Selfish John Clark

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Oct 18, 1883

Selfish John Clark.

The meeting was a good one in spite of the intense heat, and there was more singing done by mosquitoes than by the human species.

John Clark sat by an open window, where what breeze there was came in and kept him comparatively comfortable, and then he had on a clean linen suit which his wife had washed and ironed that day, notwithstanding the mercury mounted high in the nineties, and its freshness was an additional comfort.

His first crop of hay, much larger than usual, had that day been put in his spacious barns, without damage by so much as a drop of rain. He was well, strong, prosperous, therefore happy.

The ride home was charming, and as the new horse took them through Cairnley woods with sure, fleet feet, he felt that life was very bright; and, as he thought of Brother White’s remarks about “weary burdens,” “feet tired with the march of life,” he concluded that the aforesaid brother was not in the enjoyment of religion.

John’s wife sat back in the carriage resting her tired body and turning over in her mind the remarks her John had made at the meeting. “Bear ye one another’s burdens,” had been the subject of the evening’s talk, and John’s speech had been listened-to with evident relish.

“Your husband has the root of the matter in him,” said the pastor. “I hope we shall all take heed to his well-timed words.”

“I think of hiring Tom Birch as a sort of spare hand and call-boy generally. I find this hot weather takes the starch out of me,” John said, as the horse trotted through the cool pine grove and flickers of moonlight.

“Will you board him?” asked Mary Clark, in a constrained voice, with the memory of her husband’s exhortations still in mind.

“Of course. I want him evenings to take the horse when we come home from meetings, or if I have taken a friend out. It is rather hard to have to go to work directly after one gets home.”

“You are to hire him to bear some of your burdens,” said Mary, in the same hard voice.

“Just so, wife. It stands me in hand to practice, if I preach; don’t you say so?”

“I do. I am glad you are to have help; as you say, it is hard to go to work the minute you get home. I have been foolish enough to have this ride spoiled by thinking of bread to mix, two baskets of clothes to fold before I sleep, for the ironing to-morrow, and dinner to get for four hungry men, and baby to care for.”

“Don’t crowd to-morrow’s burdens into this pleasant ride. And it seems to me that it would be better to get all your housework done before meeting-time.”

“If I could, but that is impossible; milk to strain, dishes to wash, Benny and baby to put to bed—all these duties come together, and then I am tired enough to go to bed myself.”

“Take it easy, Mary; keep cool, and avoid all the hot work you can.”

“I wish I could have a girl, John!”

“Mother used to say that girls were more hindrance than help; I guess you would find them so, and then they waste and break more than their wages. I don’t see how I can afford a girl. Do what you can, and leave some things undone; that’s the way to work it,” and John sat back with a satisfied air, and Mary thought of her husband’s glowing words in the prayer-meeting.

“I will do all I can,” said Mary, in a weary voice. “What I am obliged to do is much beyond my strength. The three meals come near together, washing and ironing must be done, baby shall not be neglected, and, of course, I must keep the clothes well mended.”

“One thing at a time is the way to think of your duties. Pick up all the comfort you can as you go along. I have made up my mind to do so in the future.”

“So I see by your thinking of having an extra hand.”

“Yes. I feel that I must take care of my health for your sake and the children’s.”

“Certainly,” Mary answered in a sarcastic tone; “how thoughtful you are for us!”

John made no further comment, but inwardly wished that prayer-meetings did Mary the good they had done once, and wondered why his wife had so changed.

“I am going with Squire Towne to see a new reaper; he says he hardly wants to buy without my opinion.” This was next day.

John left his wife ironing, with the half-sick baby sitting by the table in the company of an army of flies, and, in spite of the home scene, enjoyed his ride along the pleasant, shaded road, well pleased to be seen so much with the great man of the town. At supper time he came home with a new reaper behind the wagon.

“By taking two we made a handsome saving; and, as I intended to buy one, I thought I might as well take it now,” he remarked, by way of explanation. “It will save time and strength, and will pay for itself in a year.”

Mary made no comment, but set her teeth tighter together when she remembered that she had asked in vain for something to make her work easier. A sewing-machine had been pronounced “hurtful;” “better have fewer changes of clothing than run a machine,” John had decided when the subject was discussed; a “clothes-wringer would be constantly out of order.” “To bring the water into the house would be just to spoil the water. Nothing, after all, like the good old bucket. Mother would never have a pump in her day!”

“My mother used to say all men are selfish, and I begin to think she was right,” Mary muttered, as she went to the kitchen for the plate of hot biscuit John was so fond of for his tea.

