Part 2

This is a world of order and system. There is nothing haphazard about it. The sun rises and sets according to a regular and unchanging law. The tides come in and the tides go out not by accident or chance, but in accordance with well-defined laws. Winter and Summer, sunshine and rain, follow each other in well-ordered succession. What is true in the natural world is also true in the moral and business worlds. A boy reaps that which he sows and gains the prizes for which he is willing to pay the price in labor and self-denial. A divine law controls success and defeat in this life and no strategem or trick can take the place of hard work.

Some years ago, I happened to find myself near the terminal of the great East River Bridge in New York City. Two little boys were standing near one of the large iron posts crying their afternoon papers. I tarried near them because I was waiting for a particular car. One little fellow said to the other,——

“How many papers have you sold to-day, Tommie?”

“Nearly one hundred an’ fifty,” was Tommie’s quick reply.

“Honor bright?”

“Yes; honor bright.”

“Whoopee! but ain’t you in big luck, Tommie?”

“Luck!” exclaimed Tommie, wiping the perspiration from his brow. “There ain’t no luck about it; I’ve just been everlastingly at it since four o’clock this morning—that’s all!”

And that is the _all_ of real success. Those who achieve success are “everlastingly at” what they are trying to do. Tommie was right in declining to have his hard and honest work cheapened by calling the result of it luck.

“You are the luckiest chap I ever saw,” I once heard a little boy about sixteen years say to another boy of about the same age.

“Why do you say that?” asked the other.

“Because you have had your salary raised twice in the same year.”

“Well,” was the reply, “you may call it luck; but I don’t. I have always done my work the very best I knew how. I have never once in the whole year been a single minute late in getting to the office, nor have I ever left a single minute before it was time for me to leave. When I have worked over-time, I have not made any fuss about it. My boss said when he raised my salary last week that he had taken these things into account. So, I don’t see where the luck comes in.”

“All the same,” said the first boy, “some bosses wouldn’t have raised your salary.”

“Then I would have the satisfaction of knowing that I had done my duty.”

Boys, I tell you that’s right. Nine out of ten employers know that it is to their advantage to show appreciation of faithful work and they show it. When this appreciation comes luck has had nothing to do with it. The thing that passes for luck is in nearly all cases the just reward of honest endeavor.

Do not, therefore, start out in life with the expectation that some “lucky turn” will bring you sudden honor or wealth or position without any effort on your part. Substitute that fine old word “_work_” for that deceitful word “_luck_,” and base your hopes of future success and usefulness upon the honorable labor that it is a God-given privilege for every well and strong and right-minded boy to give his heart and hands to performing.

III. AN EVENING AT HOME.

Boys and girls between the ages of eleven and seventeen ought to spend their evenings at home, as much as possible. In these busy, bustling twentieth century days, there are many families—so much the worse for them—that scarcely know what it is to spend an evening at home together. Not only the young people but the older people are “on the go.” The evenings are crowded with calls and invitations, which come from far and near. It is nothing to go five or even ten miles to an evening concert or social gathering, the trolley is so near, so cheap and so universal. But I tell you, boys and girls, no matter what the pleasure or amusement afforded—no matter what the instruction or culture received—there are no social or similar opportunities good enough to displace the home circle. The sooner young people realize this the happier they will be.

Boys and girls ought to plan for some evenings at home. Let other things have a share, but do not give up all the time to other things. Once a week the young people ought to arrange for an evening at home. Decline everything else for that evening, the same as you would for any other engagement. Gather the family together. Make a special place for grandma and grandpa. Sing merry songs; play innocent and amusing games; take time to tell the home folks about some of the things that you do and that you have seen in the world; get acquainted with the home folks; be delighted in their delight; by special appointment, spend one or two cheerful hours with the folks at home each week.

The young folks themselves should take the lead in this matter. A home is not merely a place with four walls where people meet to eat and drink and sleep securely beneath a roof. Nay, boys and girls, a house is reared to be a _home_—the center where a family may gather into one; to be a serene retreat where the tenderest affections may find rest; where love may have a dwelling place, and the _amenities_ of life gain ample scope; where parents and children may press one another heart to heart; where sorrows and joys may be freely shared in sacred confidence; in a word, where the great work of training human beings for the duties of the present life, and the perfection of another, may be begun and carried on.

There is one special reason for making much of the evenings at home that young people are not likely to think of. _Inevitably_ the _family_ circle will be broken up very soon. Perhaps not by death, but most certainly by change. When Fred goes to college that is the beginning of new ties and new associations, and the home privileges can never be quite so complete to him again. The years of the complete unity of the home are very few indeed. While these years are passing, young people especially should make the most of them. My dear boys and girls, get the benefit of these years; get their joys; store up memories of home life, for they will be in future years the most beautiful pictures of the heart. However some may sneer at it, the memory of home and mother is a great power for righteousness. It has saved many a person to God and native land and race.

