p. 604 | Give Them a Chance by The Christian Union

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 9, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 38.

Give Them a Chance.

By The Christian Union

BEFORE the orchards are stripped of their fruits, set apart a certain portion for the poor. Remember to stop, on your way to the sloop, at the poor-farm and leave a barrel of apples; and remind the folks at home that you have room for a basket of grapes under the seat, and will be glad to leave them at the same time for Granny Dickson. Perhaps you do not pass the poor-farm; it is out of your way; well, you pass the cottage down in the hollow, and the apples will be very acceptable to the little woman there who is struggling to keep the body and soul together. How many times have you noticed, as you passed, that she was growing thinner, and that she was not nearly so straight as she was when John brought her to the cottage five years ago! Now you've thought of it, you'll add a barrel of potatoes. How that little woman worked to plant that patch in the spring! but, for reasons you understand and she does not, the crop is very, very poor. It's all well enough to talk about women being just as good farmers as men, but the knowledge necessary to make a good farmer does not come by inspiration. You can remember crops that failed before you had learned to take advantage of the best conditions in nature. Give her some hints, and she will profit by them.

Now, those Smiths. If there is one annoyance in your life to which you cannot become reconciled, it is that family. They're a nuisance to the whole town. There is not an orchard, a wood-pile, chicken-house, or cow that has not paid toll for the support of that family. Besides being taxed for their support, they are always being "helped by the town." Well, have you ever tried to make them any better? Did you not whistle for the dog last week when you saw Ned Smith coming up the road? You thought he was going to wait round till you were out of sight and go into the orchard. He did not think of it. He was going up in the stone lot after "coons." You would have made a friend of him for life if you had waited by the gate and told him to come up to-morrow morning and get a basket of apples for his mother. You remember the moon was very bright that night, and about ten o'clock Ned, Jim, and a big bag were down in the orchard. When they went away the bag was not empty, and Ned said "he guessed he'd got square with you for calling the dog when he wa'n't doing nothing." Would it not be well to try Ned this year, and tell him he can have a basket of apples if he'll pick them up? It makes him feel ugly to pass and see your pigs eating up the apples that he wants so much. Besides, baked apples add to the taste of the bread; they help to get it down when there is no butter.

There is always a whining baby at the Smiths. You hear it always when you pass; Sunday mornings it cries louder than ever. Why, last Sunday morning you were just thinking of what a beautiful sermon that home missionary preached from the text, "Whatsoever ye do unto the least of these," when that baby actually made the horse start, it gave such a cry. How the thought of the wickedness of that family prevented you thinking of the sermon, or the text, the rest of the way!

Of course they are a nuisance; but have you ever tried to make them anything else? Why do you not try to hire Ned and Jim to help you through the busy season? They will not do as much work in a day as a trained hand, but you will have given them a chance to earn a pair of trousers instead of stealing up to your back door in a shamed-faced way to beg a pair next winter. Hire them for a month, and give them three good meals a day, and in one month you will be able to trust them alone in the orchard. You see, they will not be so hungry.

There is that Miranda Smith. If ever there was a ragged, shiftless girl, she is one. Yes, of course; so would your daughter be if her mother was as poor and ignorant as Miranda's. Has your wife ever attempted to make Miranda, or her mother, any better? Did she ever go down there and talk in a friendly way with Mrs. Smith about the difficulty of caring for children, as mothers should talk to mothers, dropping little hints that would not be lost? When Mrs. Smith was Eliza Jones, you thought her a likely girl; you remember she lived for a time over the hill, and you often saw her when you drove over to see your wife—only she was not your wife then. Yes, there has been a great change in her since then. John Smith was not forehanded, you say. Yes, that was it; he was lazy, and Eliza really could not keep up his end and her own. Now, if you would hint to your wife that it would be a good idea to take Miranda into the kitchen and give her a chance to learn how to do housework, so that she could earn wages, there would be one less to feed at the miserable home, one less to bear the cursings of the drunken father, one less to bear the slaps and scoldings of a discouraged mother, one ignorant child started on the right road. It's in the blood. Yes, but it can be worked out; else what did Christ mean, "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." Was he lifted up in vain? Will you not help, so far as is in your power, to lift men unto him? Try to do a little home missionary work yourself, by giving practical help with your prayers.

It will not do to confine your efforts to Thanksgiving and Christmas. You cannot fill their souls with eternal thanksgiving, and gratitude enough to make them let your property alone, by allowing them to almost starve before your eyes all the rest of the year. It will add to your enjoyment of the Sunday morning sermon if you take, under the front seat of the carriage, two baskets filled with potatoes, and a roll of butter in each, and leave one at the little widow's and the other at the Smiths, on your way to church. Baked potatoes and butter are a treat, and the Smiths have been saved from temptation. They were puzzled where that dinner was to come from.

By getting your wife to go there and find out the real condition of things, you might get the neighbors interested; you might get work for all the boys big enough to work; and in the course of five years the Smiths would have a chance to see one "Report of the Town" issued without their name in the list of the "town poor," and there would be that much of a surplus to be voted for the schools.