Birds at the Window

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 27, 1883

Birds at the Window.

“Better be at work,” grumbled John Spencer, as he passed the minister's house and saw Jennie, the minister's daughter, feeding the birds that came every day to her window. “My girls have something else to do. I'll not give a single cent to support such lazy doings.”

“Good morning, Mr. Spencer,” said a friendly voice. “I want to know how much you will put down for Mr. Elder's salary this year? We want to increase it to $500 if we can.”

“Not one cent,” was his slow, emphatic answer.

“Oh! you're jesting, Mr. Spencer,” said his good-humored neighbor.

“No, I'm in earnest. My girls have something better to do than feeding birds. Humph! Do you see that!” and he pointed to a window where Jenny Elder, the minister's daughter, stood feeding half a dozen birds that flew close to her hand, one or two of them even lighting on her shoulder.

“Well, that is beautiful!” exclaimed Mr. Egbert.

“I think she'd better be at work,” replied Mr. Spencer, in rather a hard voice.

Mr. Egbert turned and looked at his neighbor in mute surprise.

“I mean just what I say,” added Mr. Spencer. “My daughters have no time to waste after that fashion, and I can't see that I am under any obligation to support other people's daughters in idleness.”

“Jenny Elder is no idle girl,” said Mr. Egbert, a little warmly.

“Don't you call that idleness?”

“No, it is both rest and invigoration. The ten minutes spent with these birds will sweeten her life for a whole day. She will hear them twittering as she goes about her household duties, and be stronger and more cheerful in consequence.”

Mr. Spencer shook his head, but not with the emphasis of manner shown a little while before. A new thought had come to his mind. A bird had flown in through a window of his own soul.

“Work, work, work, every hour and every minute of the day,” said Mr. Egbert, “is not best for any one—not best for Jenny Elder, nor for your daughters, nor mine.”

“Nobody says it is,” replied Mr. Spencer. “But—but—” His thoughts were not very clear, and so he hesitated.

“The rest that gives to the mind a cheerful tone, that makes it stronger and healthier, is true rest, because it includes refreshment and invigoration.”

“Nobody denies that,” replied Mr. Spencer.

“And may not Jenny's ten minutes with the birds give her just the refreshment she needs, and make her stronger for the whole day? If not stronger, then more cheerful, and you know how much comfort to a household one cheerful spirit may bring.”

“You have such a way of putting things,” replied the neighbor in a changed voice. “I never saw it in that light before.”

“If we can get down to the heart of things, we are all right,” was the smiling answer. And now we want to know how much we may count on from you towards Mr. Elder's salary. Open wide the windows; let just and generous thoughts come in.”

“As much as last year; perhaps more; I'll think over the matter,” was replied.

While sitting at dinner with his family on that day Mr. Spencer broke the constrained silence, the usual accompaniment of their meal, with the words:—

“I saw a very beautiful sight this morning.”

Both the sentence and the tone in which it was spoken were a surprise. A weight seemed removed from every one—a shadow fell from each dull countenance. All eyes were fixed in inquiry upon him.

“Jenny Elder at a window, with wild birds feeding from her hands, and sitting on her shoulders,” added Mr. Spencer.

“Oh, yes; I've seen it often,” said Margaret, his oldest daughter, a light breaking over her face. “Jenny is so good and sweet that even the birds love her. I wish they would come to my window.”

“You must ask Jenny her secret,” said the father, with a gentleness in his voice that was such a surprise to Margaret that she looked at her father in astonishment. Mr. Spencer noticed and understood the meaning of her look. He felt it as a revelation and rebuke.

The dead silence soon passed away. First one tongue and then another was unloosed; and in a little while the whole family were in pleasant conversation—a thing so unusual at meal-time that each member of the family noted the fact in a kind of bewildered surprise.

Mr. Spencer opened the windows of his soul still wider, and let the singing birds come in. All the hours of that day he pondered the new ideas suggested by Mr. Egbert, and the more he considered them the clearer it became that there was a better way to secure the happiness of himself and family than the hard and narrow one he had been pursuing. Minds needed something as well as bodies. Tastes and feelings had their especial needs. Soul hunger must be attended to and satisfied.

As he came home from his shop that evening he passed a store the windows of which were filled with cages of singing birds; and as his eyes rested on them he remembered how often he had heard Margaret wish for a canary, and how he had as often said: “Nonsense; you've got something better to do than wasting your time with birds.” But Mr. Spencer saw things in a different light now.

“She shall have a bird,” he said, speaking to himself, and turned into the store.

“Oh, father! not for me?”

Mr. Spencer was taken by surprise at the sudden outburst of delight that came from Margaret, when she understood that he had really bought her the bird. Tears filled her eyes. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

“It was so kind of you—and I wanted a bird so much!” she said. “Oh, I'll be so good, and do everything for you I can.”

What a sweet feeling warmed the heart of Mr. Spencer through and through. The delight of this moment was greater than anything he remembered to have experienced for years.

“I am glad my little present gave you so much pleasure, my daughter,” he answered, subduing his voice that he might not betray too much of what he felt. “It's a good singer, the man said.”

“It's a beauty!” returned Margaret, feasting her eyes on the pretty bird; “and I'll love it if it doesn't sing a note.”

“Such a little thing to give so much pleasure!” Mr. Spencer said to himself as he sat and pondered this new phase of life. And to his thoughts came this reply: “A cup of water is a little thing, but to thirsty lips it is sweeter than nectar.”

And then, as if a window had been opened in his soul, a whole flood of new ideas and thoughts came in upon him, and he saw that the mind had needs as well as the body, and that unless these were supplied, life would be poor and dreary—just as his life, and the lives of his wife and children had for the most part been.

Mr. Spencer never shut that window, but let the birds fly in and out at pleasure. When Mr. Egbert next saw him he received him with joyous heart and pleasant smile, and doubled his subscription to the minister's salary.—Selected.