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ONE WAY TO LOOK AT IT

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International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 7, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 26.

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ONE WAY TO LOOK AT IT.

By Sidney Dayre

MRS. BARNES, with her friend Mrs. Preston, stood before a counter doing some morning shopping.
“I have a consignment of muslin underwear that I would like to show you,” said the proprietor. “They are much finer and cheaper than anything I have had heretofore.”
The ladies exclaimed as box after box was opened before them.
“How pretty, and how well made!” said Mrs. Barnes.
“Good work and good material,” said Mrs. Preston, examining with critical eyes.
“And the embroidery is so fine and put on so tastefully,” said her friend.
“They are much cheaper than you could get them by buying the material and having them made,” said the proprietor, and his customers fully agreed with him.
“How is it possible to sell them so cheap, and make any profit?” asked Mrs. Barnes.
“Well, you see,” said the gentleman, “the muslin is bought from the mills and the embroidery from the factories, by the million yards. The cutting is done by machines which cut thousands at one movement. And the sewing machines which make up the garments are run by water or steam power.”
“Still,” said Mrs. Preston, “there must be a good deal of human power expended on the putting together, the guiding of these dainty tucks and ruffles. I wonder,” looking thoughtfully at one of the pretty garments, “how many backs and eyes have ached over these.”
“I suppose that’s a consideration which has to enter in,” said the proprietor. “It is very likely that those who have the most work in these things have the least profit.”
“You needn’t, however, try to make me feel solemn over them,” said Mrs. Barnes, laughing. “I’m going to buy them, and take all the comfort I can out of their goodness and cheapness, without having it spoiled by your dismal reflections.”
“It is very likely I shall buy, too,” said Mrs. Preston, with a smile, “as I do not see my way to the correcting of whatever abuse may lie in the matter.”
Mrs. Barnes bought largely; Mrs. Preston took a few articles, remarking, “I must take measurements of my growing girls before I get any more.”
The ladies separated as they left the store, Mrs. Preston taking the street-cars which led into the neighborhood of the house of her washwoman.
She found Mrs. McFinn in the full tide of wringing, boiling, rinsing, and starching, but not too busy to sit down for a short time to enjoy the visit, made half for business, but half, she well knew, for friendliness.
A girl with a slender form, and a face whose paleness and expression of wistful depression appealed strongly to Mrs. Preston’s sympathies, was cowering over the stove as she came in, but soon after left the room.
“Who is she?” asked Mrs. Preston.
“O, it’s a slip av a gurrel that’s got niver the bit av a father or mother, God help the crathur! She come up from the country lasht fall, to take a place in wan o’ thim big shtores. An’ they worked her very hard—she shtandin’ on the two feet of her sometimes till livin’ o’clock o’ nights whin the Christmas thrade was doin’. An’ whin that was over, they give her short notice to quit; an’ she’s been thryin’ to sew since thin. But it’s the shtarvin’ prices they pays for shop work. An’ the poor bit av a thing comes in here to get herself warm, for it’s no fire she has in her own room.”
The steamy air of the room, heavy with the vile odors of soiled linen, together with other odors which belong to crowded living and lack of ventilation, were already making Mrs. Preston long for a breath of the outside air. Mrs. McFinn’s buxom figure seemed to thrive on the familiar atmosphere, but her visitor’s heart ached with the thought of the pale girl, and her mind wandered to her own blooming daughters. How could she bear to have them breathe such air for a moment? Had the mother of this girl, in dying, looked forward with sad foreboding to the possibilities which might await her child?
“Couldn’t she take a place at housework?” she asked—she had small sympathy for the sentiment, whatever it might be, which would keep a person from seeking the comforts of such a situation.
“Well, ma’am, it’s a wake back she’s got, an’ it’s no heavy work she could be doin’.”
Mrs. Preston considered for a moment.
“Tell her to come around to see me,” she said, “and I will give her some sewing.”
“Indeed, ma’am, it’ll be the blessed thing for her. She’s thryin’ with all her might to help somebody belonging to her, an’ it’s my belafe she don’t get a decent bit to ate from wan month’s end to another.”
Mrs. Preston considered again, then asked to see the girl, and engaged her to come to her house and do sewing by the day.
“Have you bought your underwear?” asked Mrs. Barnes of her friend as she stepped in for a morning chat two or three weeks later.
“No, I am hiring it made.”
Mrs. Barnes held up her hands in astonishment.
“Why, Margaret, don’t you know it’s the most extravagant and thriftless thing in the world to hire such work done?”
“Oh, I think not,” said Mrs. Preston, smiling at her friend’s vigorous way of expressing herself. “I am inclined to believe it about the most economical arrangement I have ever made.”
“Then you must be getting it done cheaply, wonderfully so. Now, begging your pardon, Margaret, I have my doubts about its being right to pay these very low prices. Doesn’t it seem a little like grinding the faces of the poor?”
“I hope I shall not do that,” said Mrs. Preston, smiling now at Mrs. Barnes’s virtuous air and words. “I am not putting the work out, but having it done in the house.”
“Margaret! It will cost you a small fortune! It’s bad enough by the piece, but the idea of having plain sewing done by the day! Why, I thought you had very sensible ideas on the subject of economy!”
“Did you?” said Mrs. Preston, a sober look taking the place of the smile. “I chanced to meet with a young girl who stood sorely in need of the comforts of a home, a warm room to work in, and plenty of good, nourishing food, and I have taken so much pleasure in seeing the color and the roundness coming into her cheeks, and the forlorn, discouraged look going out of her eyes, that I feel as though I had made a very good bargain.”
“But it will take her weeks, or months, to do your plain sewing.”
“Probably. And she is nice and quick in her ways about other things; so, if nothing better offers for her, I may decide to keep her all the time.”
“Very nice for people that can afford it,” said Mrs. Barnes. “You see, it is simply adding one more to your family. You are at the expense of her entire support.”
“Yes, and in view of the fact that I do not really need, all the time, exactly such help as she can give, it may look like an extravagance. But I have been thinking more about such things lately, Ruth, and I am not sure that our best economies are those in which we save the most money. To get right at the root of my idea—if I don’t bore you?”
“No; go on. I like to hear you talk.”
“Well, when a man is able to marry and support a family—a decent Christian family, I mean—he is doing a great deal more good in the world than if he lived only to himself, isn’t he?”
“Of course.”
“And if they keep one or more servants who become partakers of the comforts and good influences of the home, it is doing just so much more, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, now, it has become impressed upon me that when such a family is blessed with a fair share of prosperity, the best use they can make of it is to extend these benefits a little farther. Suppose, for instance, a friendless girl has a share of the comforts under their roof, doing what lies in her power to earn them? Now, if in giving her the chance of doing so, my sewing costs me a little more than it otherwise might, I am quite willing to let the balance go over to my gifts, feeling sure that the Lord will see that it is counted up fairly.”
“You are right,” said Mrs. Barnes as she took her leave.
She walked home, musing on her friend and her friend’s words and ways: “I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in.’ Yes, yes; she is doing it in the very letter and the spirit.”—Sidney Dayre, in Congregationalist.