“Be it ever so humble— There’s no place like home.”

IV. THE MAKING OF A MAN.[1]

Mr. Stamps, seated near the table, was glancing over the afternoon paper. Mrs. Stamps, in an easy chair, was doing some fancy work. Little Bobby, six years old, more or less, was playing with his toys on the floor. All at once the precocious little boy stopped short in the middle of his sport and, looking up at his mother, asked,—

“Mama, who made the world?”

“God,” replied Mrs. Stamps, sweetly.

“Who made the sea?” continued Bobby.

Mrs. Stamps answered, “God.”

“Well,” said Bobby, “did God make everything?”

“Yes, my son; the Lord made everything.”

“And did he make everybody?”

“Yes; the Lord made everybody.”

Bobby was silent for a moment. Presently he looked anxiously at his father, and then, turning to his mother, he asked,—

“Mama, did God make papa, too?”

“Yes; God made papa also.”

After a lengthy pause Bobby asked,—

“Mama, do you think that I could make a man, if I was to try real hard?”

“You had better run out to play now, Bobby,” said Mrs. Stamps, somewhat non-plused by her son’s curiosity.

Bobby left the room almost immediately. He went straight to the beach in front of the house, and labored long and earnestly in piling up some wet sand. Pretty soon he was joined in his work by two other little boys. For some time the three little fellows worked vigorously in piling up the mud. Mrs. Stamps called her husband to the window, so that he might see what the boys were doing.

“Wife,” said Mr. Stamps, “I believe those little Satans are trying to make a man.”

Toward sunset Bobby ran into the house and exclaimed with delight,—

“Mama, we’ve got our man almost finished. We didn’t have but one marble, and we used that for one of his eyes. I came in to ask you to give me a marble, so that we might put in his other eye.”

“It’s too late to bother now, Bobby,” said Mrs. Stamps. “Wait until to-morrow morning; then I will give you a marble and let you finish your man.”

The next morning, bright and early, Bobby went out to look for his man. Lo and behold! the sea had washed the man away during the night. But, Bobby, of course, did not suspect that. He thought that the man had gone away of his own accord. So the little fellow spent the entire morning looking for his man. He looked under the house; he looked in the stable; he went up to the garret; he walked up and down the beach; he went into the woods—looking for his man. But his man was nowhere to be found.

Two or three weeks later an African Methodist Episcopal Conference assembled in Bobby’s town. Among the ministers present there happened to be a short, chubby, tan-colored brother with only one eye. When Bobby spied him he examined the man curiously and cautiously from head to foot. The examination ended, Bobby concluded that that was his man. At once the little fellow left his mother and went over and took a seat beside the man. Bobby’s mother was somewhat embarrassed. The man was evidently pleased, although, to be sure, he himself was not quite certain why he should be an object of special interest to the little boy. The man went to the secretary’s table to have his name enrolled—Bobby went with him. He went into the vestibule to get a drink of water—and Bobby followed him there. But all the while the man was still in doubt as to the cause of the little boy’s apparent affection. By this time, thoroughly exasperated, Bobby’s mother decided to go home. She approached the pew in a very ladylike manner and said,—

“Bobby, dear, come; we must be going home now.”

“All right, Mama,” said Bobby in dead earnest, “but you will please let me take my man home with me—won’t you? I just found him to-day, and you know I’ve been looking for him for over two weeks!”

Then, for the first time, it suddenly dawned upon Mrs. Stamps what was the matter with Bobby. In spite of herself she laughed heartily at the boy’s perversity. Finding that his mother hesitated to reply, Bobby turned to the man and said,—

“Come on: we’re going home now. Why did you leave before I finished you?”

V. FALSE PRIDE.

Once upon a time the head clerk in a carpet store requested one of his junior clerks to go to a patron’s home to measure a room, and suggested that he take along a five-yard sample. The junior clerk objected to “carting” such a big bundle, as he said, “all over town,” and asked that one of the boys be sent with it. The proprietor of the establishment, who happened to overhear the remark, privately told the head clerk to inform the proud young fellow that a boy would be sent on after him with the roll. Shortly after the young man reached the house, the proprietor of the establishment covered him with confusion by appearing at the house in person with the roll of carpet under his arm. Handing the bundle to the bewildered young man, the proprietor remarked:

“Here is the carpet, young man. I hope I have not kept you waiting for it. If you have any other orders, I’ll take them now.”

