Chapter III: Preface (3)

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?”

Just then his wife came into the room. He went to her, took her hand tenderly in his, and told her where he had been, what he had seen, and how differently he felt.

“But,” said she, with a loving smile and an arch look, “how about those badly-ironed collars that we heard of the other morning, and the dusty steps, and the weak coffee?”

“Oh,” he cried, “how could I ever let such trifles trouble me?”

“And then,” she continued, “the nursery carpet that is wearing out, and the boy’s shoes, and the girls’ dresses?”

“As for them,” he said, “we will hope to get more when they are gone. But with even half our present comforts and indulgences, and with you, my dearest, and our precious children about me, I trust I may feel too rich ever again to utter one complaining word.”

So the dark shadows were driven away from Peter Crisp’s spectacles, and he and all his family ever after led a happier life, because he had found what he never possessed before—A THANKFUL HEART.

THE TWO APPLE TREES.

TWO apple trees that stood on opposite sides of the road, being both of them neglected by their owners, used to sympathize with each other’s misfortunes.

“Just look at the suckers that are allowed to spring up about my roots!” said one.

“And see the great nests of caterpillars that remain undisturbed among my branches!” said the other.

But after a while the farm on which one of the trees stood was sold, and it soon became evident that its new owner was a very different farmer from the old one. He began straightening up his fences, whitewashing his buildings, and putting things to rights all over his farm. His fields were ploughed, his garden planted, his fruit trees attended to—among the rest, the apple tree that stood near the road. Its dead wood was cut out, the caterpillars it had complained of were cleared away, and the ground about its roots was loosened and enriched.

As a consequence, when spring arrived, it was covered with blossoms, and later in the summer loaded down with fruit.

But while all this was going on it had noticed a strange alteration in its opposite neighbor. Formerly the two trees used to talk together every day, but now very little passed between them. The one across the road seemed unwilling to talk and grew more and more silent, until, when autumn came and the great red apples were being gathered from the branches of its old acquaintance, it would scarcely return an answer when spoken to. The other bore this for a time, but at length could bear it no longer, and then spoke out plainly, as follows:

“You will hardly answer me when I speak to you. What a change is this in an old friend! Yet I have done nothing to make you dislike me. I am left to imagine only one cause for it, and that is jealousy, and regret, at my greater good fortune.”

“You wrong me,” replied the fruitless tree—“not in charging me with unkind treatment, which I acknowledge, but in the motive you have imputed it to. It is not because I am sorry for your good fortune, but because I am ashamed of my own unhappy condition, that I am so silent. I would not strip from you one green leaf or have you to bear one apple less, but in looking at your prosperous state I am made more conscious of my own poverty, and realize what a poor barren stock I am.”

“Pardon me,” said the other. “Instead of being angry I am sorry for you, and hope with all my heart that by next spring you may fall into better hands, and by autumn be more heavily loaded down with fruit than myself.”

* * * * *

An appearance of ill-will does not always prove its existence. We should be sure of the motive before judging the act.

THE SPRING IN THE WOODS.

A SPRING of pure water bubbled up from the ground in the midst of a wood, but the trees, after sheltering it for a season, began to complain of it as an intruder.

“You take up too much of our room,” they said, “where more trees might grow. Then, our underbrush, that we depend on for the future, is trampled down and spoiled by the animals that come trooping every day to your side. You have no right to occupy our space, and we warn you to be gone.”

Hearing this, the spring sent word down to its hidden source, deep in the ground, bidding its streams seek another outlet in a grove near by. Soon afterward its waters began to disappear from the wood, sinking lower and lower, until, instead of the glassy mirror in which the trees used to see their branches reflected, only a dusty hollow remained. Nor was this all. Hot and dry weather came on soon after, and the trees, missing the moisture about their roots, many of them lost their freshness and verdure, and some of them died.

