicked with the kittens just as any plebeian puppy might have done, but one day he fell into a fit. It did not last long, however, yet aunt Sophia thought it of enough importance to mention when she came into town one day with her butter. “O auntie, do get the doctor for him if it ever happens again. He lives just next door to you, so it would not be a bit of trouble. Henrietta often has Dr. Allen look at her King Charles when he does not seem as well as usual. Once he gave him some medicine in a little vial, which Henrietta had the hardest work to get him to take. I suppose it was very bitter, for Charley did make such a face, and cry, and rub his nose. Dr. Allen, and Henrietta’s sister Laura, sat on the sofa363 laughing till they cried, and poor Hetty cried, too, for the poor dog’s sufferings.” “By all means get Dr. King to attend Floss if he needs it,” said father, who began to see a glimmering hope of some day getting clear of “the plague.” “I will write a line to him I think.” Adelia almost thought her father was jesting, but he did send a line by aunt Sophia. It might not have added to her happiness if she had seen its contents, however. Perhaps the doctor had attended ladies’ lap-dogs before. At least he made no hesitation in pouring a little crystallized powder down his throat, which soon relieved him of all the ills of life. Aunt Sophia sent in a line to say that poor Flossy was dead, and the children had buried him at the foot of the apple tree. There were a good many tears shed that evening by one member of the family, and Adelia thought her father quite hard-hearted to turn to his newspaper with so much interest, right after she had told him of her affliction. She wished to run over at once to her friend Henrietta for consolation, and her mother permitted her to go for awhile.364 She found that young lady deeply immersed in dress-fitting anxieties, her dress-makers happening not to please her, so she had no eyes or ears for her friend’s sorrows. She listened with the greatest indifference to her account of poor Flossy’s untimely end, and only offered the consoling remark:— “It was only what you might have expected, sending him away from home, and trusting him to the care of another. I never permit any one else to have the charge of my little darling,” and she stopped in the midst of her employment to give him a caress. Adelia speedily drew her visit to a close, and when she returned was ready to accompany her mother on a walk. She began to realize the truth which her mother had sought to impress upon her, that mere fashionable friendships were very unsubstantial affairs. They were worth but little at times when we felt we needed them most. But where was her mother taking her? This was a portion of the town she had never visited before. She almost shrank back with dismay from the narrow alley they entered, where they were obliged to pick their way very carefully through the rubbish which365 littered the sidewalk. But her mother knew the way, and stopped at last before a crumbling doorway, which Adelia almost feared to enter. Knocking softly at a door, it was speedily opened, and the two entered an apartment which, with all its poverty, was a pleasant contrast to all without. The bare walls were whitewashed, and the floor was clean, and so was the little pallet in the corner where lay a form as white as the little dress it wore. A bowed and heart-broken mother went back to her station at the foot of the little bed as soon as her guests were seated. No word could she utter, but she folded back the white covering from the little waxen form, and then her sobs and moans broke forth afresh. Adelia’s ready tears flowed forth in sympathy, and her mother’s eyes were dim even while she gently strove to lift the poor woman’s thoughts up to that blessed land where Jesus will gather all the tender lambs into his bosom. “I know, ma’am, it is much better for her, the beautiful rose-bud; but, Oh! the weary nights and days for me that’s to come. She’ll never nestle up to her poor mother’s366 bosom in the dark night again, when the noises in the house and street frighten her. Poor lamb! I was forced to leave her the day she was taken sick to take home some work to a lady. She kept me waiting in the hall for an hour before I could see her, and then, ma’am, she would give me no money. ‘She had n’t it by her,’ she said, ‘and I must call again.’ O ma’am, it made my blood run cold in me to hear her say that. She, with her wealth and plenty, did n’t know what a death-stroke it was to me, with my darling sick, and me not a penny to buy her a sup of milk, or a thing to refresh her. I came back to the room, though I was blind and dizzy with famine, but I could have found my child, I believe, if I had been blindfolded. I carried her up and down the room, rocked her in my arms till she fell asleep, and then I stole out with my shawl on my arm to the pawnbroker’s shop. It was the last thing I had that was worth their looking at, and it brought me enough to buy some things for her and a stale loaf for myself. There’s some of it left there still. It seems as if I could never taste food again. But I must make haste with my work, or I shall not get the367 money to pay for my baby’s burial, and I can’t bear to see her rattled off over the stones in a pine coffin like a poor beggar child.” She reached out her hand, and took up a paper which contained her work, a beautiful piece of braiding on a jacket of violet merino. “Why, that is just like Henrietta Bradshaw’s new dress,” said Adelia. “She has it made with a jacket just like that, and it was to be braided in just such a pattern. We selected it from a magazine.” “It is for that same young lady, Miss, and I only hope I may please her—though she might have let me wait, when my baby lay dead in the house,” she said, almost bitterly. “Oh, Henrietta will not ask you to do it now!” said Adelia earnestly. “She could not do such a thing. I am sure she would pay you beforehand, and allow you to finish it afterward.” “If she will pay me when it is done, Miss, I shall be thankful; but it was of her