"This baby fern."
"All that fuss about a fern!"
"It's life, it's struggle. See, so dainty, so fine, yet so plucky, forcing its soft frond up through the earth, among all these bits of rocks; never stopping, never fearing, just trusting the Creator and doing its duty. It would be a pity to end it so soon."
"Amy, did I ever! Well, there it is again. I shall never be able to crush anything like that without remembering what you've said just now. I—I wish you wouldn't. It makes me feel sort of wicked. And that's silly, just for a fern."
"Gwen, anything that makes us more merciful can't be silly. Heigho! there are the picnickers all coming along the banks and over the bridges. Truly, a goodly company, yet we began with just you and Lionel, Mary Reese, Hallam, and me. Now there are a hundred members, old and young. There's one of the everyday miracles for you!"
The vigorous young association which went by the name of the "Ardsley Club" flourished beyond even Amy's most sanguine expectation. Three rooms of "Charity House," the sunny western side of the higher story, had been cheerfully offered by Mr. Kaye as a home for the club. These rooms he had had fitted up under his own supervision, though the work had been done by the members themselves, in hours after mill duties were over. The color mixer had supplied the material with which the once ugly white walls were tinted; and upon the soft-hued groundwork there had been stencilled a delicate conventional design. At one end of the large room designated the "reading room" a scroll bore the legend which old Adam Burns had given Amy as a "rule of life": "Simplicity, Sincerity, Sympathy," and opposite gleamed in golden letters the other maxim: "Love Conquers All."
"Love, Simplicity, Sincerity, and Sympathy, which is the synonym of Love, and forms with it the golden circle," was adopted as one of the by-laws, and it is true that each member endeavored to keep this one law inviolably. The result was a spirit of peace and goodwill rarely found in a gathering of so many varying natures. It had been Mr. Kaye's idea to make the affair one of no expense to the members, outside of his own household, but Frederic promptly vetoed that.
"In the first place, there are none of us rich enough to do such a thing. There will be lights, firing, musical instruments, books, current literature, games—any number of things that cost money. Amy's idea is fine. A club of the right sort will be a powerful factor for good in this community of mill workers, but it must be made self-supporting. If you give the use of the rooms and will act as instructor along some lines,—art and literature, which you comprehend better than financiering, respected brother,—you will have done your generous share. Amy and Cleena will keep the rooms in order, with occasional aid from the girl members—after we secure them. A small sum, contributed by each member, will run the whole concern. People who are as constantly employed as these mill operatives have not the leisure nor means to acquire a book education, but a more intelligent, wider-awake, more receptive class is not to be found. Yet let nobody dare to approach them with anything at all in the nature of 'charity' or mental almsgiving. Your democrat beats your aristocrat in the matter of pride every time, and that is a paradox for you to consider. I relinquish the floor."