Only a Dollar | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 16, 1879

Only a Dollar.

"SHE sews very nicely," said Mrs. Wharton, "and if you have any work you wish to be done well and very cheaply, I would advise you to employ her."

Mrs. Wharton was sitting before the fire in her crimson silk morning wrapper, and her pretty hands loaded with rich rings, lying in her lap. She felt that she was doing a charitable deed in employing this poor widow, and a still greater one in recommending her to her friends.

It is easy to be a good Christian under such circumstances.

"Well, I shall certainly send for her," said Mrs. Marvin; "what did you tell me her name and address were?"

"Mrs. Leggett, and she lives in one of those horrid, musty, tenement houses, No.—, — street, the back room, in the third story."

Mrs. Marvin entered the details in her little pearl-bound tablet, and took her leave, internally convinced that Mrs. Wharton was a "good Samaritan," of the very highest class.

Meanwhile the latter was gazing dreamily into the fire, wondering what toilette would be the most appropriate for the morrow evening's soiree.

"There's my pea-green satin," mused Mrs. Wharton, checking off the various garments on the tips of her white fingers: "but I've worn it already. And there is my Marie Louise blue silk, if the skirt was only gored a little more. My wine colored silk with the ruby set would look very well, if Fanny Palmer hadn't got one just like it. And purple velvet don't light up very well at night. Oh dear! I really think I must get something new. A rose colored tissue perhaps, or a white India muslin. My wardrobe is getting dreadfully behind. Dear me, who's that? How you startled me, Mrs. Leggett!"

"I beg your pardon ma'am, I am sure," said the slender, meek-looking little seamstress, rustling gently forward in her garment of shabby, well-worn black; "but I knocked several times and you did not answer."

"Then you should knock louder next time," said the irritable fine lady: "however, now you are here, you may as well sit down. How wet you are—positively dripping!"

"Yes ma'am, it rains very hard, and I have no umbrella."

"No umbrella! dear me, how shocking. Well, did you bring home these things?"

"Yes ma'am, here they are."

And the seamstress produced a neat package from beneath her shawl.

"I hope they are not wet. No, they seem tolerably dry. What is the bill?"

"Six dollars, ma'am."

"Six dollars! isn't that high?" inquired Mrs. Wharton, discontentedly.

"I worked eleven days faithfully on them, ma'am."

"Well, I suppose I must pay what you ask," said Mrs. Wharton, opening her purse and slowly examining its compartments. "Dear me, I have only a five dollar bill; I suppose you could not change a twenty?"

Mrs. Leggett smiled bitterly.

"No, ma'am, I could not."

"Well, then, we will call it five dollars, won't we? A dollar is not much either way, and the five is all I have."

"A dollar is a great deal to me, Mrs. Wharton."

The lady's smooth brow contracted. "I have given you a great deal of work, Mrs. Leggett."

"I know it ma'am, and I am very much obliged for all your kindness."

"And I should be sorry to have so trifling a thing as a dollar part us now."

Mrs. Leggett was silent; she did not know what to say.

"Call it five dollars," said Mrs. Wharton, tossing the bill into the lap of the widow. "A dollar don't signify, and then I recommended my friend, Mrs. Marvin, to employ you this morning."

"Thank, you ma'am," said the poor woman, faintly, as she took the money, feeling inwardly that she had been defrauded, yet perfectly aware that she had no means of redress.

"Ma'am, if you please," said Mary, waitress, "here is the newspaper boy, he says master told him you would pay the bill this week."

"How much is it, Mary?"

"A dollar, ma'am."

"How provoking I haven't a dollar in the house."

"He says he has orders not to leave the house until it is paid."

"He is very impertinent," said the lady, coloring up, and for the first time in her petted life, feeling the want of a dollar.

Mrs. Clarence Fitz Gerald was the next person announced—a lady of the utmost style, whose acquaintance Mrs. Wharton had just succeeded in making.

"You stare at my being out in this storm, my dear, but I am raising a dollar subscription for a poor musician who has just broken his arm. Of course I may depend on you."

Mrs. Wharton colored. "I will send it around in the morning."

"That won't do," said Mrs. Fitz Gerald, shrugging her shoulders; "I am determined to settle the business to-day."

"I am very sorry," said our mortified heroine, "but I have not a single dollar in the house."

Mrs. Fitz Gerald bowed coldly; evidently she did not believe the protestation, and Mrs. Wharton saw her enter her coupe and drive away with the comfortable consciousness that she would be invited to no more of Mrs. Clarence Fitz Gerald's delightful exclusive parties.

Mrs. Wharton was now considerably annoyed.

"To think a dollar should be such a useful thing," she muttered to herself, taking up her portfolio.

A half finished letter lay there—one to her sister who was the wife of a clergyman out West, with a flock of little children around her. The last words she had written were, "I send you a dollar to buy a doll for the baby, my little name-sake."

"How provoking!" she exclaimed, "I can't even finish my letter for lack of the everlasting dollar!"

She leaned back in the velvet cushions of her chair, drowsily watching the blaze and listening to the patter of the rain on the window, and fell fast asleep.

Where was she? In the spectre boat of Charon, gliding over the Styx—and as the bark touched the shores of the other world, the ghastly toll-gatherer extended his hand relentlessly:—"Your fare, if you please, ma'am."

Mrs. Wharton had her fare ready; she handed it up, eager to pass through the gates where she could see the musical wave of the palm trees, and sparkling glittering tides that flow beneath the shadow.

"Short by a dollar, ma'am. Short by the single dollar you cheated the poor seamstress out of. You cannot enter."

Mrs. Wharton then drew out a hundred dollar bill. The grim Charon shook his head.

"If you had ten thousand it would not do; nothing will serve our purpose but that one dollar."

Charon turned the boat briskly around; Mrs. Wharton was just opening her lips to utter a wild cry of anguish, pleading, when she awoke.

She shuddered; somehow the dollar had assumed preternaturally very large dimensions.

"Charles! Charles!" how welcome were the footsteps of her husband upon the stairs.

"Well, what is it?"

"Have you a dollar?"

"Half a dozen of them if you want."

"But I only wanted one—just a dollar bill."

He gave it to her, and she immediately rang the bell.

"John, I want you to put on your India rubber cloak, and take this bill around to Mrs. Leggett, and tell her it is what I owe her!"

John departed, and Mrs. Wharton breathed more easily.

"Perhaps they will let me in the gates now," she said dreamily.

"My dear, what do you mean?" demanded her astonished husband.

And Mrs. Wharton told him the story of her day's adventures, and the dream that closed them.

"Helen," said her husband gravely, "let this be a lesson to you, never to neglect the just dues of the poor. A dollar is not much to us—to them it may be the last frail bulwark between them and starvation."

But there was no danger of Mrs. Wharton ever forgetting the lesson she had received. —Sel.