WHO ARE "POOR FOLKS"?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 9, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 23.

WHO ARE "POOR FOLKS"?

POLLY was a bright and beautiful child, who, with a brother older than herself, carried home the laundry work to her mother's patrons. She was always neatly dressed, and had a happy smile and a cheerful voice.

One day Polly carried home some fine laces to a lady in a hotel. The servant told her the lady was ill, and could not be disturbed, but Polly had had strict orders not to trust her package with anyone else; so she ventured to go upstairs.

She stood at the door for a moment, and then tapped very lightly, saying to herself, "If she is asleep, that won't wake her, and if she's awake, she will answer."

In a moment a low voice asked, "Is that you, Bridget?"

"No, ma'am," replied Polly, putting her lips very close to the keyhole and speaking in a loud whisper, "It's Paulina Brown, that folks call 'Little Polly.' I have a very particular message for you, and I won't disturb you a bit if you will let me in."

The lady could not help saying, "Come in," in answer to this modest request.

She was in trouble, and that had caused her a sick headache. She lay there all alone in a darkened room, with no one to care whether she got better or not.

Polly had just come from a bright, sunny room, with a gay rag carpet on the floor, and bright flowers growing in the windows; and this room, with its heavy draperies, looked gloomy to her. She went up to the bed and gave her message in a low, soft voice, and then said: "O Mrs. Ball, I'm so sorry for you! You haven't any husband nor little girl to comfort you when you are sick. My mother has father, and Tommy, and me, and the baby. Sometimes when she has her tired headaches, I can drive them off just with my own hands and a little bay water. I don't suppose you would let me sit upon your nice bed, and bathe your head, would you?"

"Yes, Polly; I am always glad to have such a tidy little girl near me. You will find bay water in that pink bottle on the bureau," said Mrs. Ball.

While the little, soft hands were passing over her troubled brow, the lady said, "Polly, I think your family are the happiest 'poor people' I ever met."

"O Mrs. Ball, we're not 'poor people,'" cried Polly, with a queer laugh. "There are three poor families in our house, but we are rich—almost. We were rich once, and had half a house, though we're not so rich now, since father lost his arm; but as mother can do up laces so beautifully, we're pretty rich still. We do lots of things to help the poor folks in the house, and other poor folks, too."

"What can you do for them?" asked the lady.

"Oh, we save Mrs. Crane's coal by letting her steep her tea in our kitchen—days that she can keep warm by sitting in the sun—and we take care of Mrs. Barnes' baby whenever she gets a day's work, and mother always makes broth enough on Wednesdays to share with someone that's poor."

"Who do you call 'poor folks,' Polly?" asked the lady.

Polly had no definition ready, but, after thinking for a moment, she replied, "Poor folks are folks that don't have everything they want."

"Then you have everything you want?" asked Mrs. Ball.

"Yes, ma'am," replied Polly innocently. "We all have Sabbath clothes besides our common ones; and we have good things to eat—mother bakes all our bread and pies herself—and we have a real nice kitchen to work and eat in—without a bed in it, like poor folks; and we buy a whole ton of coal at once, instead of lots of bushels."

And so little Polly prattled on in a low, pleasant voice, till the lady really felt better, and said so.

"I'll tell you what's another real good thing to drive the rest of it off,—air and sunlight. Mother never shuts up for a headache," said the little nurse.

Here Polly looked at the bronze clock, and said, "It's time now for the baby to wake up, and I shall have to go as soon as I let in a little of my sun and air; but I'll come in any time when you have the headache, and cure you again."

"Thank you, my good little girl; you have almost cured me now," said Mrs. Ball. "In my closet you will find a large paper bag full of oranges; take them home and share them with the 'poor folks' in your house."

The rich little girl ran home in glee to divide the treasures with the less fortunate.

The poor lady lay alone, to reflect on the lesson she had just received. She had lost twenty thousand dollars, but she had thirty thousand left; and, instead of being thankful for that, she was bewailing her fate, as if she was next to a pauper. She would still have all the comforts, although a few less of the luxuries, of life; and, as she remembered now, no one but herself would suffer by the change, for she had never helped "the poor folks in the house," nor out of it, as Polly's mother was doing.

"Poor folks," she said to herself, "are folks who haven't everything they want. I haven't that twenty thousand, and I never can have it again. But I can learn to be happy on less, and to share even what I have with others."

A ray of "Polly's sun" peeped in, and a breath of her pure air was wafted toward her; and she rose, saying, "Because I have lost some of my fortune, I need not therefore throw away my health, the best of all my blessings."

In Polly's sense of the word, the poor are often found amid elegance and luxury, and the truly rich in humble dwellings.—Selected.