Chapter 17

“I will never, never say again that there are not two sides to a story. If I am ever tempted to believe one side without waiting to hear the other, I shall surely feel again the hands of that old witch upon my throat.”

“Old witch!” repeated Mrs. Freeman. “Surely she demands our sympathy as much as when we thought her suffering under ill-treatment. It is indeed a sad thing to be bereft of reason. But this will be a useful lesson to both of us: for I will readily acknowledge that in this instance I was sometimes tempted to forget that there are always 'two sides to a story.'”

LITTLE KINDNESSES.

NOT long since, it was announced that a large fortune had been left to a citizen of the United States by a foreigner, who, some years before, had “become ill” while travelling in this country, and whose sick-bed was watched with the utmost care and kindness by the citizen referred to. The stranger recovered, continued his journey, and finally returned to his own country. The conduct of the American at a moment so critical, and when, without relatives or friends, the invalid was languishing in a strange land, was not forgotten. He remembered it in his thoughtful and meditative moments, and when about to prepare for another world, his gratitude was manifested in a truly signal manner. A year or two ago, an individual in this city was labouring under great pecuniary difficulty. He was unexpectedly called upon for a considerable sum of money; and, although his means were abundant, they were not at that time immediately available. Puzzled and perplexed, he hesitated as to his best course, when, by the merest chance, he met an old acquaintance, and incidentally mentioned the facts of the case. The other referred to an act of kindness that he had experienced years before, said that he had never forgotten it, and that nothing would afford him more pleasure than to extend the relief that was required, and thus show, his grateful appreciation of the courtesy of former years! The kindness alluded to was a mere trifle, comparatively speaking, and its recollection had passed entirely from the memory of the individual who had performed it. Not so, however, with the obliged. He had never forgotten it, and the result proved, in the most conclusive manner, that he was deeply grateful.

We have mentioned the two incidents with the object of inculcating the general policy of courtesy and kindness, of sympathy and assistance, in our daily intercourse with our fellow-creatures. It is the true course under all circumstances. “Little kindnesses” sometimes make an impression that “lingers and lasts” for years. This is especially the case with the sensitive, the generous, and the high-minded. And how much may be accomplished by this duty of courtesy and humanity! How the paths of life may be smoothed and softened! How the present may be cheered, and the future rendered bright and beautiful!

There are, it is true, some selfish spirits, who can neither appreciate nor reciprocate a courteous or a generous act. They are for themselves--“now and for ever”--if we may employ such a phrase--and appear never to be satisfied. You can never do enough for them. Nay, the deeper the obligation, the colder the heart. They grow jealous, distrustful, and finally begin to hate their benefactors. But these, we trust, are “the exceptions,” not “the rule.” Many a heart has been won, many a friendship has been secured, many a position has been acquired, through the exercise of such little kindnesses and courtesies as are natural to the generous in spirit and the noble of soul--to all, indeed, who delight, not only in promoting their own prosperity, but in contributing to the welfare of every member of the human family. Who cannot remember some incident of his own life, in which an individual, then and perhaps now a stranger--one who has not been seen for years, and never may be seen again on this side the grave, manifested the true, the genuine, the gentle spirit of a gentleman and a Christian, in some mere trifle--some little but impulsive and spontaneous act, which nevertheless developed the whole heart, and displayed the real character! Distance and time may separate, and our pursuits and vocations may be in paths distinct, dissimilar, and far apart. Yet, there are moments--quiet, calm, and contemplative, when memory will wander back to the incidents referred to, and we will feel a secret bond of affinity, friendship, and brotherhood. The name will be mentioned with respect if not affection, and a desire will be experienced to repay, in some way or on some occasion, the generous courtesy of the by-gone time. It is so easy to be civil and obliging, to be kindly and humane! We not only thus assist the comfort of others, but we promote our own mental enjoyment. Life, moreover, is full of chance's and changes. A few years, sometimes, produce extraordinary revolutions in the fortunes of men. The haughty of to-day may be the humble of to-morrow; the feeble may be the powerful; the rich may be the poor, But, if elevated by affluence or by position, the greater the necessity, the stronger the duty to be kindly, courteous, and conciliatory to those less fortunate. We can afford to be so; and a proper appreciation of our position, a due sympathy for the misfortunes of others, and a grateful acknowledge to Divine Providence, require that we should be so. Life is short at best. We are here a few years--we sink into the grave--and even our memory is phantom-like and evanescent. How plain, then, is our duty! It is to be true to our position, to our conscience, and to the obligations imposed upon us by society, by circumstances, and by our responsibility to the Author of all that is beneficent and good.

