A MISSIONARY PEAR

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 25, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 33.

A MISSIONARY PEAR.

It was a Bartlett, color light yellow, slightly tinged with red, large size, weighing nearly eight ounces, smooth as a baby's cheek, and tapering gracefully at the top into a stout stem of twice the usual thickness. It was exhibited at the agricultural fair, standing alone upon a plate, the perfection of its kind.

'I am going to send this pear to your wife, Colonel,' said the owner, on the morning of the second day of the exhibition. 'Tell her it has taken the premium, and is the finest specimen that I ever had the pleasure of raising.'

'Or seeing, either,' replied the Colonel. 'My wife will appreciate the honor, I assure you.'

So home it went with him to dinner; and Mrs. Colonel thought she could not admire it enough, and, instead of giving it a place with the other fruit, brought out a china dish and embroidered doily for its reception.

'But we must never eat it ourselves,' she said. 'Such a pear as this ought to have a mission. What do you say to my sending it to old Mr. Swallow?'

Of course the Colonel assented.

A few streets farther on Mr. Swallow was found, sitting by the window of his farmhouse. On one side was the sunny orchard; on the other the barn that the old gentleman, now a cripple, liked to keep in view. The Colonel's little daughter brought in the pear.

'Your mother was very kind to send me such a present,' he said, putting it down on the window-sill before him. 'It beats any that I ever saw raised.'

'But I won't eat it,' he added to himself, after the child had left. 'It was a mighty kind thing to spare one so nice, and I'll do the same by somebody else. There's Jimmy's school-teacher. She's another kind one, and she shall have it.'

When Jimmy ran home at recess, he was greatly delighted by his grandfather's commission to take the pear carefully in a box to Miss Brown.

Miss Brown placed it upon her table, and allowed the whole school to look at and admire without handling. Into the exercises of the afternoon she introduced an object-lesson upon fruit, and, after school was dismissed, she sat down to decide upon what should be done with her gift.

'I couldn't have the heart to cut such a wonderful pear. How kind in Mr. Swallow to send it to me! There's Mary Burch just getting over a fever. How pleased she'd be to have it!' And so again the pear found another resting-place.

'I won't ask to eat it, mother, if you'll just let me hold it and smell it. Oh, what a beauty!'

Mary's eyes sparkled; and she took, figuratively speaking, a long stride toward health from the vision of green fields and shady roadside brought to her by its mellow fragrance.

'Now, mother, who shall have it? for I wouldn't eat such a beauty, if I could. Perhaps Mr. Jules will paint it. Let me send it to him.'

Mr. Jules's studio was a pleasant place; but its owner was a little too fond of being engrossed by that fascinating easel, and a little too forgetful of other people's comfort. An invisible influence from the pear before him, began to make helpful suggestions.

'Very kind of that young lady. I'll sketch and paint it for her. I'll do it at once, before it grows dark; and I'll not eat such a present either.'

About eight o'clock that evening the minister, who had entered into an argument with the artist the day before, and had left a little wounded and sore in feeling, was surprised and pleased by the present of an uncommonly fine pear.

'So kind in Brother Jules to take such a pleasant way of assuring me that he wasn't offended, and such a magnificent specimen! If Catherine agrees, we'll pass it along to-morrow for somebody else to enjoy. How much comfort there is in kindness!'

One might begin to wonder by this time, how the pear escaped bruises; but each owner had held it so carefully and admiringly, that not a pressure was to be seen upon its surface.

In a doctor's office, the next morning, a young man sat reading, when a tap came at the door and the minister entered.

'I was just going by, and thought I'd step in a minute, and show you what New England could do in the way of raising pears.'

Half an hour later, and the young doctor stood alone with the fruit in his hand.

'Well, I'll hire a seat in his church before next Sabbath,'—see if I don't. I won't neglect it any longer. I didn't know before that ministers could be so friendly. Now what shall I do with this beauty? It has helped me enough already. Somebody else must have it, to be sure.'

Now, Mrs. Colonel B., its first owner, was blessed with excellent health. To use her own words she was 'never sick.' But this particular morning she awoke with a headache. The pain became so intense that she sought a lounge and a darkened room, and the Colonel went down town with an anxious face. Meeting the doctor's clerk and knowing him well, he mentioned the fact of this unusual illness.

'Just the time,' said the young man to himself, as he hurried home, 'for a chance to send her my splendid pear. She has been so kind to me, I wonder I never thought of such a thing before.'

Biddy, the maid at the Colonel's, answered the bell, and took the message and plate to her mistress's room.

'The gentleman has called, mum, to say he's sorry you're sick; and he's lift the finest pear that was ever seen.'

'A pear! Roll up the curtain, Biddy, and let me see it.'

Then, greatly to Biddy's surprise and even terror, as she turned to leave the room, Mrs. Colonel began to laugh.

'Sure, I believe she's losin' her sinuses. I wish the Colonel would come;' and when he arrived an hour later, she sent him hastily up to the room.

Mrs. Colonel was sitting up in her rocking-chair as bright as if a headache had never troubled her.

'Look here, Ben. See my present.'

'Why, it's our very pear again! Where did you get it, wife?'

'Charley Hadley brought it, and there's no guessing where it may have traveled. It's so funny to have it come back to me; and I've enjoyed thinking about it so much that my headache has all gone, and I'm going down to dinner.'

Mrs. Colonel decided to take a walk that afternoon and trace the pear's wanderings. Being of a cheerful turn herself, she brought a gleam of sunshine into every call. Old Mr. Swallow told his part, and he hadn't felt so merry or laughed so much for a long time. The teacher, Miss Brown, wished she could put it into a story. Mary, the sick girl, was sure she could go down-stairs the next day, the pear had been such a strengthener; and 'Just look,' she said, 'at my present,' and there it was in a lovely painting. Mr. Jules put on his hat to walk over to the minister's with her. At the parsonage, they only wished the pear could have gone all through the town; and the young man who gave it away at the last decided that his move was the best of all.

The pear was finally cut into seven pieces, one for each stopping-place, and, of course, was delicious. The decision was made that its history should be written out for a suggestion to all holders of fruit in the season of abundant harvest.—Christian Register.