GOLDEN-HAIR by Miss Backup

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 9, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 47.

GOLDEN-HAIR.

By Miss Backup

A plain, freckled-faced child with red hair—this was what strangers saw; but in her own home Edith Grant was the beloved Golden-Hair of the household. When a toddling child her father had given her the name, in deference to the warm tint in her hair, and now that the tint had deepened until it was no longer golden, the sweet name still clung to her. It was at school that Edith first had the words "red hair" hurled at her in taunting reproach.

"I'm glad I haven't red hair," said ungenerous Lucy Jones one day; "if anything's horrid I think it's red hair!"

"Why, my hair isn't red," said Edith, in open-eyed wonder; "papa calls me Golden-Hair!"

"Ha! ha! ha! that's a good joke," laughed Lucy, rudely; "just look at your hair and see if it looks anything like gold; it looks about as much like gold as those red bricks yonder!"

It was a rude awakening. It was in vain that Edith's father assured her that her hair was the color that artists admired, that the great Titian loved to paint; the words "red hair" seemed to her sensitive fancy to carry with them a measure of disgrace. Many things served to strengthen this morbid feeling. One day a rude boy at school pretended to warm his hands by holding them near her hair. Children are often thoughtlessly cruel in their treatment of one who is supposed to possess some personal defect.

"My dear," said her mother, "you can't change the color of your hair, unless indeed it should grow darker as you grow older!"

"Oh, how I wish it would!" sighed Edith. "But you may be beautiful," continued her mother, "and yet have red hair."

"O mamma, a beauty with red hair and a freckled face!" cried Edith with a grimace.

"I am thinking," said Mrs. Grant, "of the truest and highest beauty,—beauty of character, the beauty which is built up by kind acts and sweet, unselfish thoughts,—a beauty befitting a real little Golden-Hair who loves a Golden Rule."

Edith thoughtfully pondered the subject. A beauty which consisted in treating others in a beautiful way—this was what her mother meant. "Wouldn't it be better to do golden deeds than to have golden hair?" her mother had asked, and Edith's heart had been swift to answer, "Yes!"

"What a great, gaunt, untidy creature May Gage is," said Lucy Jones one day; "and so stupid, dear me! it's a wonder Miss Carruth has any patience left!"

"Poor May!" said Edith, pityingly; "you know she's sick a great deal, and her grandma's old, and there's no one to take nice care of May."

"Nonsense!" said Lucy; "she might be neat anyway; they are just a slack, shiftless set!"

A golden thought popped into Edith's head: "I'll help May make up her lessons, and perhaps then I shall be able to give her a bit of a hint about washing her hands and brushing her clothes."

Poor, discouraged May Gage took heart again, and golden results followed Edith's simple, friendly offices.

"They say the Manns are dreadful poor," said Lucy, "and Joe gets drunk; I should think Susie would be ashamed to come to school."

"It isn't Susie's fault," cried Edith stoutly, and the kind little heart went to planning how she might brighten Susie's lot, and with her mother's help the plan was to some purpose too.

With the passing months there was a change in Edith. She ceased to wince if people spoke of red hair and freckles as if a personal affront was intended. She was so busy scattering golden beams that she had no time for morbid sensitiveness, and people fell in love with her in spite of her real or fancied defects.

"You needn't say another word about red hair and freckles," exclaimed Tom Jones, one day; "Edith Grant has the sweetest face of any girl I know. There's such a sunshiny bright look in her eyes, it does one good to meet her. I wish she was my sister!"

"You absurd boy!" said his sister Mary. "Edith can't hold a candle to Lucy. Lucy has a lovely complexion and such beautiful hair."

"People don't like her," blurted Tom, "any better than they like you; both of you are everlastingly picking flaws in people."

"You are a great, awkward, ill-natured boy," said Mary angrily; "I should think you might have the grace to appreciate your own sisters."

"I do, thank you," said Tom; "you are both pretty, but you look cross and discontented two-thirds of the time, and the air's full of spiteful complaints whenever you are around. I'd be glad to swap either one of you for Edith any hour of the day."

"Don't quarrel, children," said Mrs. Jones in a worried tone. "I'm afraid there's some truth, Mary, in what Tom says. You've got into a dreadful way of criticising people, and you have too high a regard for mere good looks, and not enough for real sweetness and goodness of character."

"We learn quotations every Friday," said Tom, "and these are what I have learned for to-day: 'Wearing the white flower of a blameless life,' and, 'Every right action and true thought sets the seal of its beauty on person and face.' Aunt Kate picked them out for me, and I told her they just suited Edith."

"And what did Aunt Kate say?" asked Mary, wisely ignoring the recent slight unpleasantness.

"She said she was glad that I so fully grasped the sentiment of the quotations, for Edith possessed the truest and rarest beauty—the beauty of a sweet and loving spirit—and that was the reason she had such hosts of friends."—Miss Backup, in Zion's Herald.