CARELESS WORDS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 15, 1881

CARELESS WORDS.

THERE was not a happier, more contented little woman than Mrs. Strong. It is true that she had not much of this world's goods, and some people might have found much to fret about in her lot; but she was one of those who thought of the bright side of that sentence, which some think the "saddest of tongue or pen"—might have been.

"Why, John," she would say, "how fortunate it is father lets us have this place. As to the trouble of getting up early, so that you can take that train, I find it makes the day so nice and long for my sewing and reading. Just think what it would be to have to pay house-rent these hard times. Then it is so good to live in the country while our children are young."

"Chills!" John would sometimes put in, just to test the little woman.

"Now, John! Chills are bad, I'll admit, but then there's no other illness about, and I really think we are getting acclimated."

Then the husband would laugh, and stretching out his tired feet to the fire, would draw his wife to his side and in his heart thank God for her contented spirit.

For two years this went on; times were so hard that little Mrs. Strong lived strictly to herself, only once in a while meeting some of her old friends when she spent a day at her mother's, in the city.

Sometimes she wished that she could invite them out to her country home, but always put it off, knowing, wise little woman, that "many a mickle makes a muckle," and that she must not spend anything on extras until John's salary was raised.

At last, at the very time they least expected it, an increase came, and one night John said:—

"Now, little girl, you must have a friend or so to spend the day with you, at least. I know it is lonesome out here. Write and ask some one at once."

"Lou Fairlee and Mary Barker?"

"All right. I'll see Jack Fairlee to-morrow and arrange it, so you'd best get ready."

The next evening word came that the ladies would come out on the morning train and stay till evening—an all-night visit could not come off just then.

How the little woman flew about the house putting finishing touches here and there.

Willie and Rob helped, and Dick hindered—as usual.

The boys were principally interested in the unwonted display of cake which graced the sideboard.

"Now I do hope they wont disappoint us; in ten minutes they'll be here."

And the mother sank into a rocking-chair with a delightful sense of order and cleanliness about her; were not the boys as perfectly clean as if just ready for bed?

"If they don't come we can eat all the cake, can't we?" said Rob, while Dick listened breathlessly for the answer.

"No; if they come you can have your share, but if they don't come we'll keep it till to-morrow. There's the whistle; run, boys, to the station."

"I'll just make sure the boys haven't upset my room," thought the mother, who had not nine years' experience with boys for nothing.

As she opened the bed-room door what a scene of perfect confusion met her eyes.

The children had dressed in mamma's room, as they found their own pretty cold, and their everyday clothes lay in heaps on the floor; the toilet arrangements were all in disorder, while Dick's dollie, as dirty and forlorn as Toddie's, lay in state on the spotless bed quilt.

The room was not half in order when Willie's voice was heard.

"Come right up. Mother said you were to take your things off in her room up-stairs."

Giving a fling to Dick's dolly, Mrs. Strong went forward to welcome her friends, and the usual talk followed—exclamations about the length of the trip, how they left all in the city, etc.

"But aren't you very lonesome?" asked Lou thinking of the long, quiet days, with no concerts or lectures.

"Yes indeed," chimed in Mary Barker, "I don't see how you stand it—you who used to be so fond of society. Do you really like this place for a home?"

Now to tell the truth, the wife had never asked herself any such questions.

"I don't find it very lonesome," she said.

But even as she spoke her heart sank a little, and she began to see the bleak, bare country, with its winter mantle of snow, through her friend's spectacles.

"If you had a horse it would be different," said Mary Barker, absently, shaking out her lace.

"Oh, yes; a horse is almost a necessity in the country," assented Miss Lou.

The little woman listened to it all and began to feel as if she had been very blind indeed, to her disadvantages.

A diversion fortunately occurred on the announcement of lunch (Willie nearly forgot and said dinner). Mrs. Strong brightened as her friends enjoyed the home-made butter and drank the rich, country milk.

"You see we have our advantages," she said, with pardonable pride; and Mary agreed, "though for her part, if she couldn't have every luxury, she preferred the city."

The afternoon slipped quickly by; there were new magazines to talk about, and the latest embroidery to explain, and when at six o'clock her friends had gone, and Mrs. Strong met her husband, she assured him she had had a delightful day.

Yet her husband noticed a difference in his wife at once. At first he thought it was only because the dear little woman had been too hard at work beautifying and cleaning up, but as day after day the shadow did not leave her face, though it lifted at times, he wondered "what had come over his little Nellie."

Her bright ways had changed.

Every time she went into the parlor, it seemed so very empty, and she heard again the question:—"How do you like this place to live in? I don't see how you possibly stand it."

The boys felt the difference.

Mother didn't go to skate, and though she came out and looked at their snow man, she didn't stay and snow-ball them, but went in at once to sit at the fire and think—of what?

She began to forget what might have been, and to think what was, was very hard indeed.

"I don't know how I've stood it," she said to herself, "there's really nothing to do here."

To be sure there was that quilt she had been making for the home for the friendless, and she was only half through that last volume of essays, but—she didn't feel like it.

And so she sat and thought and wished, till at last she startled her husband one day by suddenly bursting into tears.

John thought the sky was falling, when his wife, who had been so brave and cheerful through such real trials, broke down in that way, "because she was lonesome."

In spite of all remonstrances, he insisted that the boys should be left to the servant, and she was to spend a week in the city.

"I'll tell you who'll do you a world of good—aunt Huldah!"

Nellie thought, with a pang of remorse, how she had neglected the old Quaker lady; but John was sure she would be welcome, and insisted on her going into town the next morning with him.

"Glad to see thee, child. To be sure I am. But thee is pale, and thee does not look so bright as of old. Thee must stay a week with me and tell me all thy troubles."

"I haven't any," Nellie insisted.

But aunt Huldah knew better.

She took good care that Nellie had plenty of sight-seeing, and in a day or two saw with pleasure that the color was coming back to her cheeks.

The last day was rainy, and aunt Huldah said they would spend it quietly together.

They chatted of many things; then, after a pause, Nellie said:—

"Aunt Huldah, how would you like to live in the country?"

The old lady's eyes sparkled (what memories she had stored up of her happy country home), but she said:—

"I don't think how much I would like it, for I must not leave this home, child. It is best not to think of the impossible."

"But the country is so lonesome."

Aunt Huldah's face brightened—so that was the trouble:—

"Are not the boys with thee, and has not thee books, and thy husband?"

"Yes, but—Lou Fairlee—"

"Ah, child, I see. Folks wonder how thee is content, and they wonder so that at last they break up thy content. Now, Nellie, when I was a young wife, my own dear mother gave me this rule: 'Never let anything make thee pity thyself; spend thy pity on the truly unfortunate, and, if thee is downhearted, go to work or play. Are there no poor thee can work for in thy quiet home, child, and are there no romps thee can enjoy with the lads?'"

"Oh, auntie," said Nellie, "I see it now. Lou and Mary seemed so sure I was lonesome, and pitied me so much that I pitied myself."

"Don't make the same mistake with thy poorer neighbors; when thee goes to see them never pity their lot—remember, sympathy is quite different from pity."

That evening Nellie joined her husband, and together they reached their country home.

John was so glad to get her back, and what a fuss the boys made. Never was a woman more proud and happy.

No more lonesome days for Nellie Strong. If she feels any symptoms of the old dissatisfaction, she has learned how to shake them off.

But are there not many young wives who have been led to discontent by the thoughtless words of their friends? Are we not all forgetful of the time when we must give an account of these very words?—Housekeeper.