The Book of Courage

by John T. Faris

To say this required real courage, but the results were good, not only in himself, but also, fortunately, in some of his companions.

III
TRUTH TELLING

Those who, in early life, learn to be courageous in the face of difficult tasks will be ready for the temptation that is apt to come to most young people to compromise with what they know to be right and true, to allow an exception "just this once!" in the straightforward course they have marked out for themselves. And the worst of it is that such a temptation is apt to come without the slightest warning and to present itself in such a light that it is easy to find an excuse for yielding, and to deem it quixotic and unreasonable not to yield.

Once a young teacher who later became famous at Harvard, had occasion to censure a student who had given, as he believed, the wrong solution of a problem. On thinking the matter over at home, he found that the pupil was right and the teacher wrong. It was late at night and in the depth of winter, but he immediately started for the young man's room, at some distance from his own home, and asked for the man he had wronged. The delinquent, answering with some trepidation the untimely summons, found himself the recipient of a frank apology.

"Why, in the name of reason, do you walk a mile in the rain for a perfectly unimportant thing?" this man was asked on another occasion. "Simply because I have discovered that it was a misstatement, and I could not sleep comfortably till I put it right," was the reply.

Again the story is told of him that he borrowed a friend's horse to ride to a town where he expected to take the stage. He promised to leave the animal at a certain stable in the town. Upon reaching the place he found that the stage was several miles upon its way. This was a serious disappointment. A friend urged him to ride to the next town, where he could come up with the vehicle, promising himself to send after the borrowed horse and forward it to its owner. The temptation to accept the offer was great. The roads were ankle deep in mud, and the stage rapidly rolling on its way. The only obstacle was his promise to leave the horse at the appointed place. He declined the friendly offer, delivered the horse as he had promised, and, shouldering his baggage, set off on foot through the mud to catch the stage.

At this time he was eighteen years old, but he had learned the lesson that made him remarkably efficient and dependable through life.

Dr. W. T. Grenfell has told of a hardy trapper in Labrador, the partner of a man who was easily discouraged; the arrangement was that they should share equally the hardships and the rewards of the trapping expeditions. Both were very poor. The stronger man was most unselfish in his treatment of his associate. One winter their lives were all but lost during the severity of a storm which burst on them while they were setting their traps on an ice-girt island. On reaching the mainland the timid man insisted on dissolving the partnership; he was unwilling to repeat the risks, even for the sake of his needy family. In a few days the hardy trapper revisited the traps on the mainland. To his great joy he found in one trap a magnificent silver fox, whose skin was worth five hundred dollars—a fortune to the Labrador trapper, especially welcome during that hard winter. "How glad I am the partnership has been dissolved, and that the fox is all mine," was his first thought. But first thought was not allowed to be last thought. There was a struggle. At length the decision was made that the needy man who had set the trap with him should share in the prize; the argument that he had forfeited all right to a share was not allowed to weigh against the unselfish arguments for division.

A friend of young people has told of an incident which occurred in a great Boston department store where she sought to match some dress goods. After turning away from several discourteous clerks she showed her sample to a salesman who gave respectful attention to her. Glancing at the slits cut in the side of the bit of goods, he remarked:

"That isn't one of my samples. I will ask the clerk who mailed this sample to wait on you."