The Brick Moon, and Other Stories

by Edward Everett Hale

Now, Robinson Crusoe was once in a very bad box indeed, and to comfort himself as well as he could, and to set the good against the evil, that he might have something to distinguish his case from worse, he stated impartially, like debtor and creditor, the comforts and miseries, thus:—

EVIL.	GOOD.
I am cast upon a horrible desolate island, void of all recovery.	But I am alive, and not drowned as all my hope of ship’s company were.
I am singled out and separated, as it were, from all the world, to be miserable.	But I am singled out, too, from the ship’s crew to be spared from death.

And so the debtor and creditor account goes on.

Julia Hackmatack read this aloud to them—the whole of it—and they agreed, as Robinson says, not so much for their posterity as to keep their thoughts from daily poring on their trials, that for each family they would make such a balance. What might not come of it? Perhaps a partial nay, perhaps a perfect cure!

So they determined that on the instant they would go to work, and two in the smoking-room, two in the dining-room, two in George’s study, and two in the parlor, they should in the next half-hour make up their lists of good and evil. Here are the results:—

FREDERIC AND MARY INGHAM.
GOOD.	EVIL.
We have three nice boys and three nice girls.	But the door-bell rings all the time.
We have enough to eat,drink, and wear.	But the coal bill is awful, and the Larrabee furnace has given out. The firm that made it has gone up, and no castings can be got to mend it.
We have more books than we can read, and do not care to read many newspapers.	But our friends borrow our books, and only return odd volumes.
We have many very dear friends—enough.	But we are behindhand 143 names on our lists of calls.
We have health in our family.	But the children may be sick. The Lowndes children are .
We seem to be of some use in the world.	But Mrs. Hogarth has left Fred $200 for the poor, and he is afraid he shall spend it wrong.
	The country has gone to the dogs.

GEORGE AND ANNA HALIBURTON.
GOOD.	EVIL.
We have a nice home in town, and one in Sharon, and a sea-shore place at Little Gau, and we have friends enough to fill them.	You cannot give a cup of coffee to a beggar but he sends five hundred million tramps to the door.
We have some of the nicest children in the world.	A great many people call whose names we have forgotten.
We have enough to do, and not too much.	We have to give a party to all our acquaintance every year, which is horrid.
Business is good enough, though complaining.	We do not do anything we want to do, and we do a great deal that we do not want to do. George had added, “And there is no health in us.” But Anna marked that out as wicked.
The children are all well.	People vote as if they were possessed.

GEORGE AND JULIA HACKMATACK
GOOD.	EVIL.
We have eight splendid children.	The plumbers’ work always gives way at the wrong time, and the plumbers’ bills are awful.
We have money enough, though we know what to do with more.	The furnace will not heat the house unless the wind is at the southwest. None of the chimneys draw well.
George will not have to go to Bahia next year.	We hate the Kydd School. The master drinks and the first assistant lies. But we live in that district; so the boys have to go there.
Tom got through with scarlet fever without being deaf.	Lucy said “commence” yesterday, Jane said “gent,” Walter said “Bully for you,” and Alice said “nobby.” And what is coming we do not know.
Dr. Witherspoon has accepted the presidency of Tiberias College in Alaska.	How long any man can live under this government I do not know.

FELIX AND FAUSTA CARTER
GOOD.	EVIL.
Governments are stronger every year. Money goes farther than it did.	But as the children grow bigger, their clothes cost more.
All the boys are good and well. So are the girls. They are splendid children.	But the children get no good at school, except measles, whooping-cough, and scarlet fever.
Old Mr. Porter died last week, and Felix gets promotion in the office.	But the gas-meter lies; and the gas company wants to have it lie.
The lost volume of Fichte was left on the door-step last night by some one who rang the bell and ran away. It is rather wet, but when it is bound will look nicely.	But the Athenaeum is always calling in its books to examine them, and making us say where Mr. Fred Curtis’s books are. As if we cared.
The mistress of the Arbella School is dead.	But our drains smell awfully, though the Board of Health says they do not.
	We have to go to evening parties among our friends, or seem stuck up. We hate to go, and wish there were none. We had rather come here.
	The increasing worthlessness of the franchise.

With these papers they gathered all in the study just as the clock struck nine, and, in good old Boston fashion, Silas was bringing in some hot oysters. They ate the oysters, which were good—trust Anna for that—and then the women read the papers, while the smoking men smoked and pondered.