POUND FOR POUND | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 17, 1881

“POUND FOR POUND.”

“MISS PERKINS,” said her handmaiden, meeting her at the hall door, “how soon will you be ready to make your cake? and what things shall I get ready? Do you want pound for pound, or some other kind?”

“Pound for pound, of course,” said Miss Perkins absently; she was renowned in the neighborhood for her elegant pound cake—and now that the girls and boys were to meet at her house to prepare for a coming entertainment, and she, in the goodness of her heart, had determined to keep them all to take tea, of course she must give them pound cake.

“A pound of butter and a pound of sugar and a pound of flour,” counted Keziah, as she trotted away to make ready, and Miss Perkins, hearing her, had a sudden vision of Peter’s family “uncommon short that morning, and trusting that they would be all right if the oldest boy brought home a little meal.” Multiply him by a hundred, or let him stand for the poor families who were doubtless “short” that morning, and from that outlook was it probable that her pound of butter and sugar and flour, to say nothing of eggs, and time, and care, were to be bestowed to the glory of God? “And yet,” she said, “the girls and boys will enjoy it, and enjoyment is right and proper, and they are doing work for Christ, in their gathering to-day; but then after all, is pound cake necessary to their enjoyment? and if it is, ought it to be, and if it isn’t, what is, and where is the beginning or end of this muddle?”

Trimly dressed, a little afterward, the mistress of the fair and prosperous home stepped into her comfortable carriage. She would go herself to market; she was particular as to the meats which graced her tea table; besides she had schemes. That carriage of hers—what reason was there that it should not be made to honor her Master? She did not yet see just how, but what if he should show her ways? At least, she would put herself in the way to be helped. Intent on this thought, directly her marketing was dispatched, she ordered the horses down one of the narrow, less frequented streets, looking to the right and left of her in search of ways.

“Jet!” she said suddenly, leaning forward, to her sable driver, “stop at No. 61; there sits poor Miss Keller by the window, and I suppose she hasn’t stepped out into the fresh air for six months. More shame to me, and she a member of my own church, and I knowing she was sick all the time! Anybody would think I had forgotten how He was always looking out for the comfort of people.”

Jet showed his rows of ivory over her remarks; none of which he understood, and obeyed orders. Down clambered Miss Perkins, click clack went the old-fashioned brass knocker, which still did duty on this little old-fashioned house, and in a few minutes more pale Mary Keller, weak from long sickness, flushed just now with surprise and pleasure, tottered weakly out and was settled among the pillows by a fond and grateful mother, and was soon out on Central avenue, taking in the life and energy of which she had sat and dreamed, wondering if she should ever get strength to see it again.

“I have just longed to get out,” she confided to Miss Perkins’ sympathetic ear; “it seemed to me if I could only get away from that corner, and see people look strong and well again, and hurry about, it would kind of give me strength; but I didn’t see any way to do it. Doctors’ bills are so heavy, you know, and poor mother has got more than she can manage.”

“Humph!” said Miss Perkins, “what a shame!” The ejaculation fitted in with her own thoughts. She was reviewing the number of times she had passed that corner, sitting luxuriously back in her carriage, and forgetting that there was a Mary Keller and an anxious mother in the world. How came she to think of it that morning? Hadn’t He given her the thought?

I wish I could make you feel how reverently Miss Perkins used those pronouns; I think you know that she did not again forget poor Mary Keller; and that you realize that this was the dawning of a new era in her rides. She had promptly discovered one way in which her carriage and horses could contribute even to His glory, for He said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me.”

The rested and comforted invalid having been set down again at her little corner, Miss Perkins proceeded in haste to execute some errands pertaining to the afternoon tea. Her misfortune was to have to alight at one of the main street corners, where a knot of gentlemen were congregated, discussing the recent election, and spitting. What this last action had to do with mental effort I don’t pretend to explain, but at regular intervals the nauseous, tobacco-stained fluid was ejected, landing upon whatever portion of the walk happened to be most convenient to the spitters, without regard to any who might have to pass that way. “Fauh!” said Miss Perkins gathering her neat skirts about her, “it is a mercy that I don’t wear trains, though nothing but a bloomer costume could possibly escape all this filth. The idea that men must make such beasts of themselves! But that is a slander on beasts, isn’t it, Jet? Who ever saw a beast who would chew tobacco and spit the juice out for people to trail through?”

