“We can’t all build workingmen’s homes, like Ely & Gerrish,” said Mrs. Forest, “but that should not hinder us from doing what we can.”
“I admit the worthiness of your motives, and the temporary good you do; but it is none the less true that it degrades the being to be the recipient of charity. No; charity don’t work, as a social system. The poor-house don’t work. The orphan asylum don’t work. Now, to one who has the scientific method in his examination of social problems, the moment a system don’t work, he knows it is wrong. Then the first duty is to discover why it don’t, and substitute a better.”
“All of which is very easy—in words,” said Mrs. Forest.
“In words!” echoed the doctor. “Why, we are doing it literally every day. Take the steam-engine and the telegraph. When the necessity arose for more rapid transportation, we tried awhile to breed faster and stronger horses, make better wagons and roads, but we found that did not work, and so we substituted the steam-car and the railroad; so with the postal system, the telegraph and the steam printing-press.”
Mrs. Forest saw that the doctor held a strong position logically, so she waived the question by giving some final orders to Susie about work for the next morning, and then dismissed her summarily. When she was gone the doctor said, “Do you think you are as kind to that poor child as you ought to be?”
“Dear me! what next?” answered Mrs. Forest, with a sigh. “Yes, I think I am. I give her time to sew for herself, and she has a good home. I must say she behaves remarkably well, considering her bringing up.”
“I am greatly interested in her,” the doctor said. “I wish Clara was here. That’s a girl after my own heart, you know. Clara has the true democratic—that is, the true human spirit. She would pity this lonely Susie, and help her to have some object in life.”
“Object in life! Why, what better object can she have than to behave herself, and be happy by doing her duty?” Mrs. Forest, with her “little hoard of maxims,” was armed at all points. It was as hard to grapple with her as with a porcupine. She was so utterly different from the doctor in her way of looking at things, that it is hard to do her justice. The doctor’s radical ideas had always alarmed her, and it had troubled her exceedingly to find that Clara delighted in just those radical notions that were her horror. It was clear, too, that Clara wrote her mother from duty—short, dutiful, correct, and very commonplace notes. To her father she scrawled long, rapid, charmingly frank and interesting letters, signing herself always “Papa’s Own Girl.” To her mother she invariably subscribed herself, “Your affectionate daughter,” which indeed Mrs. Forest considered in rather more ladylike taste, but she was a little jealous all the same.
When Mrs. Forest gave her opinion, in such a decided manner, about Susie’s duty, the doctor paused awhile and filled his pipe in an absent kind of way, holding his box of tobacco with some difficulty, so as to not disturb “Hommie,” the cat, who would jump upon his knee whenever he sat down. Mrs. Forest was never troubled with such familiarity on the part of Hommie, so named by the twins in honor of his perilous adventure in the hominy pot when a kitten. “Doing one’s duty,” the doctor said, “is not all there is of life. This Susie must feel the need of friends sadly. I wish you would take more interest in her, Fannie—talk to her and gain her sympathy.”
“I don’t care to talk to her much, and she don’t care to hear me.”