Little Things That Count

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 15, 1912

Little Things That Count

“I CALL that real kind. Sit right down, Mary, and write him a letter and thank him for it. There wasn’t many would have done it. It was certainly nice of him, it was—”

All this, and more, is what an old farmer said about just receiving a post-card—a picture post-card. He had been away from home several weeks in a neighboring village having a sore eye treated. While there he used to chat to the postmaster when he called at the post-office for his mail. Now that he had returned home, the postmaster had remembered him, and sent this post-card to inquire about his eye. And the farmer was delighted to receive it. Indeed, few people receiving the gift of a hundred dollars would have been more grateful or more genuinely pleased than this man was about his post-card; but it was more the thought of the man who sent it that gratified him. He continued: “I won’t forget Mr. Burgess for this; and if ever I get a chance to do him a good turn, I will do it. Sit right down, Mary, and write the letter.”

Does not this old man’s reception of his post-card go to show us how easy a thing it is to make some one glad, how little a thing may make some people happy? And yet we are so sparing of the little thoughtful act, the little kindly deed. There are a great many simple, honest, grateful persons not far away from us who are almost left out of things apart from their own immediate families and their homely duties of the day, and even a little thing means so much to them.—Selected.