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OTHERS BEFORE SELF

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Jan 20, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 3.

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OTHERS BEFORE SELF.

THE Northeast Relief Company was selling coal at ten cents a pailful. A long line of customers reached to the sidewalk and far down the street, waiting and shivering in the bitter air. Sarah Conley was almost at the office door. She was glad her turn was so near. She was chilled, and her breakfast had been scanty that morning. Moreover, she was old and not strong.
"It's hard standing," she remarked to the woman behind her.
"It is that," returned the woman, "I'd rather freeze at home if it wasn't for the babies. They're crying with the cold."
"Look here," said Sarah, "You take my place; it'll get you there one quicker," and she stepped out of the ranks and in behind the woman.
"My, that's nothing!" she continued, smiling away the mother's thanks. Her change of position brought Sarah in front of a young girl who coughed and shivered pitifully in the searching wind. Just then a rumor was passed that the coal supply was giving out. The waiters pressed close. Sarah glanced uneasily around.
"You can have my chance," she said, suddenly, as she slipped back of the sick girl.
Sarah did not look behind her again. She was so cold that she trembled from weariness. The slow procession of the line had brought her to the office door, when she noticed a little girl standing at one side, carrying an empty pail and crying softly. Sarah beckoned to her.
"You won't get your coal if you stay there," she said. "You'll have to run 'round to the end of the line."
"I've lost my money," whispered the little girl.
"I'll hold your pail while you go home and get more," suggested Sarah.
"There isn't any more," sobbed the child.
Sarah stood still a moment. Then she slipped her dime into the girl's purple little palm. It was the last money she had but she did not say so. Then she went home to a cold room. The bowl of soup she had saved for dinner stood frozen on the table. She took the clothes from the bed and wrapped them around her.
"My rent is paid, and I've got a job of scrubbing for to-morrow," she said to herself. "There's lots worse off than I am."
Her teeth chattered and her joints ached. But away down in her heart there glowed a warm spot as she thought of the babies' mother, the sick girl, and the child, all with their heaping pails of coal.—Youth's Companion.