p. 22 | One Woman's Plan

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 12, 1882

One Woman's Plan.

SOME years ago there lived in Philadelphia a thrifty pair; the husband's business was one that the wife could assist in, so she was in every way his helpmeet, besides his housekeeper and his savings bank. They were happy and prospering in their own little house—the Philadelphian's patent idea of comfort.

After a time the man grew ambitious to get on a more showy footing. He took to politics—as is the duty of all citizens, when this means politics and water. Unfortunately it was politics and whisky in his case, the sort of ward politics that is carried on in the liquor saloons. He grew to be such an important man in this "combination" that he could not attend to his private business any more.

If this were the story of "Mulhooly," the rest of it would be that in spite of his empty shop and unfinished orders, he went on getting rich. But X. was not a high politician of that kind. He was the sort that is used—not a master in the political trade.

His wife, left alone in the shop, did her best; but for the very fact that she was alone, that he was never seen, customers began to suspect something. Orders that he had taken went wrong; complaints were made of lost goods that had been trusted to him. She had to make them good.

Here again the story ought to turn that she built up the business herself again, and put up her own name as sole trader. But she was a poor, heart-broken woman. She wanted to reclaim him, and not even the business was important to her, as what was to become of her husband all the days and nights that he stayed away from her. They were half starved, but she kept up a decent appearance still, kept her children clean and herself tidy.

One day a strange thing happened. This respectable, neat woman, with her two pretty children, made her appearance in the tavern where this man spent his days. She did not make a scene; she did not come for that. She quietly took her seat there and waited for him. People came up to her and urged her to go home, saying that this low drinking place was no place for her and her children. "Wherever their father stays," she replied, "is the place for his children and for me." Of course he was ready soon to go home. Some men would have been brutal—have struck or cursed her for interference, but this man was only weak, not cowardly.

The next day he went to another place. She followed presently, with the bright little children. This was kept up for some weeks. The tavern keepers grew uneasy. They couldn't stand the mute witness of the man's weakness. They could not complain of her, for she said nothing, did nothing, only sat and watched. She did not cry or entreat while her husband lounged up to the bar to drink. She simply sat by pained and intent, with the two children kept very close to her, as if she would shut out from their eyes and ears such talk and such sights.

No tavern keeper could stand it. One after another refused to sell liquor to a man so guarded. Finally it began to tell on him—this gentle, faithful watch. He stopped drinking, dropped his "political" associates that had led him to it, and began to turn over a new leaf. He picked up his old business again, but finally concluded to move to another place and make a clean start. He is now prosperous, and his experience is not the least part of his gains.

This was the way one woman reformed her husband; with never a spoken word, she fairly shamed him out of his ruin, by letting him see that wherever he sank to, there she and the children were bound to be, and that even in danger or foulness she still looked to him to protect them. For better, for worse, she had married him, and even when he took the worse, there would she and his children be.

It was an appeal to his manhood, and very uncomfortable appeal to the manhood of all who stood around or dropped in to drink. Not a crying woman—not even a praying one, as any one could see—but by the mute appeal of her presence there, finally conquering for decency and happiness again.—Sel.