Not long ago I escorted two bright young women to New York. Of course they wanted to do some shopping. Coming from a small town, it was perfectly natural that the “wonderful reductions” and “great bargains” should fascinate them.
“Look at that lovely lace, Mame! Reduced from forty-five cents to twenty-five cents! I must get some of it.”
“Do you need it, Netty?”
“No, not now; but it is so cheap. Don’t you want to come in and buy some, too?”
“No,” was the reply, “I don’t fritter.”
So it came to pass that jewelry glittered, and ribbons fluttered, and dainty gloves and shoes tempted her in vain. To each and every appeal she answered, “I don’t fritter.”
At length she found a pattern of wash silk that exactly suited her, and she bought it. Also another pattern of crepe de chine, and some very nice gloves which she needed. That was absolutely all she bought; but her dresses and gloves were worth what she paid, were exactly what she needed, and would do her good service.
Netty gathered up a miscellaneous assortment of odds and ends—fancy pins, so dear to the girlish heart of to-day, cheap handkerchiefs; yards of “reduced ribbons,” which she did not need; gloves, dear at any price; little pieces of china that struck her fancy, and would be so pretty in her room. Before she realized it, her money was all gone, and she had only those trifles to show for it.
“And I did need a dress so much, Mame,” she murmured plaintively, the last evening of our stay. “How did you make your money hold out?”
Again the quaint remark, “I don’t fritter.”
The word remained in my mind. It had an odd sound. I looked it up. “Fritter: to reduce to nothing by taking away a little at a time.” So other things besides money15can be frittered away; things, too, more precious.
Time—how foolishly we spend it! A few minutes here, an hour or two there, a week or a month somewhere else. Before we realize it, the years are gone and life has reached its utmost limit, and we look back over it to feel that we have frittered it away.
Our good influence over the minds and characters of others—how carelessly we do things that lessen it, little by little, over those we love! At last, too late, we waken to the fact that we have lost all hold upon them. We have frittered away our influence.
Our talent—the ability God has given us to do anything well, for the use of which He will hold us to a strict account—how we neglect it, how we forget our high calling, and stop “to play with shadows and pluck earthly flowers!” Finally the day of reckoning comes, but we have frittered away our divine gifts, and Christ Himself has told us what the sentence shall be upon “unprofitable servants.”—Selected.