ONLY A TRIFLE | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 12, 1860

ONLY A TRIFLE.

“That is right,” said I to my friend Simpkins, the baker, as the sickly-looking widow of Harry Watkins went out of the shop door with a loaf of bread which he had given her—“that’s right, Simpkins; I am glad you are helping the poor creature, for she has had a hard time of it since Harry died, and her own health failed her.

“Hard enough, sir, hard enough; and I am glad to help her, though what I give her don’t cost much—only a trifle, sir!”

“How often does she come?”

“Only three times a week. I told her to come oftener, if she needed to, but she says three loaves are a plenty for her and her little one, with what she gets by sewing.”

“And have you any more such customers, Simpkins?”

“Only two or three, sir.”

“Only two or three! Why, it must make quite a tax upon your profits?”

“O no, not as much as you suppose; altogether it amounts to only a trifle.”

I could not but smile as my friend repeated these words; but after I left him I fell to thinking how much good he is doing with “only a trifle.” He supplies three or four families with the bread they eat from day to day; and though the actual cost for a year shows but a small sum of dollars and cents, the benefit conferred is by no means a small one. A sixpence to any man who has plenty to “eat and drink, and wherewithal to be clothed,” is nothing, but is something to one on the verge of starvation. And we know not how much good we are doing when we give “only a trifle,” to a good object.—Sel.