WHICH IS OF MORE CONSEQUENCE?
By Sydney Strong
THE little fellow that came to our house about eight years ago, and ever since has slept with us and eaten at our table, whose school reports we sign, and whom we call "Boy," recently came tramping through the hall, leaving tracks of mud on the lately-cleaned carpets. I saw him and yelled, "O Boy, get out there!" He ran out wounded. I went back to the library. I thought of the little fellow now out in the orchard, hurt by my harsh words. Which was of more value, the carpet or the boy? Why, I would have burned up a hundred carpets rather than have anything happen to that boy. But here I was, hurting him and destroying my influence over him—and all for a little mud. I know a woman who said she planned to keep abreast of her husband in intellectual work. I remarked that it must be difficult, while she had so much housework. She straightened up, and said, "I am of much more consequence than my house." The French have a proverb, "He was born a man, but died a merchant." That wouldn't make very good reading, would it? He was born a man, but died a clerk, or a manufacturer; was born a woman, but died a housekeeper, or a teacher. Mud, or the Boy—which shall we pay attention to?