* * * * *

A young woman of my acquaintance refused to carry home a yeast cake, though it was needed at once for the family baking and she was bound directly homeward. She said that she wasn’t a delivery wagon, and so the yeast cake had to be sent to her home.

A great many foolish young people are so absorbingly regardful of their trim appearance on the street that they will never under any circumstances carry a basket or bundle, however much inconvenience they may cause others by refusing to do so.

* * * * *

Now, it is not proper pride or self-respect which prompts people to act as the young folks acted whom I have just referred to. It is silliness which prompts them to act so. Any honest work is honorable that is honorably done, and you will notice that young people of good social position and strength of character are above such pettiness. Only inferior people act that way. Superior people do not act so, because they are well aware that they cannot be compromised by doing straightforwardly, without fuss or apology, whatever needs to be done. Yet, I admit, that it seems to be human nature that whatever is distasteful or supposedly menial should be done by somebody else. When young people, or old people for that matter, are tempted to be foolish in such things they should remember the lesson of humility that Christ taught his disciples, when in that warm Oriental country, where only sandals are worn, He performed the necessary service of washing the disciples’ feet. For us to be above our business—for us to think ourselves too good or too dainty to soil our hands with honest toil—for us to feel that it is a lowering of our dignity to carry a bundle through the street, is to prove by our conduct that we are not up to the level of our business, that we are possessed of a great amount of false pride, and, in a higher sense, it shows that we have a foolish and wicked distaste of true service. There is nothing low, nothing degrading, nothing disgraceful, in honest labor, in honest work of any kind, whether it be to boil an egg properly, to sweep a floor well, to carry a bundle or package through the streets, or bring a pail of water. In fact, if somebody were to say that “chores” done or undone are the making or the unmaking of boys and girls, it would be a homely way of putting an important truth. Bringing up coal or bringing in wood, weeding the garden bed, running errands, washing dishes, sewing seams, dusting furniture, doing any odd jobs where there is need, cheerfully, faithfully—these lead to the highway of greater opportunities and are the usual avenues to the only manhood and womanhood that is worth having. My young friends, the castle of your noblest dream is built out of what lies nearest at hand. It is the uncommonly good use of common things, the everyday opportunities, that makes honored lives, and helps us, and helps us to help others, along the sun-road. “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.” “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

VI. THANKSGIVING AT PINEY GROVE.

The people of the Piney Grove settlement, both white and black, had been free for nearly a generation. The whites had been freed from the curse of being slave-holders, and the blacks had been freed from the curse of being held in bondage. But never in the history of this little town, in the very heart of the so-called “Black Belt” of Georgia, had the people known anything about the proper observance of Thanksgiving Day until 189–. And in that year the revolution was brought about by a young colored woman named Grace Wilkins.

Grace Wilkins was the only daughter of Solomon and Amanda Wilkins. Solomon and his wife were farmers—plain, simple, ordinary country folk. Amanda was literally her husband’s helpmeet. She went along with him every morning to the field, and, in season, chopped as much wood, picked as much cotton, hoed as much corn, pulled as much fodder, and plowed as much as her husband did. Up to her fourteenth year Grace had been reared on a farm, and had learned to do all the things that any farmer’s child has to do—such as milking cows, feeding hogs and chickens, hoeing cotton and corn, picking cotton, pulling fodder and the like. In her fourteenth year, acting upon the advice of an uneducated colored preacher, her parents sent Grace away from home to attend one of the great normal and industrial institutes for the training of the black boys and girls of the South.

At first her mother and father were filled with forebodings. It was the first time that they had ever allowed their daughter to be away from them, and they missed her so much and longed for her so constantly that they thought that they had made a mistake in sending her off to “boardin’ school.” Ignorant and superstitious neighbors, though they knew as little about such matters as did Solomon and Amanda, were loud in saying that “Sol” and “Mandy” would live to regret the step they had taken in sending Grace away from home. The only rays of sunshine that came in to brighten these periods of mental unrest and gloom on the part of Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins were found in the letters which they received regularly from their daughter. Grace invariably informed her parents, whenever she wrote, that she was “well an’ doin’ well.” Thus reassured from time to time, Solomon and Amanda managed somehow to undergo the terrible strain of having their daughter absent from them for eight months. But meantime they were firmly of the opinion that, once they got their hands on her again, they would never allow Grace to return to school.

With glad and thankful hearts Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins joyously embraced their daughter when she came home at the close of her first year in school. With keen and genuine interest, they listened to her wonderful accounts of the great school and of the great man at the head of it. Grace dressed differently and talked differently; and her mother said, speaking one day in confidence to her husband shortly after Grace’s return, “Dat gal’s sho got a new walk on her!”