With closely gathered drapery she picked her way through the crowd, paying little attention to the amused glances leveled at her, or to the suppressed laughter of some of the ruder ones, until her wrathful eye caught a glimpse of the central figure in the group of talkers—and for that matter, of spitters. Then the expression of her face changed to one of almost dismay. There he was! Deacon Wilson, a pillar in Miss Perkins’ church, a good man enough. His political views accorded with Miss Perkins’ precisely, and therefore in her opinion were of the honest and reliable kind. She believed in Deacon Wilson, but how, if he really guided his life by the narrow rule that had shone so plainly at her out of her little book that morning, did he reconcile it with turning whatever he did to God’s glory, to stand at that street corner, among that crowd of listeners and watchers, and not content with defiling his own body, which was the temple of the Holy Ghost, eject that defilement for the distress of others? “Upon my word!” said Miss Perkins as she landed safely at last on the doorsill of the grocery whither she was bound, springing over a small river of tobacco juice in her transit, “upon my word! I don’t know what Deacon Wilson is thinking about!”

“Deacon Wilson!” said the grocer, coming forward to meet her, “he is thinking that the last news is bad, and that the tax on tobacco will be higher than ever, which will bring him in less profits than usual.”

“Does he sell tobacco, too?” in a startled tone.

“Sell tobacco! why of course he does; large profits are to be made on that article; trust Deacon Wilson to look out for the profits every time.”

“Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, chew tobacco and make money,” said Miss Perkins. “Suppose the verse actually read like that! I wonder if Deacon Wilson thinks it does.” But fortunately for Deacon Wilson, she made these remarks to herself, and did her errand and went her way, out through the cloud of smoke and the river of filth. Surely it was a strange world. Suppose that respectable people paid no more attention to the laws of the State, for instance, than they did to the laws of the King!

“Drive down Pine Alley,” she said to Jet, as she settled back among her cushions.

“Pine Alley!” repeated Jet in a startled tone, and he turned half way on his seat to give her the benefit of the startled roll of his eyes. “Whatever be mistis goin’ there fur?”

“Mistis” didn’t know. The name at the corner, the sudden realization of the fact that human beings huddled together on Pine Alley, and that she knew nothing about them, and the—well, what shall I call it—drawing, leading, inspiration? What is the name for those intuitions which people sometimes have? We are afraid, in these days, to name them, lest people will think us too literal, or too superstitious, or too visionary, or too something, notwithstanding the fact that we havn’t yet parted faith with the old Book, which says, “Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it.” Who listens for the voice in these days of haste and tumult? Down Pine Alley went the sleek horses and the easy carriage, and children in the dirty streets stopped their play and looked after it, and hooted after it, some of them, and threw mud after it, one of them, and dirty faced women came to the windows and doors and stared after it. What was “mistis” doing in Pine Alley?

She gave suddenly a startled, pitiful exclamation: “Jet, stop here—quick!” It was a smaller and somewhat neater house than the others. There had been an attempt at cleanliness, there were men and women standing about the door and on the shattered walk in front; there was a rough looking man coming out of the door, and the gazers were making way for him. Under his arm he carried a small, rude coffin, and following that coffin, as though it contained all of earth that there was left, tottered a haggard-faced, wan mother, whose eyes had wept until there were no tears left, only the settled look of despair which sometimes gathers on such faces. Two frightened children stole behind her, and this dreary group were evidently about to make their way to some spot where the coffined child could rest. It was doubtful if her young life had ever known rest.

