“Will my little puss answer me a question or two?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Tell me then, my dear child, did you not expect to derive a great deal of pleasure from Madge’s gratitude, and love, and obedience to yourself? Did you not look upon yourself as her benefactor, her teacher, her superior, and as having a right to claim such conduct from her, as would, in some degree, pay you for your trouble and kindness? You expected her, poor thing, to behave like an angel, for your sake. Instead of that, she has, at times, let her evil nature and her bad habits break out, in a way to give you trouble and pain, and to cause you to feel disappointment. Are not these things so, my sweet little puss?”
“Yes, Sir. But—but ought not poor people to be grateful and obedient to those who help them?” asked Jessie, who, though she began to perceive that a regard for her own pleasure had been mixed with the kindness to Madge, was not quite ready to plead guilty to her good uncle’s charge.
“They ought certainly, and when they do, it is very right for those who help them, to take pleasure in their gratitude. But that is a very different thing, from doing good for the sake of the pleasure or profit we expect to derive from the conduct of those we benefit.”
Uncle Morris then went on to show Jessie, that really good people were kind to the poor and wretched, because it is their duty to be so; that they seldom found their reward, either in the gratitude of those they helped, or in the smiles of men; that instead of finding such rewards, they were often blamed and treated harshly by the public, and ungratefully by their protégés; but that they had a rich reward, nevertheless. They felt, he said, a very sweet satisfaction in themselves; they were smiled upon by the Father and Saviour of men; and they would, in the better land, be more than rewarded with mansions, robes, crowns, and honors, which selfish people would forever envy but never enjoy.
This talk with her uncle did Jessie good. She afterwards bore Madge’s outbreaks of temper with more patience, and tried to set her such an example as would make her feel her own faults far more than by scolding or fretting.
Madge, who was very quick-witted, saw and felt the change in Jessie, and she, too, tried to overcome herself, that she might not grieve a friend, who loved her so truly and so well.
One morning Jessie awoke, and was surprised to see the lawn, the trees, and the fences all white with snow. It was a beautiful sight. She had never seen snow in the country before. Having dressed herself, she ran down-stairs, and going to the piazza, clapped her hands, and cried:
“Oh, how pretty those evergreens look! That pine-tree is perfectly beautiful!”