Choice Readings for the Home Circle Part 23

Father felt that he owed a debt of grat.i.tude to Mr. Day, and he presented him with a good team and helped him to rent a farm. This encouraged him, and he worked so industriously and managed so prudently that in a few years he was able to buy a small farm and has since been able to support his family comfortably.

Many years have pa.s.sed since these events occurred, and I am now past middle life, but I have never ceased to be thankful for the lesson taught me by Mr. Day, and in fulfilling his wish I would repeat the lesson which the story teaches--never indorse.

WATCH YOUR WORDS.

Keep a watch on your words, my darling, For words are wonderful things; They are sweet like the bee's fresh honey-- Like the bees, they have terrible stings; They can bless, like the warm, glad suns.h.i.+ne, And brighten a lonely life; They can cut in the strife of anger, Like an open two-edged knife.

Let them pa.s.s through your lips unchallenged, If their errand is true and kind-- If they come to support the weary, To comfort and help the blind; If a bitter, revengeful spirit Prompt the words, let them be unsaid; They may flash through a brain like lightning, Or fall on a heart like lead.

Keep them back, if they are cold and cruel, Under bar and lock and seal; The wounds they make, my darling, Are always slow to heal.

May peace guard your life, and ever, From the time of your early youth, May the words that you daily utter Be the words of beautiful truth.

A LIFE LESSON

Albert Moore, at the age of twenty-five, took Alice Warren for his wife. He had been in the army--fought through from Bull's Bluff to Richmond--had come out with a captain's commission. He had come from the army with but little money; but he had a good trade, a stout pair of hands, and had borrowed no trouble for the future. Alice had saved up a few hundred dollars from her wages as a teacher, and when the twain had become husband and wife they found, upon a careful inventory, that they had enough to furnish a small house comfortably.

Albert proposed that they should hire a tenement in the city; but Alice thought they had better secure a pretty cottage in the suburbs--a cottage which they might, perhaps, in time, make their own.

Albert had no disposition to argue the question, so the cottage was found and secured. It was a pleasant, rural location, and so connected with the city by rail, that Albert found no difficulty in going to and from his workshop.

During her five years' experience in school-teaching Alice had learned many things, and having been an orphan from an early age, she had made the problems of real life one of her chief studies; and what she had learned in this latter department served her well in her new station.

After marriage she found Albert to be just the man she had known him to be in other years. He was kind to a fault; free-hearted and generous; ready always to answer the call of friends.h.i.+p; and p.r.o.ne to pluck the flowers that bloom to-day, regardless of what may be nurtured to bloom to-morrow.

They had been married but a few months when Alice found he was cutting his garments according to his daily supply of cloth. Not a shred was he likely to save up from the cuttings for an extra garment for a rainy day to come.

"Albert," she said to him one evening, "do you know we ought to be laying up a little something?"

Albert looked up from his paper and waited for his wife to explain.

"I think I heard you tell Mr. Greenough that you had no money--that you had paid out your last dollar this very afternoon?"

"Exactly, my dear; but you know to-morrow is pay-day."

"And you have spent your last month's earnings?"

"Yes."

A brief silence ensued, which Albert broke.

"Come, Alice, you've got something on your mind. Out with it--I'll listen."

And then Alice, in a smiling, pleasant way, went on to tell her husband that they ought to be laying up something.

Albert smiled in turn, and asked how such a thing could be done when it cost all he earned to live.

"You earn three dollars and a half a day," said Alice.

"Yes."

"George Summers earns only three dollars a day."

"You are right."

"And yet he lives and does not run in debt."

"But he is forced to deny himself many little comforts which we enjoy."

"And the one great comfort which we might enjoy we are throwing away."

"How is that, Alice."

"The comfort of a little sum in the bank, which we should see growing toward the answering of future wants."

Albert could not see how it was to be done; and Alice feared that a lesson of empty words might be wasted. She knew that his ambition needed a substantial prop. Never, of his own accord, would he commence to save by littles. He did not estimate money in that way. Had some kind fairy dropped into his hand a five-twenty bond for five hundred dollars, he would have put it away gladly; and with such a nest-egg in the start, he might have sought to add to the store. But he could see no hope in a dollar bill, and much less could he discover the nucleus of a grand saving in a fifty-cent piece.

With Alice it was different. From her meager earnings as school-teacher she had in less than five years, saved up three hundred dollars; and the first saving she had put by was a silver dime. She knew what little by little could do, and she was determined to show it to her husband. She must be patient and persevering, and these qualities she possessed in an eminent degree. It was to be the grand undertaking of the first years of her married life, and to do it she would bend every available energy. She planned that if possible she would get hold of that fifty cents every day; or, if she could not do that she would do the best she could.

Generous, frank, loyal, and loving, Albert was an easy prey to the wiles of a wife loyal and loving as himself. He gave her money when she asked for it; and she asked for it when she thought he had any to give.

And here let me say that Alice knew her husband would not run in debt.

That was an evil they both arrayed themselves against in the outset.

When Albert's purse was empty he bought nothing; but when it was full he was apt to buy more than he needed. Alice knew all this and governed herself accordingly.

"I think," said Alice, one evening, "that I must fix over my old brown cashmere for winter, I should like a new one, but I don't suppose you can afford it."

Albert looked grieved. The idea that he could not afford his wife a new dress!

But such a one as she wanted would cost twenty-five or thirty dollars.

"If you want it, get it," said Albert emphatically. "I will let you have twenty dollars from this month's pay, and the balance you shall have next month."

Alice got the thirty dollars, but she did not get the new dress. By the outlay of five dollars for new tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs she contrived to fix over the brown cashmere so that it looked every bit as good as new.

And so Alice worked. Sometimes she asked her husband for ten cents, sometimes for fifty cents, sometimes for a dollar, and sometimes for more, and at the end of a year, upon carefully reckoning up, she found that she had managed to get hold of rather more than fifty cents a day; but she had done it by denying herself of many things, some of which seemed really needful.

The result of the first year's effort inspired Alice with new life and vigor. She had saved one hundred and fifty dollars, and had invested it in government funds. Through the influence of a dear friend who was in a banking establishment, and to whom she had confided her secret, she was enabled to get the bonds at their face value.

It was only a little at a time--sometimes a very little--but those littles multiplied by other littles, grew amazingly. The husbandman who would sit himself down by a hill of corn, and wait to see the tender blades put forth would be disheartened; but he knows if he plants the tiny seed, and cultivates it as he ought, the harvest of golden grain will come at length.

Albert and Alice were married in the spring of 1865. It was on an evening of August, 1870, that Albert came home. He had been notified that they must leave the cottage. They must give up the pleasant home, and lose the little garden they had cultivated with so much fondness and care.

"The owner wishes to sell," he exclaimed; "and has an offer. He asks two thousand dollars, and must have five hundred down."

Alice's eyes gleamed with radiant delight.