Grace Wilkins brought back a toothbrush with her from school. That was something which she had never had before. She used that toothbrush every morning and night. That was something that she had never done before. She was now careful to keep her hair well combed every day. That was something that she had been accustomed to do on Sundays only or on special occasions. She washed her face two or three times a day now, as her mother and father noticed. Before she went to school she had been in the habit of giving her face, as the old people say, “a lick and a promise” early each morning. Besides, Grace kept the house cleaner than she had kept it before. She brought home with her a brand-new Bible which she read regularly at home and always carried to church and Sunday school. She also had a song book called “Jubilee Songs and Plantation Melodies,” and it gladdened the hearts of the good “old folks at home” to hear their daughter sing from a book some of the very songs that they had sung all their lifetime and which were so dear to them.

All these things and others made a deep and abiding impression upon Solomon and his wife. And finding that withal their daughter was just as loving and kind as she had been before, and that she was just as industrious and faithful as formerly, Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins were not long in deciding that their daughter should go back to that school another year, and that they would work hard and stint themselves in order that they might keep her there until she had finished the normal course.

So back to school Grace Wilkins went—that year, and the next year, and the next. It was the proudest day in Solomon’s and Amanda’s lives when they sat in the magnificent chapel of the school and heard their daughter read her graduation essay on “The Gospel of Service.” Glad tears welled up in their eyes when they heard the principal call their daughter’s name, and then saw Grace step up to receive her certificate of graduation.

Coming back to Piney Grove to live, “Miss Gracie”—everybody called her that after graduation—established a little school which she called “The Piney Grove Academy.” It was the first public school for colored children ever opened within the corporate limits of the little village. Before that the schools were district schools or county schools, which were taught about in different places for only three or four months in the year, mainly during the summer. Miss Gracie began her school the first day of October. By special arrangement she used the first three months for the public term allowed by the state, and supplemented that with a five-months term, for which the pupils were required to pay fifty cents each per month. The plan worked well, the parents joining in heartily in the movement, and the Piney Grove Academy soon became the model school for the surrounding counties.

Among other things Miss Gracie had learned at school what was the import of our national Thanksgiving Day. At the opening of the second year of the Piney Grove Academy she decided that she would inaugurate an annual Thanksgiving service. Accordingly on the opening day of the second year Miss Gracie informed the pupils of her plan, and told them that she would begin the very next day to prepare a suitable program for the exercises. Afterwards Miss Gracie secured the cooperation of the village pastor—the same man who had been instrumental in having her parents send her away to school. Through him she was permitted to talk to the people at the church two or three times about the proposed celebration. She was careful to tell them that the Thanksgiving festival was meant specially to be a home festival in addition to being a time for the people to come together in their accustomed places of worship to thank God for the blessings of the year. She urged them, therefore, as far as they were able without going to unnecessary expense, to have family dinners and bring together at one time and in one place as many members of the family as possible. She explained to them how this might be done successfully and economically, and with pleasure and profit to all concerned. She also urged them to be planning beforehand so that nothing might prevent their attending church Thanksgiving Day morning. She was going to hold the exercises in the church, because her little school was not large enough to furnish an assembly hall for the people who would be likely to be present.

On Thanksgiving Day nearly everybody in town went to the exercises. Many white people attended, including the county school commissioner and the school trustees. It was the first Thanksgiving service that any of them had ever witnessed.

The program was made up, for the most part, of choice selections from negro authors, composers, orators, and so forth. A selection from Frederick Douglass on “Patriotism” was declaimed; one from Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Exposition speech was also delivered. Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem entitled “Signs of the Times” (a Thanksgiving poem) was read by one of the pupils, and also “The Party,” another of Dunbar’s pieces, was rendered. “The Negro National Hymn,” words by James W. Johnson and music by his brother, Rosamond Johnson, was sung by a chorus of fifty voices. At the opening of the service the president’s Thanksgiving proclamation was read and appropriate remarks were made by Miss Wilkins. The closing remarks were made by the Rev. John Jones, the village pastor. The remarks of Mr. Jones were in the congratulatory mood. He was naturally proud of Miss Gracie’s achievements, because he had had something to do with putting her on the road to an education. He spoke of the teacher as the leaven that was leavening the whole lump, and the applause which followed the statement showed plainly the high esteem in which the teacher was held by all the people. Everyone enjoyed the service. None of the villagers had ever seen anything like it before. After singing “America” all of them went away happy, many of them, in obedience to Miss Gracie’s previous counsel, going home to eat for the first time, well knowing what they were doing, a Thanksgiving dinner.