Her husband’s appetite was good, but from fatigue and overheating herself, Mary could not eat. His ride and the society of the genial Squire had acted like a tonic, but there is no tonic in the air of a hot kitchen.

“A commonplace life,” she said, and she cleared away the tea-dishes, while John tilted back in his arm-chair on the cool, draughty porch and talked over things with neighbor Jones.

“Why don’t you buy widow Patch’s cranberry medder?” asked Mr. Jones; “it’s going dirt cheap, and you can afford it.” The sum was named, figures that astonished Mary, and she was more surprised when she heard her husband say:—

“I’ve half a mind to do it. I’ve just had an old debt paid in, and, to tell the truth, affairs in the money market are so equal, I don’t know just where to salt it down.”

No tears came to Mary’s tired eyes, but her heart went out in one mighty sob as she stood dish-pan in hand, before the disordered table, and thought how cheaply she had sold herself, really for two dollars a week and her board, to the man who had promised to love and cherish her until death. The beautiful piano she had brought to the farm was never opened, but looked like a gloomy casket, wherein was buried all the poetry of her life. The closed “best parlor” had long since assumed the grimness and mustiness of country best parlors, of which in her girlhood she had made such fun. John was a rich man, and, in spite of his marriage vows and his prayer-meeting talk, was allowing burdens grievous to be borne to press on her slender shoulders, in order to “salt down” his dollars.

Had she not a duty to perform? Ought she allow him to preach and never to practice? Had she not rights to be respected, which were not by her husband? for she reasoned, if he allowed her to do what could be done by any ignorant woman for two dollars a week, then he rated her at that price.

“Widder Patch has had a rough time on’t,” said neighbor Jones; “she is going to the west-w’rd to Tom, if she sells the medder, and Jane is going out to work. She’s tried sewing, but it don’t agree with her, and Dr. Snow recommends housework as healthy business.”

“’Tis healthy business!” chimed in John. “Now, my wife is a good deal better than when I married her. Why, she never did a washing in her life until she came to the farm. I think washing and general housework is much better than piano-playing and reading.”

“So I say to the girls, who pester me to buy an organ. Better play on the wash-board enough sight,” was the elegant response.

“Are you going to buy the cranberry meadow, John?” Mary asked, as she saw her husband making preparations to go from home.

“Yes—why?”

“Can you afford it?”

“We shall have to figure a little closer in order to do it, but it is going cheap.”

“You will have to give up Tom Birch, won’t you, and do the chores yourself?”

“I have thought of it, but Tom is poor, and to give him a good home is a deed of charity. No, we will save some other way.”

“How much do you pay Tom?”

“Three dollars and his board. And, by the way, he says you didn’t wash his clothes. Washing and mending was in the bargain.”

“I think Tom will have to go, for I have hired Jane Patch. She will be here to-night. Two dollars a week I am to give her. You want to practice ‘Bear ye another’s burdens’ as well as preach from the text, so I will give you a chance. I will take my turn at sitting on the cool piazza after tea with a neighbor, while you do the chores. I think the time has come for some of my burdens to be lifted. By exchanging Tom for Jane you will have one dollar a week for the cranberry meadow. You say strong, active Tom is in need of a home; he can make one for himself anywhere. It is a deed of charity to give Jane a home, and an act of mercy to give your wife a little rest.”

Before John could recover from his astonishment, Mary walked out of his sight, and, taking the children, went to the shut-up parlor. Throwing open the windows to let in the soft summer air, with baby in her lap, she sat down at her piano, and began to play a “song without words,” a piece John had loved to hear when he used to visit her in her home, where she was a petted girl. The song crept out through the open window, and around to John, as he sat on the porch, and memory compelled him to give the song words. Not musical poetry, but rather somber prose, wherein washing, ironing, hard days at the churn, hours of cooking for hungry men, stood out before his mind’s eye in contrast to the fair promises he had made the pretty girl he had won for his bride.

Jane Patch came that evening, and at once took upon herself many of Mrs. Clark’s cares, and no one greeted her more cordially than the master of the house. Nothing was ever said about her coming, and Tom Birch did not go away; so Mary knew the husband could well afford the expense.

She told me how she hoped to make one man thoughtful and unselfish, as we sat on her cool piazza, one hot August night; and I was glad that one woman had grit enough to demand her rights. If John Clark had been poor, his wife would have borne her burdens in patience, but she had no right to help make him selfish and indifferent as to her health and comfort.—Boston Watchman.