LEAVING OFF CONTENTION BEFORE IT BE MEDDLED WITH.

WE are advised to leave off contention before it be meddled with, by one usually accounted a very wise man. Had he never given the world any other evidence of superior wisdom, this admonition alone would have been sufficient to have established his claims thereto. It shows that he had power to penetrate to the very root of a large share of human misery. For what is the great evil in our condition here? Is it not misunderstanding, disagreement, alienation, contention, and the passions and results flowing from these? Are not contempt, and hatred, and strife, and alteration, and slander, and evil-speaking, the things hardest to bear, and most prolific of suffering, in the lot of human life? The worst woes of life are such as spring from, these sources.

Is there any cure for these maladies? Is there anything to prevent or abate these exquisite sufferings? The wise man directs our attention to a remedial preventive in the advice above referred to. His counsel to those whose lot unites them in the same local habitations and name to those who are leagued in friendship or business, in the changes of sympathy and the chances of collision, is, to suppress anger or dissatisfaction, to be candid and charitable in judging, and, by all means, to leave off contention before it be meddled with. His counsel to all is to endure injury meekly, not to give expression to the sense of wrong, even when we might seem justified in resistance or complaint. His counsel is to yield something we might fairly claim, to pardon when we might punish, to sacrifice somewhat of our rights for the sake of peace and friendly affection. His counsel is not to fire at every provocation, not to return evil for evil, not to cherish any fires of revenge, burning to be even with the injurious person. His counsel is to curb our imperiousness, to repress our impatience, to pause in the burst of another's feeling, to pour water upon the kindling flames, or, at the very least, to abstain from adding any fresh fuel thereto.

One proof of the superior wisdom of this counsel is, that few seem to appreciate or perceive it. To many it seems no great virtue or wisdom, no great and splendid thing, in some small issue of feeling or opinion, in the family or among friends, to withhold a little, to tighten the rein upon some headlong propensity, and await a calm for fair adjustment. Such a course is not usually held to be a proof of wisdom or virtue; and men are much more ready to praise and think well of smartness, and spirit, and readiness for an encounter. To leave off contention before it is meddled with does not command any very general admiration; it is too quiet a virtue, with no striking attitudes, and with lips which answer nothing. This is too often mistaken for dullness, and want of proper spirit. It requires discernment and superior wisdom to see a beauty in such repose and self-control, beyond the explosions of anger and retaliation. With the multitude, self-restraining meekness under provocation is a virtue which stands quite low in the catalogue. It is very frequently set down as pusillanimity and cravenness of spirit. But it is not so; for there is a self-restraint under provocation which is far from being cowardice, or want of feeling, or shrinking from consequences; there is a victory over passionate impulses which is more difficult and more meritorious than a victory on the bloody battle-field. It requires more power, more self-command, often, to leave off contention, when provocation and passion are causing the blood to boil, than to rush into it.