Meanwhile, the spring reappeared in the grove, with waters more abundant than ever, and the trees there grew thicker and greener, and bushes and wild flowers sprang up on every side. There, too, the birds and the beasts, deserting the woods where they had formerly gone, thronged to drink and rest in its shade.

* * * * *

Because we fear a little trouble and expense, or, it may be, the humbling of our pride, we let those pass by our doors who would profit us in the best things and perhaps prove to be angels entertained unawares.

THE DISTANT VIEW.

A MAN who came as a stranger into a country neighborhood bought a cottage there which stood on rising ground. Before his porch, and gently declining from it, was a velvet-like green sward, and farther off a thick growth of trees on every side. These quite surrounded him, and gave him from his cottage door a limited but beautiful prospect. A neighbor who came to pay him a friendly visit, on seeing it, said:

“You are here in a little world of your own, with every object that is disagreeable to look at shut out.”

But the man himself was not satisfied. Beyond the woods, on one side, was a river, and beyond the river far-spreading green fields. He wanted to bring these within sight. There was no way of doing this except by cutting down some of his trees. So, regardless of what others might think or say, he took his axe on his shoulder one morning, and went to the spot where the trees stood that interrupted the desired view.

Upon examining them, he found they were among the handsomest on his place. There was a chestnut already in tassel, an elm with spreading top and fringed trunk, a sugar-maple that he knew would turn to crimson and gold in the autumn, and beside it a tall evergreen. But he did not hesitate. The end to be gained would more than compensate for his loss, and he went to work with a strong arm and determined will, and soon laid the trees low.

When the distant landscape burst upon his sight, he felt amply rewarded for the sacrifice he had made. After this he was careful to keep the avenue which he had cleared always open, coming down there again with his axe whenever a young tree or a branch of an old one, or even a bush or shrub, interfered with the view.

And now it seemed as though he never wearied of looking at the river and the green fields beyond. Every morning, before going to his work, he stood a few moments gazing at them. Again, at the close of the day, on returning to his cottage, he looked at them in the soft sunset light. When working in his garden or about his lawn, they were in sight all the time. And on Sundays, or whenever he had a few hours’ rest, he would take his favorite seat before the door that looked out toward that view.

Of course there were cloudy days when the view was interrupted, but even then he used to gaze in that direction, knowing that the scene he loved was there. And so he continued to do year after year. And though you may hardly believe it when I tell you, yet it is true, that as the years rolled on there came a changed expression upon his face—as if he saw something which others could not see—which never again left it.

After this had become so evident (though unknown to himself) that his friends and neighbors observed it, one of them made bold to ask him whether there was anything more than a love of Nature that so attracted him to the river and the green fields.

Then for the first time he opened his heart to another, and said:

“You know, my friend, that I came to this country a stranger, but you do not know that I came also an outcast, disinherited justly, and banished from my Father’s house. That house stands across yonder river, and through all these years I have been catching glimpses of it, and hoping some day to return there. This reveals to you the reason for what seems so strange in my life since I came here. And now I know that I shall return thither. I am but a sojourner here, and am longing to see my Father’s face—yes, and the face of my Elder Brother, who it is that has brought about (at His own cost) a reconciliation between us.”

THE TWO VINES.

A MAN came out into his garden one spring morning to prune his grape-vine. Wherever its branches were growing too freely, or in a wrong direction, he cut them off. Then he bound them to a low wooden frame he had placed there, so that they might grow only in the direction he intended. Now, as the day was warm and the sap was beginning to flow, the branches bled, as the vine-dressers say, in the places where he had pruned them.

It happened that just outside of the garden wall a wild vine was growing, having twined itself around a tall forest-tree that stood there. When this wild vine saw what was done to the vine in the garden, it cried:

“I pity you, wounded and bleeding, and not allowed to grow aloft, as your nature demands.”

“It is not because he delights in wounding me,” replied the other, “that my master has done this. I was once a wild vine too, but he took me up tenderly, and planted me in his garden, and has watered and cared for me ever since. I am willing to submit myself to his hands.”

