It must not be inferred that our life that winter was all intense and tragical; if it had been so we could not have endured it. There were patches of clear sky, and the sunlight of generous acts glinted through the storm. We had all merry hearts and good digestions, and these bore us up under our troubles with the buoyancy which is so mercifully granted to youth and inexperience. Then, too, our thoughts were not entirely taken up with ourselves and our own affairs. For a few days after this we saw nothing of Mr. Mudge, and our attention was partly diverted to another matter.
One day, earlier in the school year, Mrs. Booth, of the Salvation Army, had addressed Madame’s school on the need of work among the poor of New York. One little parable which she gave made a great impression upon us. I cannot repeat Mrs. Booth’s eloquent language, but will give the main points of the story.
“As a young girl,” said Mrs. Booth, “I was very selfish and hard-hearted. I did not care for the suffering and anguish of others. It was not that I was naturally cruel, but I did not think of them at all. I thought and cared only for myself, of parties and dresses, and of having a good time—and this Dead Sea of selfishness was numbing every generous impulse within me. My heart was growing to resemble a certain spring which my mother took me to see when a little child. I remember the walk through the wood beside a little brook which babbled over the stones, and how the light of the sky shone down into its clear amber waters, and the trees and the clouds were reflected in its quiet pools; how long mosses fringed its stones, and water plants made a little forest under its ripples; and how its depths were all alive with tiny fish and happy living creatures seeking their food and sporting among the cresses. But we came presently to a spring quite apart and very different from the brook. The water was deep, and quiet, and clear, but when I looked into it I was struck by a death-like influence, weird and sinister. There were no minnows darting through the depths like silver needles, or craw-fish burrowing in the banks, or water beetles skimming the surface like oarsmen rowing their light wherries. There was no life to be seen anywhere. The very stones had a strange, unnatural look; they were white as marble; no mosses covered them, no water-lilies or algae grew through the deadly water. The very leaves which had fallen into the pool were white and heavy, as though carved in marble. The grasses which grew downward and dipped into the spring were marble grasses, more like clumsy branching coral than the delicate bending sprays above the waves. It was a petrifying spring, and everything dipped in its waters was presently coated with a fine, stony sediment and practically turned to stone.
“So the deadly, petrifying spring of selfishness will turn the heart to stone, and while having the form of life it will be cold and hard and dead.”
This was Mrs. Booth’s little parable, and while none of our hearts had been dipped in this petrifying spring, it woke us to new desires to do more for the suffering poor.
Something happened a little after this talk, and several weeks previous to the robbery, which gave a direction to our impulses. Milly and I were returning from a shopping excursion one very cold and rainy Saturday, when we were approached by a poor girl who was selling pencils on a corner. “They are always useful,” I said; “suppose we take some.”
“I should perfectly love to,” Milly replied, “but I haven’t a cent.”
The girl had noticed our hesitation and came to us. “Please buy some, young ladies,” she said; “I haven’t had a thing to eat to-day.”
“Then come right along with me,” said Milly. “Mother lets me lunch at Sherry’s, whenever I am out shopping.”
The girl followed us but stopped beneath the awning of the handsome entrance. “That’s too fine a place for me, Miss,” she said. “Only swells go there. It costs the eyes out of your head just for a clean plate and napkin in there. How much do you s’pose now, a lunch would cost in that there palace?”