Were this virtue more duly appreciated, and the admonition of the Wise Man more extensively heeded, what a change would be effected in human life! How many of its keenest sufferings would be annihilated! The spark which kindles many great fires would be withheld; and, great as are the evils and sufferings caused by war, they are not as great, probably, as those originating in impatience and want of temper. The fretfulness of human life, it seems not hard to believe, is a greater evil, and destroys more happiness, than all the bloody scenes of the battle-field. The evils of war have generally something to lighten the burden of them in a sense of necessity, or of rights or honour invaded; but there is nothing of like importance to alleviate the sufferings caused by fretfulness, impatience, want of temper. The excitable peevishness which kindles at trifles, that roughens the daily experience of a million families, that scatters its little stings at the table and by the hearth-stone, what does this but unmixed harm? What ingredient does it furnish but of gall? Its fine wounding may be of petty consequence in any given case, and its tiny darts easily extracted; but, when habitually carried into the whole texture of life, it destroys more peace than plague and famine and the sword. It is a deeper anguish than grief; it is a sharper pang than the afflicted moan with; it is a heavier pressure from human hands than when affliction lays her hand upon you. All this deduction from human comfort, all this addition to human suffering, may be saved, by heeding the admonition of wisdom given by one of her sons. When provoked by the follies or the passions, the offences or neglects, the angry words or evil-speaking of others, restrain your propensity to complain or contend; leave off contention before you take the first step towards it. You will then be greater than he that taketh a city. You will be a genial companion in your family and among your neighbours. You will be loved at home and blessed abroad. You will be a source of comfort to others, and carry a consciousness of praiseworthiness in your own bosom. On the contrary, an acrid disposition, a readiness to enter into contention, is like vinegar to the teeth, like caustic to an open sore. It eats out all the beauty, tenderness, and affection of domestic and social life. For all this the remedy is simple. Put a restraint upon your feelings; give up a little; take less than belongs to you; endure more than should be put upon you; make allowance for another's judgment or educational defects; consider circumstances and constitution; leave off contention before it be meddled with. If you do otherwise, quick resentment and stiff maintenance of your position will breed endless disputes and bitterness. But happy will be the results of the opposite course, accomplished every day and every hour in the family, with friends, with companions, with all with whom you have any dealings or any commerce in life.

Let any one set himself to the cultivation of this virtue of meekness and self-restraint, and he will find that it cannot be secured by one or a few efforts, however resolute; by a few struggles, however severe. It requires industrious culture; it requires that he improve every little occasion to quench strife and fan concord, till a constant sweetness smooths the face of domestic life, and kindness and tenderness become the very expression of the countenance. This virtue of self-control must grow by degrees. It must grow by a succession of abstinences from returning evil for evil, by a succession of leaving off contention before the first angry word escapes.

It may help to cultivate this virtue, to practise some forethought. When tempted to irritable, censorious speech, one might with advantage call to recollection the times, perhaps frequent, when words uttered in haste have caused sorrow or repentance. Then, again, the fact might be called to mind, that when we lose a friend, every harsh word we may have spoken rises to condemn us. There is a resurrection, not for the dead only, but for the injuries we have fixed in their hearts--in hearts, it may be, bound to our own, and to which we owed gentleness instead of harshness. The shafts of reproach, which come from the graves of those who have been wounded by our fretfulness and irritability, are often hard to bear. Let meek forbearance and self-control prevent such suffering, and guard us against the condemnations of the tribunal within.

There is another tribunal, also, which it were wise to think of. The rule of that tribunal is, that if we forgive not those who trespass against us, we ourselves shall not be forgiven. “He shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy.” Only, then, if we do not need, and expect never to beg the mercy of the Lord to ourselves, may we withhold our mercy from our fellow-men.

“ALL THE DAY IDLE.”

WHEREFORE idle?--when the harvest beckoning, Nods its ripe tassels to the brightening sky? Arise and labour ere the time of reckoning, Ere the long shadows and the night draw night.

Wherefore idle?--Swing the sickle stoutly! Bind thy rich sheaves exultingly and fast! Nothing dismayed, do thy great task devoutly-- Patient and strong, and hopeful to the last!

Wherefore idle?--Labour, not inaction, Is the soul's birthright, and its truest rest; Up to thy work!--It is Nature's fit exaction-- He who toils humblest, bravest, toils the best.

Wherefore idle?--God himself is working; His great thought wearieth not, nor standeth still, In every throb of his vast heart is lurking Some mighty purpose of his mightier will.

