A Life Lesson | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 26, 1878

A Life Lesson.

Albert Moore, at the age of twenty-five, took Alice Warren for his wife. He had been in the army—had gone in at the age of twenty—fought through from Bull’s Bluff to Richmond—had come out with a captain’s commission. He had come from the army with but little money; but he had a good trade, a stout pair of hands, and had borrowed no trouble for the future. Alice had saved up a few hundred dollars from her wages as a teacher, and when the twain had become husband and wife they found, upon a careful inventory, that they had enough to furnish a small house comfortably. Albert proposed that they should hire a tenement in the city; but Alice thought they had better secure a pretty cottage in the suburbs—a cottage which they might, perhaps, in time, make their own.

Albert had no disposition to argue the question, so the cottage was found and secured. It was a pleasant, rural location, and so connected with the city by rail, that Albert found no difficulty in going to and from his work-shop.

During her five years’ experience in school teaching Alice had learned many things, and having been an orphan from an early age, she had made the problems of real life one of her chief studies; and what she had learned in this latter department served her well in her new station. After marriage she found Albert to be just the man she had known him to be in other years. He was kind to a fault; free-hearted and generous; ready always to answer the call of friendship; and prone to pluck the flowers that bloom to-day, regardless of what might be nurtured to bloom to-morrow.

They had been married but a few months when Alice found he was cutting his garments according to his daily supply of cloth. Not a shred was he likely to save up from the cuttings of an extra garment for a rainy day to come.

“Albert,” she said to him one evening, “do you know we ought to be laying up a little something?”

Albert looked up from his paper and waited for his wife to elucidate.

“I think I heard you tell Mr. Greenough that you had no money—that you had paid out your last dollar this very afternoon?”

“Exactly, my dear; but you know to-morrow is pay-day.”

“And you have spent your last month’s earnings?”

“Yes.”

A brief silence ensued, which Albert broke.

“Come, Alice, you’ve got something on your mind. Out with it—I’ll listen.”

And then Alice, in a smiling, pleasant way, went on to tell her husband that they ought to be laying up something.

Albert smiled in turn, and asked how such a thing could be done when it cost all he earned to live.

“You earn three dollars and a half a day,” said Alice.

“Yes.”

“George Summers only earns three dollars a day.”

“You are right.”

“And yet he lives, and does not run in debt.”

“But he is forced to deny himself many little comforts which we enjoy.”

“And the one great comfort which we might enjoy we are throwing away.”

“How is that, Alice?”

“The comfort of a little sum in the bank, which we would see growing toward the answering of future wants.”

Albert could not see how it was to be done; and Alice feared that a lesson of empty words might be wasted. She knew that his ambition needed a substantial prop. Never, of his own accord, would he commence to save by littles. He did not estimate money in that way. Had some kind fairy dropped into his hand a five-twenty bond for five hundred dollars, he would have put it away gladly; and with such a nest egg in the start, he might have sought to add to the store. But he could see no hope in a dollar bill, and much less could he discover the nucleus of a grand saving in a fifty-cent scrip.

With Alice it was different. From her meager earnings as school teacher she had in less than five years, saved up three hundred dollars; and the first saving she had put by was a silver dime. She knew what little by little could do, and she was determined to show it to her husband. She must be patient and persevering, and these qualities she possessed in an eminent degree. It was to be the grand undertaking of the first years of her married life, and to do it she would bend every available energy. She planned that if possible she would get hold of that fifty cents every day; or, if she could not do that, she would do the best she could.

Generous, frank, loyal, and loving, Albert was an easy prey to the wiles of a wife loyal and loving as himself. He gave her money when she asked for it; and she asked for it when she thought he had any to give.

And here let me say that Alice knew her husband would not run in debt. That was an evil they both arrayed themselves against in the outset. When Albert’s purse was empty he bought nothing; but when it was full he was apt to buy more than he needed. Alice knew all this and governed herself accordingly.

“I think,” said Alice, one evening, “that I must fix over my old brown cashmere for winter, I should like a new one but I don’t suppose you can afford it.”

Albert looked grieved. The idea that he could not afford his wife a new dress!

But for such a one as she wanted it would cost twenty-five or thirty dollars.

“If you want it, get it,” said Albert emphatically. “I will let you have twenty dollars from this month’s pay, and the balance you shall have next month.”

Alice got the thirty dollars, but she did not get the new dress. By the outlay of five dollars for new trimmings she contrived to fix over the brown cashmere so that it looked every bit as good as new.

And so Alice worked. Sometimes she asked her husband for ten cents, sometimes for fifty cents, sometimes for a dollar, and sometimes for more, and at the end of a year, upon careful reckoning up, she found that she had managed to get hold of rather more than fifty cents a day; but she had done it by denying herself of many things, some of which seemed really needful.

The result of the first year’s effort inspired Alice with new life and vigor. She had saved up one hundred and fifty dollars, and had invested it in government funds. Through the influence of a dear friend who was in a banking establishment, and to whom she had confided her secret, she was enabled to get the bonds at their face value.

It was only a little at a time—sometimes a very little—but even a penny dropped into the strong box was so much gained. Only a little—but those littles multiplied by other littles, grew amazingly. The husbandman who would sit himself down by a hill of corn, and wait to see the tender blades put forth, would be disheartened; but he knows if he plants the tiny seed, and cultivates it as he ought, that the harvest of golden grain will come at length.

Albert and Alice were married in the spring of 1865. It was on an evening of August, 1870, that Albert came home. He had been notified that he must leave the cottage. They must give up the pleasant home, and lose the little garden they had cultivated with so much fondness and care.

“The owner wishes to sell,” he exclaimed; “and he has an offer. He asks two thousand dollars, and must have five hundred down.”

Alice’s eyes gleamed with radiant delight. She had been thinking for some time that she must let her husband into her secret. It had begun to wear upon her. And now the time had come as though by providential interposition.

She got up and went away to her cabinet, and when she came back she brought a little book in her hand.

“Albert!” said she, “let’s you and I buy the cottage.”

Albert looked at her in amazement; and directly it flashed upon him that there was too much solemnity in her look and tone for badinage. Something that he had noticed during the past months came back to him, and he trembled with the weight of suspense that fell upon him.

Alice then showed her book—that she had more than eight hundred dollars in the bank. The ice was broken—she told her story in glowing words. She told how she had saved up little by little, and how she had at length found herself able to purchase a fifty dollar bond. And then she told how her uncle in the banking house had taken charge of her investment; and how, under his management, the interest had accrued in amazing volume.

But the grand result was not the chief thing. The chief thing was the beginning—was the very little which had been religiously saved until the second little could be added to it.

And now, as a result of his wife’s careful and tireless working, Albert, found something upon which his ambition could take a fair start. He never could himself, from so small a commencement, have reared the pile; but with the structure started, and its proportions all blocked out, he could help on the work. He could see how it was done— and not only that, but the demonstration was before him that the thing could be done.

One year has elapsed since Albert Moore received the lesson from his wife, and joining hands with her, and bending his energies in the same direction, he has accomplished during the twelve months what would have seemed to him a marvel in the earlier time.

He has laid by more than fifty cents a day; and the cigars, and the beer, and the other condiments of life which he has surrendered to the work, are not missed—rather, he holds they are so many enemies conquered. And Albert can improve his home with cheerful heart, and he can set out new trees and vines in his garden with bright promises, because he sees, day by day, the pretty cottage growing more and more his own. The end approaches a little at a time—little by little it approaches, but surely, nevertheless; and there is a great and satisfying joy even in the labor and in the anticipation.—Household.