The Child at Home: The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated

by John S. C. Abbott

"No, my child," your mother would say, "we have only let you have them to wear. You never have paid a cent for them. You have not even paid us for the use of them. We wish to keep them for those of our children who are grateful for our kindness. Even the clothes you now have on are not yours. We will, however, give them to you; and now suppose you should go, and see how you can get along in taking care of yourself."

You rise to leave the house without any bonnet or cloak. But your mother says, "Stop one moment. Is there not an account to be settled before you leave? We have now clothed and boarded you for ten years. The trouble and expense, at the least calculation, amount to two dollars a week. Indeed I do not suppose that you could have got any one else to have taken you so cheap. Your board, for ten years, at two dollars a week, amounts to one thousand and forty dollars. Are you under no obligation to us for all this trouble and expense?"

You hang down your head and do not know what to say. What can you say? You have no money. You cannot pay them.

Your mother, after waiting a moment for an answer, continues, "In many cases, when a person does not pay what is justly due, he is sent to jail. We, however, will be particularly kind to you, and wait awhile. Perhaps you can, by working for fifteen or twenty years, and by being very economical, earn enough to pay us. But let me see; the interest of the money will be over sixty dollars a year. Oh, no! it is out of the question. You probably could not earn enough to pay us in your whole life. We never shall be paid for the time, expense, and care, we have devoted to our ungrateful daughter. We hoped she would love us, and obey us, and thus repay. But it seems she prefers to be ungrateful and disobedient. Good by."

You open the door and go out. It is cold and windy. Shivering with the cold, and without money, you are at once a beggar, and must perish in the streets, unless some one takes pity on you.

You go, perhaps, to the house of a friend, and ask if they will allow you to live with them.

They at once reply, "We have so many children of our own, that we cannot afford to take you, unless you will pay for your board and clothing."

You go again out into the street, cold, hungry, and friendless. The darkness of the night is coming on; you have no money to purchase a supper, or night's lodging. Unless you can get some employment, or find some one who will pity you, you must lie down upon the hard ground, and perish with hunger and with cold.

Perhaps some benevolent man sees you as he is going home in the evening, and takes you to the overseers of the poor, and says, "Here is a little vagrant girl I found in the streets. We must send the poor little thing to the poor house, or she will starve to death."

You are carried to the poor house. There you had a very different home from your father's. You are dressed in the coarsest garments. You have the meanest food, and are compelled to be obedient, and to do the most servile work.