Wherefore idle?--Not a leaf's slight rustle But chides thee in thy vain, inglorious rest; Be a strong actor in the great world,--bustle,-- Not a, weak minion or a pampered guest!

Wherefore idle?--Oh I _my_ faint soul, wherefore? Shake first from thine own powers dull sloth's control; Then lift thy voice with an exulting “Therefore Thou, too, shalt conquer, oh, thou striving soul!”

THE BUSHEL OF CORN.

FARMER GRAY had a neighbour who was not the best-tempered man in the world though mainly kind and obliging. He was shoemaker. His name was Barton. One day, in harvest-time, when every man on the farm was as busy as a bee, this man came over to Farmer Gray's, and said, in rather a petulant tone of voice,

“Mr. Gray, I wish you would send over, and drive your geese home.”

“Why so, Mr. Barton; what have my geese been doing?” said the farmer, in a mild, quiet-tone.

“They pick my pigs' ears when they are eating, and go into my garden, and I will not have it!” the neighbour replied, in a still more petulant voice.

“I am really sorry it, Neighbour Barton, but what can I do?”

“Why, yoke them, and thus keep them on your own premises. It's no kind of a way to let your geese run all over every farm and garden in the neighborhood.”

“But I cannot see to it, now. It is harvest-time, Friend Barton, and every man, woman, and child on the farm has as much as he or she can do. Try and bear it for a week or so, and then I will see if I can possibly remedy the evil.”

“I can't bear it, and I won't bear it any longer!” said the shoemaker. “So if you do not take care of them, Friend Gray, I shall have to take care of them for you.”

“Well, Neighbour Barton, you can do as you please,” Farmer Gray replied, in his usual quiet tone. “I am sorry that they trouble you, but I cannot attend to them now.”

“I'll attend to them for you, see if I don't,” said the shoemaker, still more angrily than when he first called upon Farmer Gray; and then turned upon his heel, and strode off hastily towards his own house, which was quite near to the old farmer's.

“What upon earth can be the matter with them geese?” said Mrs. Gray, about fifteen minutes afterwards.

“I really cannot tell, unless Neighbour Barton is taking care of them. He threatened to do so, if I didn't yoke them right off.”

“Taking care of them! How taking care of them?”

“As to that, I am quite in the dark. Killing them, perhaps. He said they picked at his pigs' ears, and drove them away when they were eating, and that he wouldn't have it. He wanted me to yoke them right off, but that I could not do, now, as all the hands are busy. So, I suppose, he is engaged in the neighbourly business of taking care of our geese.”

“John! William! run over and see what Mr. Barton is doing with my geese,” said Mrs. Gray, in a quick and anxious tone, to two little boys who were playing near.

The urchins scampered off, well pleased to perform any errand.

“Oh, if he has dared to do anything to my geese, I will never forgive him!” the good wife said, angrily.

“H-u-s-h, Sally! make no rash speeches. It is more than probable that he has killed some two or three of them. But never mind, if he has. He will get over this pet, and be sorry for it.”

“Yes; but what good will his being sorry do me? Will it bring my geese to life?”

“Ah, well, Sally, never mind. Let us wait until we learn what all this disturbance is about.”

In about ten minutes the children came home, bearing the bodies of three geese, each without a head.

“Oh, is not that too much for human endurance?” cried Mrs. Gray. “Where did you find them?”

“We found them lying out in the road,” said the oldest of the two children, “and when we picked them up, Mr. Barton said, 'Tell your father that I have yoked his geese for him, to save him the trouble, as his hands are all too busy to do it.'”

“I'd sue him for it!” said Mrs. Gray, in an indignant tone.

“And what good would that do, Sally?”

“Why, it would do a great deal of good. It would teach him better manners. It would punish him; and he deserves punishment.”

“And punish us into the bargain. We have lost three geese, now, but we still have their good fat bodies to eat. A lawsuit would cost us many geese, and not leave us even so much as the feathers, besides giving us a world of trouble and vexation. No, no, Sally; just let it rest, and he will be sorry for it, I know.”

