THE OTHER SIDE OF THINGS.
By Sydney Dayre
"WELL, Herbert, I've got everything fixed exactly to suit me through the summer." "Have you, dear?" Ethel's brother spoke with his usual tone of kindly indulgence, but with a manner which showed that his thoughts were far away. "Yes," she went on, "it just lets me out having Aunt Anna take a fancy to spend the summer among some of her own friends. If she had remained with us, I should, of course, have felt it my duty to go out to the farm—nice and wholesome and all that, but poky. The next thing which offered to me was cousin Helen's invitation to go there—far better, pleasant place, boating, and some good, staid, proper, old-family country society. But now this invitation from Alice Phillips meets my need in every way. Don't you think so, Herbert?" "Certainly, dear," with an evident effort at recalling what his sister had been saying. "A delightful round—up the St. Lawrence, with a stay at the Thousand Islands and somewhere up the Saguenay, into the Adirondacks, camping, and wind up with the White Mountains as long as we please; you, as you say you can't be gone very long, to join us at the Adirondacks." "Oh, I certainly didn't agree to that, Ethel!" "No, you didn't. But I agreed for you, and that means just the same, you know—doesn't it? You have been looking so doleful lately, and that would put some spirit into you." He smiled at her coaxing tone. "No doubt of that. But there won't be much summering for me." "Difficulties and complications in business which you could not understand, employees clamoring for higher wages, while prices are going down and profits shrinking. No, dear, I must try to keep down expenses instead of incurring new ones." He left the table before Ethel had time to offer her protest. "It is too bad," said the young lady to herself impatiently the next morning on finding that her brother had taken an early breakfast and gone down to the factory. "Here's a letter from Alice, and she wants an immediate answer to it. I'm sure that Herbert, when he sees how she depends on just the number to make up the party, will consent to shake off business onto his partner for a while. I do believe I'll go down to the factory and have a talk with him." Accustomed, since the death of her parents years before had left her to the indulgent care of her older brother, to act on her impulses, Ethel took her way, for the first time in her life, to the factory, bent on carrying her point in the matter of the summer pleasuring. It was a long way from the portion of the city in which she lived. One or two friends met her by the way, and noon was striking before she had penetrated into the precinct given up to the city toilers. She had never realized before that there were such places as she passed through. She would have given up her purpose had she not been very anxious to send prompt answer to her friend's letter. Did people live in such places? How could they? How could such sights and smells as these, among which she saw poverty-stricken women and squalid, uncared-for children, be borne for a day or a night? Farther down still were the factories, just letting out their crowd of operatives. She saw girls of her own age, but like her in nothing else—girls upon whom life had turned its dark side; who, far from thought of pleasure in the opening summer, bore only a weight of concern as to whether strength would last through it to win by unceasing toil a poor support for their wasted bodies. Curious eyes gazed at her as she hurried by. She was glad when at last, through a maze of drays and heaps of merchandise, she gained the huge, dingy building in which she was led to her brother's office. It was plain that the junior partner in the concern did not share the leisure hour enjoyed by the operatives. Unseen by him, Ethel caught sight of his face as he sat leaning his head on his hand, and she stopped short at his careworn expression. Once or twice she had seen something like it before, but always modified by the smile with which he had forced himself to listen to her gay, rattling talk. For a few minutes Ethel stood, taking in with keen eyes all the surroundings. This was the place where her brother spent his days making the money which she spent so freely and with so little thought. Slowly at length she turned away, feeling years older than when that morning she had read Alice Phillips' letter. She did not stop for a dainty lunch down town and a round of shopping, but made her way home at once. Seated alone in her own room, a host of new thoughts crowded upon her. "Why am I so unlike those girls? Ought I to be? Ought I to have so much and they so little? And Herbert! Why have I never stopped to think what a hard-worked life he has had, while I am of no more use than a butterfly? Oh, what a vain, trifling thing I have been! I profess the name of Jesus, but I have never for one moment thought of denying myself anything that I might share with those who have so little. If mother had lived, I believe I should have been different. But I can be different now—if I will." It took hours of thought and prayer to settle the "if." The summer full of delightful self-seeking was hard for a young girl to give up. But the thought of those other young girls brought continually before her awakened heart the question:— "Who maketh thee to differ?" The letter which went to Alice Phillips bore a message very dissimilar from that which had been intended in the morning. "Herbert," said Ethel in the evening, "what are your own plans for outing this summer?" "Why, little girl, I haven't formed any yet. In fact, I do not see any time or money for me to spend on outings." "Let me plan for you," she said. "You will come out to the farm and stay over Sunday with me; and in August you will stay there two or three weeks. How will that do?" "But what would become of your fine journey with your fine friends?" "That's given up. O Bert, I know you think me the most silly, selfish trifler in the world—and you're about right. But I took a peep at you when you didn't know it, and at some of those poor work girls, this morning. I guess it does one good to look at the other side of things once in a while. Bert, would my trip have cost much?" "And do you think it might be spent in giving some of those girls a bit of the country?" "It would go a long way among poor girls, Ethel, if you lay your plans well." Ethel's plans were carefully considered. Would any of you girls, thoughtless, yet well meaning, like to know to how many were brought a taste of the Lord's gracious gifts through her self-denial? It is an experiment, absorbing in its carrying out, delightful in its results, which many may try.—Selected.