Her mother smiled and nodded to Letty. "Very well, Letty," she said, "well have a nice, little, cozy chat all to ourselves after awhile when this impatient young person has had her subject discussed. I was thinking, girlies, that as long as there are so many elderly and old people in the village, some of whom are poor and some who are partial invalids, that it would be a very sweet thing if you little girls could form yourselves into a club which would help to make their lives a little less sad. It would mean a great deal to old Miss Belinda Myers, for instance, if one of you would drop in once in a while with a flower, or any little thing for her. She is so crippled up with rheumatism that she can't leave her room, and must sit there by the window all day long. She is fond of children, too. Of course she has plenty of this world's goods, and her old friends do not neglect her, yet I am sure that you could give something to her by your mere presence which none of the older persons could. Then there is poor old Nathan Keener."
"Oh, but he is such an old cross patch," interrupted Edna.
"So he is, but he has had enough to make him so. I wonder if any one of us would be very amiable if she were poverty-stricken, half sick all the time, had lost all her friends and had been cheated out of the little which would make old age comfortable? It is very easy to be smiling and agreeable when everything goes right, but when things go wrong, it isn't half so easy, especially when one hasn't a good disposition to begin with."
"But what in the world could we do for him?" asked Reliance. "If we stopped to speak to him, very likely he would get after us with a stick."
"Did any of the boys and girls ever try the experiment of speaking to him pleasantly? I am quite sure the boys do their best to annoy him in any way they can contrive, and even some of the girls tease him slyly and call him names, I am told."
"Yes, they do," replied Reliance, doubtfully, who herself was not entirely innocent in this regard.
"Suppose you were to try the experiment of beginning by smiling when you go by and saying, pleasantly, 'Good-morning, Mr. Keener?' Then next day, even if he chased you away the first time, you might say, 'Isn't this a lovely morning, Mr. Keener?' and you could always make a point of saying something pleasant to him when you go by. Then some day when it is raining or too cold for him to sit in his doorway——"
"Like a great big, ugly spider," remarked Letty.
Mrs. Conway paid no heed to the comment, "you could leave a big apple on the doorsill for him, and so on, till in time I will venture to say he will learn that you wish him well and are trying to be friends. You must keep in your mind all the time that he is a poor, neglected, friendless, unhappy old man and that if you can succeed in bringing even a little sunshine into his life, you will be doing a great deal."
The girls were very sober for a few minutes, then Reliance said thoughtfully, "I believe I should like to try it anyway."