HOME VS. BILLIARDS

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 19, 1881

HOME VS. BILLIARDS.

"ALBERT, I wish you would let me have seventy-five cents."

Kate Landman spoke carefully, for she knew that her husband had not much money to spare; yet she spoke earnestly, and there was a world of entreaty in her look.

"What do you want seventy-five cents for?" asked Albert.

"I want to get some braid for my new dress."

"I thought you had all the material on hand for that."

"So I thought I had; but Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Thompson both have a trimming of braid upon theirs, and it looks very pretty. It is very fashionable, and adds much to the beauty of a dress."

"Plague take these women's fashions! Your endless trimmings and thing-a-ma-jigs cost more than the dress is worth. It's nothing but shell out money when a woman once thinks of a new dress."

"I don't have many new dresses. I do certainly try to be as economical as I can."

"It is a funny kind of economy, at all events. But if you must have it, I suppose you must."

And Albert Landman took out his wallet and counted out the seventy-five cents; but he gave it grudgingly, and when he put the wallet back into his pocket he did it with an emphasis which seemed to say that he would not take it out again for a week.

When Albert reached the outer door, on his way to work, he found the weather so threatening that he concluded to go back and get his umbrella, and upon re-entering the sitting-room he found his wife in tears. She tried to hide the fact that she had been weeping, but he caught her in the act, and asked her what it meant.

"Good gracious!" remarked the husband, "I should like to know if you are crying at what I said about the dress?"

"I was not crying at what you said, Albert," replied Kate, tremulously; "but you were so reluctant to grant me the favor. I was thinking how hard I have to work. I am tied to the house, and have many little things to perplex me; then, to think—"

"Pshaw! What do you want to be foolish for?"

And away started Albert Landman a second time, but he was not to escape so easily. In the hall he was met by his daughter Lizzie, a bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked girl of ten years.

"Oh, papa, give me fifteen cents."

"What?"

"Oh, I want fifteen cents. Do please give it to me."

"What in the world do you want with it? Are they changing school books again?"

"No, I want to buy a hoop. Ellen Smith has got one, and so has Mary Ruck and Sarah Allen. Mr. Grant has got some real pretty ones to sell. Can't I have one?"

"Nonsense! If you want a hoop go and get one off some old barrel. I can't afford to buy hoops for you to trundle about the streets."

"Please papa."

"No, I tell you."

The bright, blue eyes filled with tears, and the child began to sob. Albert Landman hurried from the house with some very impatient words upon his lips.

This was in the morning. At noon, when he came home to his dinner, there was a cloud over the household. His wife was quiet, and even little Lizzie, usually gay and blithesome, was sad and silent.

But these things could not last long in that household, for the husband and wife loved each other devotedly, and were at heart kind and forbearing. When Albert came home to his supper Kate greeted him with a kiss, and in a moment sunshine came back; and had the lesson ended there the husband might have fancied that he had done nothing wrong, and that the cloud had been nothing but the exhalation of domestic ferment, for which no one was particularly responsible, and he might likewise have cherished the conviction that woman's fashions were a nuisance and a humbug, as well as a frightful draft upon a husband's pocket.

After tea Albert did a few chores around the house, and then he lighted a cigar and walked out. He had gone but a short distance when he met Lizzie. In her right hand she dragged an old hoop, which she had taken from a dilapidated flour barrel, while with her left she was rubbing her red swollen eyes. She was in deep grief, and was sobbing painfully. He stopped her and asked what was the matter.

She answered, as well as her sobs would let her, that the other girls had laughed at her, and made fun of her old hoop. They had nice, pretty hoops, while hers was ugly and homely.

"Never mind," said Albert, patting the little one upon the head (for the child's grief touched him), "perhaps we'll have a new one some time."

"Mayn't I have one now? Mr. Grant's got one left—oh! such a pretty one."

The sobbing had ceased, as the child caught her father's hand eagerly.

"Not now, Lizzie—not now. I'll think of it."

Sobbing again, the child moved on toward home, dragging her old hoop after her.

At one of the stores Albert Landman met some of his friends.

"Hello, Albert! What's up?"

"Nothing in particular."

"What do you say to a game of billiards?"

"Good; I'm in for that."

And away Albert went to the billiard hall, where he had a glorious time with his friends. He liked billiards. It is a healthy, pretty game, and the keeper of the hall allowed no roughs on his premises.

They had played four games. Albert had won two and his opponent two.

"That's two and two," cried Tom Pike. "What do you say to playing them off, Albert?"

"All right; go ahead," said Albert, full of animation.