Not many weeks after this rich blossoms burst forth on both vines, giving to each an equal promise of fruit. Before long the blossoms dropped off and the embryo fruit appeared. As the summer advanced _these were tried_. Such as were destined to ripen lived on through the heat and the drought, and such as were destined to perish fell to the ground.

At length autumn came. The wild vine had climbed up to the topmost boughs of the forest-tree and was waving its unfettered branches in the air, but on those branches were found only a few withered grapes. But the vine in the garden, tied down to its low frame, was loaded with purple clusters; and the gardener came, and gathered them into baskets, and carried them to his home. Afterward he returned to his vine and bound straw around it, to protect it from the winter’s cold. But going through the forest with his axe in his hand, seeking for fuel, he cut down the wild vine and cast it on the heap for the winter’s burning.

* * * * *

He who believes that a loving, and all-powerful Hand is ordering his lot should see a token of future blessings in the visits of adversity.

THE OLD CHESTNUT AND THE YOUNG OAK.

AN old chestnut tree that had been condemned to the axe a generation ago, being overlooked by the woodman from year to year, still stood in its place among the trees of the forest, and on the return of spring feebly put forth a few leaves at the end of its branches.

A strong young oak that stood near, seeing this, said to it proudly:

“What is such a fag-end of life worth, any way? Why not give up the struggle and die?”

“It is not for us to die when we choose,” replied the chestnut, “but to cherish what of life is left to us.”

A century rolled round. The chestnut had fallen and gone to dust, but now the oak had grown old. A yawning cleft down its trunk showed where the lightning had blasted it long years before. Its once mighty branches were decayed, and broken off by winter storms; only here and there a tuft of green remained amid the vast ruin. Viewing these sadly one day, it said:

“I am made to look back a hundred years! It is my turn now to be asked why I do not give up the struggle and die. Ah! how little I knew what my own lot was to be when I mocked another with the question!”

* * * * *

Let us not add to the burden which old age will lay upon us hereafter by want of sympathy for those who are bearing this burden now.

CORN-CRIBS.

A POOR man having died and left his widow with little children to support, a neighbor of hers—who was known by the name of Kris, and who was almost as poor as herself—borrowed a horse and cart to go around among the farmers he was acquainted with, and beg some corn for her.

“All of them,” he said, “knew her husband and hired him now and then to do day’s work; I’ll go and see what they will give.”

He came to the first farmer, who listened to his story and without saying a word went to his corn-crib, filled his bushel-measure heaping full, and emptied it into the cart. Kris thanked him warmly for this, but the man, not seeming to notice what he said, returned to his crib, heaped up the measure once more, and emptied it also into the cart. Then for the first time he spoke, saying:

“I can give to so worthy an object with a clear conscience. When she wants more, come again.”

As Kris drove out to the road he said to himself:

“I’ve made a mistake: I ought to have borrowed a wagon instead of a cart. This will be full presently, and I could just as easily have hauled her a two-horse load.”

Turning in at the next gate, he told his story to the farmer there, who, as soon as heard it, said:

“Why, if a man’s got any conscience at all, he can’t help giving to such a hard case.”

Saying which, he walked to his corn-crib, but with not quite so brisk a step as the first, and filled his bushel-measure, but not quite so full as the other, and, handing it to Kris, let him carry it out and empty it into the cart himself. Kris thanked him, but noticed that he did not say he was welcome.

About half a mile farther on Kris came to the third farm. As he drove in he met the farmer on the way to his barn. He stopped and listened to what his visitor had to say.

“I thought maybe,” said Kris, closing, “you’d like to give her some corn to help her out through the winter.”

“Of course I would,” replied the farmer. “I hate tramps and beggars, but she’s none of them. I knew her husband well; he gave an honest day’s work for a day’s wages. Besides, it’s a duty to give. I’d do it to ease my conscience if it wasn’t for anything else. Come over to the crib.”

