Your ShelfYour Projects

A "Slave"

8%

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 14, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 11.

Read the full edition

A "Slave"

WHAT a shame for a big, strong man to be such a slave to an invalid wife!'
The words were spoken in a disgusted tone by a girl in the saloon of an ocean steamer. The couple on whom she made her caustic criticism were slowly descending the stairs. The woman was pale and haggard. Her hands were twisted by pain, and her voice had the pathos of suffering. She was helped from stateroom to steamer chair and back every day, and all day long her handsome husband attended upon her. He adjusted her wraps, saw that her food was prepared for her helpless hands, read to her hour after hour, or sat quietly with his hand resting near hers, and his eyes watching her, even when they seemed fixed on the horizon.
Sympathetic spectators had pitied the man even while they admired his devotion, and the girl had but put into words the popular irritation when she called him "a slave to an invalid wife."
She spoke in a louder tone than she meant, and the two persons interested in her speech heard her clearly. An hour later the man slipped into a deck chair beside his critic, and said:
"I think your remark, which I accidentally overheard, justifies me in telling you a little about my 'slavery,' as you call it. It began thirty years ago, when my young bride nursed me through yellow fever — alone — because every one else had fled in panic.
"She did not have a sound hour's sleep for three weeks. Most of the time I was violently delirious, and how she managed to control me was a wonder. We were quarantined three miles from a town, and she cooked for me, and tended me, and brought me safely out of the loathsome disease before she fell ill with it herself.
"After she recovered she pulled me through a worse trial. I was in business with a man who proved a scoundrel, and for three years everybody except my wife believed that his villainy was mine. When I lost money and position she did herself the work of three women. When children came, she contrived that they should be noticeable for their gentle manners and thoughtfulness, altho they wore poor clothes.
"When sickness and death visited our home, it was her courage and wisdom which kept the sordid details of the trouble away from the rest of us, and left us only the ideal sorrow which lifts life toward heaven.
"For twenty-five years all this was her task. I tried to save her from strain when I could, but so great a spirit could not spare herself. Five years ago her health gave way. She will never be well again. She has given her life for mine.
"My 'slavery,' thank God, is the slavery of whole-hearted devotion to one of the noblest women ever given to earth. I love her and delight in her more than the day I married her. Her courage and humor and charm are unconquerable by pain.
"My dear young woman, you may well pray every night that you may some day be so lovely a tyrant, and that you may command so happy a 'slave'!"
So the gay young girl learned with some wholesome humiliation the frequent human lesson of the folly of passing hasty judgments.— Youth's Companion.