And so they played the fifth game, and he who lost was to pay for the five games. It was an exciting contest. Both made capital runs, but in the end Albert was defeated by three points, and, with a little laugh, he went up to settle the bill. Five games, at twenty cents a game, just one dollar. Not much for such sport; and he paid out the money with a grace, never once seeming to think that he could not afford it.

"Have a cigar, Tom?"

"Yes."

They lighted their cigars, and then sauntered down the hall to watch the others play.

Albert soon found himself seated over against a table at which some of his friends were playing, and close by stood two gentlemen, strangers to him, one of whom was explaining to the other the mysteries of the game.

"It is a healthy pastime," said he who had been making the explanation; "and certainly it is one which has no evil tendency."

Albert heard the remark very plainly, and he had a curiosity to hear what the other, who seemed unacquainted with billiards, would say.

"I cannot, of course, assert that any game which calls for skill and judgment, and which is free from the attendant curse of gaming, is of itself an evil," remarked the second gentleman. "Such things are only evil so far as they excite and stimulate men beyond the bonds of healthy recreation."

"That result can scarcely follow such a game," said the first speaker.

But the other shook his head.

"You are wrong there. The result can follow in two ways: It can lead men away from their business; it can lead men to spend money when they have not got it to spare. Whenever I visit a place of this kind I am led to reflect upon the most strange and prominent weakness of humanity as developed in our sex. For instance, observe that young man who is just settling his bill at the desk. He looks like a mechanic, and I should say from his manner, and from the fact that he feels it his duty to go home at this hour, that he has a wife and children. I see by his face that he is kind-hearted and generous, and I should judge that he means to do as near right as he can. He has been beaten, and he pays one dollar and forty cents for a recreation of some two hours' duration. If you will observe you will see that he pays it freely, and pockets the loss with a smile. Happy faculty! But how do you suppose it is in that young man's home? Suppose his wife had come to him this morning and asked him for a dollar to buy some trifling thing, some household ornament, and suppose his little girl put in a plea for forty cents to buy a paper and picture-book with, what do you think he would have answered? Of fifty men just like him, would not forty and five declared that they had not the money to spare for any such purpose? And moreover, they would have said no, feeling that they were telling the truth. Am I not right?"

"Upon my word," said the man who understood billiards, "you speak to the point. I know that young man who has paid his bill, and you have not misjudged him in a single particular. And what is more, I happen to have a fact at hand to illustrate your charge. We have a club for an excellent literary paper in our village, and last year that man was one of our subscribers. This year he felt obliged to discontinue it. His wife was very anxious to take it, for it had become a genial companion in leisure moments, but he could not afford it. The club rate was one dollar and fifty cents a year."

"Aye, and so it goes," said the other gentleman. "Well, that man's wife may be wishing this very moment that she had her paper to read, while he is paying almost its full price for a year, for what? And yet, how smilingly he does it. Ah! those poor, sympathizing wives! How many clouds often darken upon them from the brows of their husbands when they ask for trifling sums of money, and how grudgingly the mite is handed over when it is given. What perfect floods of joy that dollar and forty cents might have poured upon the household of that unsuccessful billiard player. Ah! it is well for such wives and children that they do not know where the money all goes."

They had finished at the nearest table. The two gentlemen moved on, and Albert Landman arose from his seat, and left the house. Never before had he had such thoughts as now possessed him—he had never dwelt upon the same grouping of ideas. That very morning his own true, faithful, loving wife, had been sad and heart-sick,

because he had harshly and unkindly met her request for a small sum of money. And his sweet Lizzie had crept away home almost broken-hearted for the want of a simple toy, such as her playmates possessed. And yet the sum of both their wants did not amount to as much as he had paid away that evening for billiard playing.

Albert Landman wanted to be an honest husband and father, and the lesson was not lost upon him. On his way home he stopped at Mr. Grant's and purchased the best and prettiest hoop to be found, with a red, white, and blue driving-stick, and in the morning, when he beheld his child's delight, and had received her grateful, happy kisses, the question came to his mind: Which was the best and happiest result; this, or the five games of billiards? The hoop cost thirty cents. He could play two games of billiards less, and be the absolute gainer of ten cents by the pleasant operation.

A few mornings after this, as Albert arose from the breakfast table, he detected an uneasy, wistful look upon his wife's face.

"Kate, what is it?"

"Albert, could you spare me half a dollar this morning?"

Out came the wallet and the money was handed over with a warm, genial smile.

What! tears at that? Was it possible that she had been so little used to such scenes on his part, that so simple an act of loving-kindness thus affected her?

How many games of billiards would be required to secure such satisfaction as Albert carried with him that morning to the shop!

A very simple lesson, is it not? But how many may gain lasting profit by giving heed to it?