“Here!” said Miss Perkins, leaning forward hastily, “bring it here; set it on this seat,” and she tossed the cushions about, and made room for the small coffin. “Help the woman in, and the children,” was her next order, and the startled lookers on followed her bidding, the haggard mother regarding her with a half-questioning, half-dazed look, as one to whom it mattered little what came next.

“Now, where is the minister?” said Miss Perkins, “there is room for him.”

The bystanders stared—some of them laughed. “They ain’t got no minister,” ventured one.

“Didn’t you have a funeral service?” said shocked Miss Perkins, and the haggard mother answered, “I don’t know no minister and no minister don’t know me, and there was nobody

to send, or to come; I’m a stranger, and I don’t know nothing about people, and don’t care, now Molle is dead!” Could a burst of tears have compared with the desolation embodied in these words?

“Oh dear!” said Miss Perkins, “and it is His earth and we are His children!” It was by no means a large town, though there was poverty enough to have fitted a metropolis, and Miss Perkins, to whom a funeral without a minister was a final and terrible drop of desolation, gave Jet prompt orders to drive at once to No. 36 Howard street. Such a little distance it was, too, from Pine Alley. “I’m going after my minister, to pray with us when we get to the place,” she explained to the haggard mother, dropping into the “we” as naturally as though she had been accustomed to recognizing the relationship of humanity.

“He won’t come,” the mother said, the apathy of a soul that had given up, in voice and manner. How earnestly Miss Perkins hoped that Dr. Marston would be at home and able to answer her call. It was morning, and her pastor was a student, and his morning hours were precious, and Miss Perkins was one of the few who understood and appreciated this; she never remembered intruding upon them before. What if he should consider the intrusion unwarrantable? “He won’t come,” said the mother again, as the carriage stopped, “and it don’t matter—nothing matters.” How much it mattered then and there to let that soul get a glimpse of the spirit of Christ!

“There ain’t no account to disturb Dr. Marston,” volunteered the man who had borne the coffin under his arm, “she allowed that there wa’n’t no one likely to come to her house, and she couldn’t pay no one anyhow, and so we didn’t ask no one—we just managed it.”

“Pay!” said Miss Perkins, “Jet ring the bell.”

A sharp ring penetrating to the doctor’s study, and although he was unusually busy that morning preparing a sermon on “The Forces of the Universe Proving the Divine Hand,” something impelled him to rise and walk to the window, saying as he went, “I hope that is no one to interrupt me, I can’t be interrupted this morning. Albert,” to the boy who was moving toward the door-bell, say that I am unusually busy this morning, and can not be seen.”

Then he looked out. Miss Hannah Perkins’ carriage, in which he had often ridden, and on the front seat a little coffin! “Dr. Marston is unusually busy this morning,” began Albert, and Dr. Marston’s voice took it up, “What is it, Jet? Miss Perkins, what is the trouble?” And the busy minister went bareheaded to the carriage.

A few rapidly spoken words of explanation, and strange though the situation was, Dr. Marston took it in. The “Forces of the Universe” no more surely proved the Divine Hand than the instant throb of Christian sympathy in the minister proved that the Divine Hand of Christ had touched his heart.

“Certainly I will go. Albert, bring my coat and hat. They have had no funeral services, you say? That is very sad. I would have come in a moment, of course; so would any of the ministers. Alice,” to the soft-eyed woman who had come to the door to see Miss Perkins, and was stayed from approaching by the coffin and the strange, sad story, “I am called away in haste; a sad case—”

“Yes I know,” interrupted his wife, “I heard—I am so sorry for that poor mother.” Then she advanced and laid upon the small coffin a cluster of snow-drops that she had broken from the cluster by the door. Then that mother cried.

Charlie, the nephew, sauntering down Olin street, still with a cigar in his mouth, saw the family carriage slowly turn the corner, and waited with a quizzical air, curious to know whether Aunt Hannah had found anything that “fitted.” He saw a strange woman, with her face buried in her hands, and two frightened children beside her, and Dr. Marston on the front seat beside a tiny coffin, on which rested a spray of snow-drops. No room for quizzing there.