I begged the money that was due me, so I could buy food for my dying child, but it was refused me.” It seemed incredible to the warm-hearted368 Adelia that any one could be so hard-hearted; but she did not reflect how rapidly she was drifting in the same direction. After her mother had given the woman a sum sufficient for present necessity, and left the contents of the little basket she carried, she took Adelia’s hand and walked away toward their own pleasant home again. Oh, how different the world seemed when they were out once more in the broad sunny street, away from that dismal alley! Yet Adelia’s thoughts went constantly back to the poor woman alone with her great sorrow. There was no escape for her into the bright sunshine of life again. “Oh, mother, I do not know how she can bear it,” she said at last. “This is one of the real sorrows of life, my child. There is nothing like meeting such a grief as this face to face, to cure us of a great many fanciful sorrows.” “You will never see me cry for Flossy again, mother. It may do very well for a plaything, but I see it was nothing to love and mourn for when there are such sorrows as this in the world.” The mother’s heart rose up in a prayer of thanksgiving, to find that the lesson she had369 sought to teach had been learned; and she also prayed that it might be lasting. “But can Henrietta know the truth of the case, mother, and yet insist on having her work done at once?” “I suppose she does not realize the poor mother’s grief as you do, Adelia. But when the heart is so given up to the frivolities of fashion, and the love of what should be only an occasional diversion, it grows hard very fast. Can you not realize that, my dear?” Adelia blushed and held down her head, for she remembered how pettish she had grown of late, when the baby or little Fred required her attention. She thought, with a shiver, what it would be to see those little meddlesome fingers, that often tried her so, lying cold and waxen white like those of the little one she had just left. In her heart she felt that she could never be so impatient with them again. The lesson which she learned in that dreary alley was one of life-long service to her. From that hour she took a more intelligent interest in the sorrows and sufferings of the poor and needy, and even learned to deny herself that she might relieve their wants.370 She had, it is true, a succession of pets, and was seldom without one. Mother was glad to see these marks of a tender and loving spirit toward the little creatures God had given to be with us, but she never again permitted one to steal away the time and service which belonged to parents, brothers, and friends, or to the Lord’s poor and suffering ones. Who are sowing? who are sowing?
These young children now at play;
And the scattered seeds are growing,
Night by night and day by day;
Some with fruitful grain are shooting;
Some will only weeds produce,
Which, alas, will need uprooting,
Ere the soil be fit for use.
Who are sowing? Those just leaving
Childhood and its sports behind;
Hearts with golden visions heaving,
Are they sowing to the wind?
If they toil, on Christ relying;
If his glory be their aim;
They may hope, with hope undying,
They shall reap immortal fame.
MADE A DRUNKARD BY HIS CIGAR.
I knew a young clergyman, whose oratory obtained for him the admiration of many influential persons, among whom was a gentleman of fortune, who courted his company and taught him to smoke. The young minister was warned of his danger, but could not be persuaded to renounce what he considered a harmless indulgence, and claimed that his cigar soothed his mind and composed his feelings. A friend, in reply, told him the mind never wants composing when in health, by artificial means, only when discomposed by improper causes, and the feelings never want artificial soothing only when improperly irritated; and added, “Beware how you indulge in a bad habit.” Impatient under the rebuke, the clergyman rejoined, “I smoke but seldom, and could almost do without it.” Seldom and almost are two fatally ominous words. Seldom will become regular, and almost be converted into always. And as smoking and drinking are372 sworn companions, “Let me beseech you,” said his friend, “not to make them yours. Ministers should be a fence around the pit of perdition. Some inexperienced youth may see you smoke, and imitate your example, and become a confirmed smoker, and, sooner or later, a confirmed drunkard. The line of demarkation being once effaced, he may soon be lost in the vortex of sin.” Little did this young preacher suppose this to be a picture of his own mournful case. But, by his habits, his splendid talents soon became dim, his hearers forsook him. His wealthy host, who first taught him to smoke, witnessed his growing desire for stimulants, and with a look more expressive than words, would say of him, “that in spite of praying and preaching, professors of religion like the good things of this life, as well as others; and that, after all, saints and sinners were pretty much alike.” The days of this eloquent young clergyman were ended in ignominy. Around a once most promising, talented preacher, a gloomy curtain was drawn; and a life which promised to be happy and illustrious, was early brought to a miserable close. His intemperate habits,373 it was supposed, killed his young wife, and made a beggar of his child. He died in a mad-house, blaspheming the very Saviour he had preached. Avoid smoking. “It is the devil’s leading string, commencing with a hair and ending with a cable. GIVE up tobacco? Yes, I will!
There’s man enough left of me still,
To break away from its vile use,
With it I’ll hold no word of truce.
Give up tobacco? why not now?
No longer at its shrine I’ll bow;
No longer be its conscious slave;
What’s left of me, I’ll try to save.
Give up tobacco? filthy weed,
Upon it scarce the beasts will feed,
They know too well its deadly power,
But man accepts it—precious dower.
Give up tobacco? yes, I will,
Till this poor heart lies quiet, still
Will raise my warning voice on high,
Against tobacco, till I die,