Dream not; while thou dreameth another moveth.
WILLIE
HOW HE LIVED AND WHY HE DIED
In the first place Willie was unfortunate enough to be born, in which circumstances he was not unique. He was unfortunate also in the circumstance that he was born of poor, but dishonest parents, of that class who spend their lives in a useless struggle to keep up appearances and prevent their poverty being known and talked about.
While Willie was unable to talk, the circumstances of his parents had no effect on him; when nice people called on his mamma and said how delighted they would be to see the baby, he was playing on the floor in one garment and none the less happy that he had no clothes fit to be seen in and that the nice people had to be told things that were not—that he was out with the nurse, or asleep or ill. He was fortunate in this.
By and by Willie grew to an age when his surrounding circumstances began to impress him more or less, and one of the first impressions he received was that his parents went to a horrible amount of trouble to appear better off than they were.
When Willie began to go to school he had come to several conclusions about things and one of the conclusions he had come to was, that if people took so much trouble, as he saw his parents do, to appear well off when poorly off, it must be, if not absolutely wrong at least a grave fault, to be poor, and a fault to be ashamed of, which of course it is.
Consequently, Willie argued, it is a man’s first business to become well off. Seek first dollars and all things shall be added unto you. Many children have this idea and some never get over it, Willie never got over it.
Willie heard that “anything can be bought,” that “every man has his price,” that “a man’s best friend is his money,” and a great many other equally wise and true saws.
So it came about quite naturally that Willie set the dollar up in his mind as something to be venerated, and overlooked the fact (quite naturally too) that the dollar is a means to an end not an end.