A WAYSIDE INCIDENT by Young Reader

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 1, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 13.

A WAYSIDE INCIDENT.

By Young Reader

A very helpful book might be made up of the little happenings, the little deeds of kindness, the little exhibitions of unselfishness and brotherly love seen and heard on the streets by those who are on the lookout for the better and brighter things of life. It was the unselfishness of a little child that made up the wayside incident of which I write.

She was a child of the slums, a ragged, unkempt, forlorn little girl of about ten years of age. Some one had given her a penny, and she had hurried away to the penny store, and there purchased a long stick of striped red-and-white candy. She was running along the street, proud and happy in her new and rare possession, when I saw her. Suddenly another little girl, equally ragged and forlorn looking, came limping out of the dark hallway of a dilapidated old rookery of a tenement house. She was very lame, and had evidently suffered much in her short life. Her face had a drawn and prematurely old look, such as one is always sorry to see in the faces of children.

The two little girls met, and the one with the candy held it aloft, exclaiming: “See what I’ve got! Just see what I’ve got!”

“Where’d you git it, Janie?”

“Bought it.”

“Where’d you git the money?”

“A man give it to me for scooting after his hat when the wind blowed it off.”

“Gimme some of it, won’t you, Janie? Please do.”

There was a wistful, eager, hungry look in the drawn little face.

Janie hesitated. Evidently sticks of candy came rarely to her. She looked longingly at the candy and then at the little girl. Suddenly she rushed forward, saying, eagerly, joyously: “You take it all, Maggie; you take it all. You can’t scoot after gentlemen’s hats and earn pennies, and I can. So you take it all; and if I git a chance to earn another penny, I’ll give it to you to buy anything you want to with it.”

Generous little heart, in which love of self had not yet found an abiding place! What a lesson it taught to the grasping and the self-centered, who care not for the wants, the weakness, or the woes of others! —Young Reader.