"Then why," I asked, in some astonishment, "why are you so moved by the news of her death?"
"To one of my nature," exclaimed Mr. Smith, "the circumstances detailed in this item are most painful to contemplate. We find here recorded the sudden demise of the sole support of a husband and five children—a wife and mother snatched away by death, leaving a helpless family without any visible means of support."
"But why without any means of support?" I asked.
"It says so," answered Mr. Smith. "The husband is a scientist and is therefore by nature and by occupation disqualified for earning a livelihood."
"Surely enough," said I, "that is quite true."
"Can you picture a more distressing scene," continued Mr. Smith, still in tears, "than that of this helpless father and his five little ones standing above that lifeless lady and wondering where their food and raiment will come from now? It is sad, it is agonizing, it is awful! And yet it all might have been averted—all this solicitude about the future. Had Mrs. Bolivar Bowers taken out a policy in my company, the International Mutual Tontine Life Insurance Company of Paw Paw, Indiana, the aspect to-day would have been different, and Bolivar Bowers and his callow brood of little Bowerses would have reason to bless the rod that smote them. Ah, friend Baker, the International Mutual Tontine has done a glorious work toward mitigating the wrath of the grim destroyer; under the grace of its soothing balm bereavement becomes an actual pleasure, death loses its sting, and the grave its victory."
From this small, casual beginning followed that train of explanation and argument upon Mr. Smith's part which led to Alice's taking out a life policy in the Indiana company. Mr. Smith is a man of broad and deep human sympathies. Had he not happened upon that newspaper item, had his heart not gone out in passionate sympathy toward the bereaved Bolivar Bowers and his little ones, had he not wandered in an irresponsible paroxysm of grief in the direction of my house that evening, and had he not confided his sorrow to me—why, then we should not have known of the greatest of human benefactors, and Alice would not now be safe (so to speak) in the bosom of the International Mutual Tontine Life Insurance Company of Paw Paw.
I do not regard these things as accidental; they are special providences.