Kris followed him to the door and went in. The bushel-measure was lying there, but the man looked around, as if something were still wanting, and then hurried over to the stable.

“His big scoop is missing,” thought Kris. “He’s going to do the best yet.”

In a moment he was back again carrying a peck-measure in his hand (it looked scant even for a peck); filling which, he handed it to Kris, who, mute with surprise, silently emptied it into the cart.

From this farm Kris drove on to the one beyond. He passed by the farmer’s house—a comfortable stone dwelling—and turned into the barnyard. As he did so he noticed how fat the cattle and the pigs looked. The farmer came out to him, and Kris made his appeal.

“Well,” said the man, “I s’pose I’ll have to help too; and even if I didn’t want to, my conscience would make me. But I should think such a stout-lookin’, able-bodied woman ought to be able to help herself.”

By this time they reached the corn-crib, which Kris noticed was full up to the very top; and the farmer, gathering up a dozen ears in his hands, pitched them into the cart, exclaiming:

“Whew! what a heap you’ve got there! Mind, Kris, don’t you come for any more.”

Kris drove out of the gate and turned his horse’s head toward home.

“The cart’s too big, after all,” he said. “It’s of no use to go any farther; the next one would want to take away some of what I’ve got. It’s wonderful what a crop of consciences grows in these parts! But I’ve a notion that a good deal of it’s only ‘cheat’ after all, and we might as well call it by the right name.”

* * * * *

Men who can be satisfied without any conscience are very uncomfortable without a base imitation of one to stand in its place.

THE OLD CLOCK IN THE NEW HOME.

A CLOCK that had been handed down from generation to generation and brought from the old country homestead to a new city home, as it was being wound up one day, said, impatiently:

“I have been running for a hundred years. Let me rest now. Are not your fathers, whom I served so long, at rest?”

“It shall be as you say,” replied its master, laying aside the key and shutting up the glass door that enclosed its tarnished metal face.

In a few hours the old clock was silent. Its great leaden weights hung suspended near the floor; its broad old-fashioned hands ceased to move, and its pendulum, no longer flashing from right to left through the little round pane of glass in front of it, hung motionless and still.

The day ended; the long night passed, and the morning appeared. The same stirring sounds as on other mornings were ushered in from the streets; the other clocks, within and without, went on striking as usual. The family rose up for the duties of the day, but as they came down to the morning meal each member stopped on the stairs and looked regretfully at the old clock, saying:

“How we miss it! How strange it seems not to hear it going!”

“I lay awake last night,” said the mother, “listening for it to strike.”

And so the second day passed. But toward evening, as the master came in sight, suddenly the old clock cried out:

“Come, wind me up and set me going again; and when at last I can go no longer, take me to pieces and sell me for old brass. For I would rather not be at all than to exist without taking part in the busy life that is throbbing around me.”

He who abandons his work (thinking to unburden himself) while he still has the strength to perform it, lays down the lighter for the heavier load.

THE GREAT SECRET.

WE keep our hearts shut up, as it were, in a safe, or strong box, many doors deep. The first door opens from the surface, or outside; it is like the door to the vestibule of our house, and is open to all comers. The second door admits to the halls and parlors, as we might say, and is open to our acquaintances generally. The third door gives access to the living-room of the family, wherever that may be; it is opened to relatives and intimate friends. The door next to this admits into the chambers where only the nearest and dearest may come.

But beyond all these is another door, to which none in the house may be likened; in this room are things which may not be shown—our most secret thoughts and desires, the best and the noblest as well as the lowest and the basest. The door to this room is never opened to human eyes. And yet only the eye that can see within it discerns our true character, for here, hidden away from mortal sight, dwells the real man; and as the outward husk and shell are stripped off to come at the kernel and the grain, so all the rest of us will be torn away and cast aside when the final estimate comes to be made.

THE HOUSE-BUILDER.