“Sorry for it, indeed! And what good will his being sorry for it do us, I should like to know? Next he will kill a cow, and then we must be satisfied with his being sorry for it! Now, I can tell you, that I don't believe in that doctrine. Nor do I believe anything about his being sorry--the crabbed, ill-natured wretch!”

“Don't call hard names, Sally,” said Farmer Gray, in a mild, soothing tone. “Neighbour Barton was not himself when he killed the geese. Like every other angry person, he was a little insane, and did what he would not have done had he been perfectly in his right mind. When you are a little excited, you know, Sally, that even you do and say unreasonable things.”

“Me do and say unreasonable things!” exclaimed Mrs. Gray, with a look and tone of indignant astonishment; “me do and say unreasonable things, when I am angry! I don't understand you, Mr. Gray.”

“May-be I can help you a little. Don't you remember how angry you were when Mr. Mellon's old brindle got into our garden, and trampled over your lettuce-bed, and how you struck her with the oven-pole, and knocked off one of her horns?”

“But I didn't mean to do that, though.”

“No; but then you were angry, and struck old Brindle with a right good will. And if Mr. Mellon had felt disposed, he might have prosecuted for damages.”

“But she had no business there.”

“Of course not. Neither had our geese any business in Neighbour Barton's yard. But, perhaps, I can help you to another instance, that will be more conclusive, in regard to your doing and saying unreasonable things, when you are angry. You remember the patent churn?”

“Yes; but never mind about that.”

“So you have not forgotten how unreasonable you was about the churn. It wasn't good for anything--you knew it wasn't; and you'd never put a jar of cream into it as long as you lived--that you wouldn't. And yet, on trial, you found that churn the best you had ever used, and you wouldn't part with it on any consideration. So you see, Sally, thai even you can say and do unreasonable things, when you are angry, just as well as Mr. Barton can. Let us then consider him a little, and give him time to get over his angry fit. It will be much better to do so.”

Mrs. Gray saw that her husband was right, but still she felt indignant at the outrage committed on her geese. She did not, however, say anything about suing the shoemaker--for old Brindle's head, from which the horn had been knocked off, was not yet entirely well, and one prosecution very naturally suggested the idea of another. So she took her three fat geese, and after stripping off their feathers, had them prepared for the table.

On the next morning, as Farmer Gray was going along the road, he met the shoemaker, and as they had to pass very near to each other, the farmer smiled, and bowed, and spoke kindly. Mr. Barton looked and felt very uneasy, but Farmer Gray did not seem to remember the unpleasant incident of the day before.

It was about eleven o'clock of the same day that one of Farmer Gray's little boys came running to him, and crying,

“Oh, father! father! Mr. Barton's hogs are in our cornfield.”

“Then I must go and drive them out,” said Mr. Gray, in a quiet tone.

“Drive them out!” ejaculated Mrs. Gray; “drive 'em out, indeed! I'd shoot them, that's what I'd do! I'd serve them as he served my geese yesterday.”

“But that wouldn't bring the geese to life again, Sally.”

“I don't care if it wouldn't. It would be paying him in his own coin, and that's all he deserves.”

“You know what the Bible says, Sally, about grievous words, and they apply with stronger force to grievous actions. No, no, I will return Neighbour Barton good for evil. That is the best way. He has done wrong, and I am sure is sorry for it. And as I wish him still to remain sorry for so unkind and unneighbourly an action, I intend making use of the best means for keeping him sorry.”

“Then you will be revenged on him, anyhow.”

“No, Sally--not revenged. I hope I have no such feeling. For I am not angry with Neighbour Barton, who has done himself a much greater wrong than he has done me. But I wish him to see clearly how wrong he acted, that he may do so no more. And then we shall not have any cause to complain of him, nor he any to be grieved, as I am sure he is, at his own hasty conduct. But while I am talking here, his hogs are destroying my corn.”