A CERTAIN man who owned a lot of ground determined to build a house on it. There was a good quarry in his lot, but to get the stone out of it required hard labor. This, however, was all that was needed; so he went to work with a good will, and made a prosperous beginning. First he laid the foundation, and then several courses of the superstructure. But the toil was severe, the wall progressed slowly, and the work grew wearisome.

One day, while digging in his quarry, he discovered a new vein of stone, which ran over his neighbor’s line, and he picked up a block of it that came easily into his hand. He found that it was more easily worked than his own, and that he could almost save the labor of squaring, and dressing, by using it. The next day he took out some more, until he had taken enough to lay one course of it all around the walls of his house. But this carried him so far into his neighbor’s premises that he dared go no farther; he filled up the opening he had made with rubbish and earth, and went to work again on his own land. Months, and even years, passed by; but he worked on faithfully, day by day, and at last his house was finished. Then he furnished it comfortably, and, taking his family with him, moved into it, to stay there for the rest of his days.

Now, while his hands were busy and his mind engaged in building, he never once thought of the course of stone that he had taken from his neighbor. But after all was done, and his long task completed, as he stood one day in front of his house, admiring it, he observed that course. It had settled into a different color from the rest—not so different as to be noticed by others, but enough to make it evident to himself. He found the next day, as he passed through his garden, that he saw it again; and after that it seemed to stand out conspicuously whenever his face was turned toward his home. This began to annoy him. It was only one course, to be sure; there were full fifty courses in the wall between the roof and the foundation. Why did this single one attract his attention before all the rest? His conscience answered the question. It did not rightly belong there; it never had been, and was not now, his own.

A year passed from the time when his house was finished, then another and another. It was astonishing how quickly they sped. Yet there was not a day in all those years that his eye did not, some time between the rising and the setting of the sun, rest on that course of stone.

At length old age crept on. He had time now to sit still and think of the past, and he did not sleep at night as he used to. But both by day and by night the course of stone was in his mind. Most willingly he would have gone to his neighbor and paid him ten times its value (for he had prospered and grown rich), but in doing so he would have confessed himself a thief and disgraced his family for ever; he could not do this. Or gladly he would have torn it from his walls and placed it back in the quarry from whence he had taken it, but that was impossible. So he lived on, brooding over it until it drove all better and happier thoughts out of his mind, and at last he died, bowed down and crushed, as it were, under its weight.

There is an interest account, so to speak, running on against every amount, be it small or great, that we have ever gotten dishonestly. And the worst of it is that if it be not settled now we shall find it still standing and accumulating in the long hereafter.

PIGEONS.

SOME pigeons that had their home over a rich man’s stable came to visit a pair that lived near by in a poor man’s barn.

“You’d better come and live with us,” said the rich man’s birds, “for we not only have a beautiful new house with partitions inside for our nests, but we’re fed every day on the best that the farm affords.”

“Who feeds you?” asked the poor man’s birds.

“Our master’s servants, of course.”

“But _our_ master,” replied the others, “feeds us himself. We thank you for your invitation, but would rather stay where we are.”

Summer passed and cold weather came on, and one snowy morning the pigeons at the barn were astonished to see their grand neighbors alight near them again.

“We are of the same mind still,” the poor pigeons cried, “and can only repeat what you have heard already. We will not go with you.”

“Ah!” said their rich neighbors, “we have not come, this time, to ask it, but rather to ask whether you haven’t got a corner here in the barn where we may come and stay; for our master has gone away for the winter, and his servants have forgotten us, and we’re likely to starve in our beautiful home.”

* * * * *

The nearer we get to the source of the good that we need, the more sure we may be of a continued supply of it.

THE CLOCK ON THE DESK.

A LITTLE round nickel-plated clock stood on a certain man’s desk measuring out his hours of work. One day, after he had been wrestling with his thoughts and vainly endeavoring to order them to his bidding, he leaned back in his chair, and, setting them at liberty, let them wander whither they would.

In a few moments, and while he still remained in this idle posture, he was startled at hearing from his clock, instead of its accustomed “Tick-a-tick!” the words, “Keep at it! Keep at it!”

“Do you mean those words for me?” cried the man, and then, before the clock had time to answer, continued: “It is because I am resting a moment you presume thus to rebuke me. Must a man be for ever at work? May he not take time even to look round him, or to yawn or wait for a new idea? Your words are insulting.”

Here, being out of breath, he paused long enough for the clock to reply:

“Indeed, sir, I said nothing. You heard only my heart beat ‘tick-a-tick, tick-a-tick,’ as usual. When this stops, you know as well as I that my life will be ended and my work for you done.”

“Pardon me,” said the man. “Because I deserved a rebuke, I was so quick at finding one. Though you did not utter the words, they fit my case well. I would that you ever might go on repeating them.”

* * * * *

When we feel conscious of deserving reproof, its arrow lights upon us from many a bow that was drawn only at a venture.

THE WATCH-DOG.

A MASTIFF that had received a severe kick from his master thus soliloquized as he walked slowly and sadly toward his kennel:

“I guard his house by day and by night, securing for him undisturbed rest, but hardly ever getting for myself so much as an hour’s sleep at a time. He never comes near me that I do not show my pleasure by a wag of my tail; and when he speaks to me and pats me on the head, my delight is so great that I can hardly control myself, and behave as a sensible dog ought to behave. And yet, because I happened, by accident, to be in his way, he has thus ill-used and disgraced me! What a shame, when he has the power so easily to make me happy that he abuses it in making me miserable!”

By this time the mastiff had reached his kennel, at the farther end of the garden; but, as he was about entering it, one of his own pups, that had been playing on the grass with a little terrier from the next house, caught sight of him. In a moment both the pup and the terrier let their tails drop and slunk out of sight. The old dog watched them as they disappeared, and after pausing a moment said to himself:

“This ought not to be. The harsh treatment that I have received makes me examine my treatment of others. I am afraid I’m as bad as my master. It is because they are growled at and snarled at so often these pups run away as if their innocent gambols might cost them a cudgelling. My master did not mean it; yet when he kicked me, he did me a favor, for so have my own faults been brought to my view, and from this very hour I mean to correct them.”

* * * * *

Before we judge those who have the rule over us, let us stop and ask, “What would they say whom we rule over?”

THE OPENED EYES.

A BLIND man whose disposition had been soured by his misfortune refused to credit anything his friends said about the objects that surrounded him. He would not believe that the flowers he smelt were clothed in brilliant colors, or that the birds he heard singing were covered with beautiful feathers. He would not believe there was a regular succession of night and day and light and darkness. He could give no reason for his obstinate unbelief except that he could not imagine any of these things; which, of course, was not to be expected of him, since he had always been blind.

It happened that after a time the man recovered his sight; whatever had obscured it seemed slowly to pass away. At first only a faint glimmer of light was visible. This increased from day to day, until at length the last film disappeared from before his eyes, and he looked out upon the world and saw everything clearly.

Then he was like a person struck dumb and unable to speak with wonder and astonishment. At this his friends followed him as he walked forth unaided, and began to explain to him what he saw.

“Yonder,” they said, pointing up to the sky, “is the great sun that we have so often told you about, though you would not believe us. But for it your eyes would be opened in vain; you would still be in utter darkness.”

But the man, suddenly regaining his speech, cried out:

“Ah, my friends! I do not need to be told this now. Whereas all your arguments failed to convince me while I was blind, now, though you and all the world should tell me it was not the sun, I would know differently. For I see him myself. He has shined into my eyes—yes, and into my heart; and he is his own best argument. How can I remain in ignorance of him while I am walking in his light?”

* * * * *

One clear view of the truth for ourselves is more convincing than all that others can say to us in its favor.

THE LANTERN-PEOPLE.