One day, tired out with sightseein’ and havin’ sunthin’ of a headache, I stayed to home while all the rest of the party went out and Miss Meechim invited me into their settin’-room as it wuz cooler there, so I had sot there for some time readin’ a good book and enjoyin’ my poor health as well as I could, when a card wuz brung in for Robert Strong. I told the hall boy that he wuz out but wuz expected back soon, and in a few minutes he come back usherin’ in a good lookin’ man who said he wuz anxious to see him on business and that he would wait for him. I knowed him from his picture as well as his card; it wuz Mr. Astofeller, a multi-millionaire, who had got his enormous wealth from trusts and monopolies.
I couldn’t go back into my room for Josiah had the key, and so we introduced ourselves and had quite a agreeable visit, when all of a sudden right whilst we wuz talkin’ polite and agreeable two long strings dangled down in front of the eyes of my soul, strings I had often clung to. Well I knowed ’em, and I sez to myself almost wildly:
Oh, Duty! must I cling to thy apron-strings here and now, enjoyin’ as I do poor health and in another woman’s room? For reply, them strings dangled down lower yet, and I had to reach up the arms of my sperit and gently but firmly grip holt on ’em and stiddy myself on ’em whilst I tackled him on the subject of monopolies, having some hopes I could 379 convert him and make him give ’em up then and there and turn round and be on the Lord’s side.
And bein’ so dretful anxious to convince him, I begun some as the M. E. ministers sometimes do in a low, still voice, gradually risin’ higher and deeper and more earnest. I told him my idees of trusts and monopolies and what a danger I thought they wuz to individual and national life. And I described the feelin’s I felt to see such droves of poor people out of work and starvin’ for the necessaries of life, whilst a few wuz pilin’ up enormous and onneeded wealth, and I sez:
“Mr. Astofeller, what good does it do to heap up such a lot of money jest to think you own it and hide it from the tax collector? And bring up your daughters to luxury and foolish display, their gole being to give you a titled son-in-law who will bend down toward you from his eminence jest fur enough to reach your pockets, and if you refuse to have them emptied too many times you will anon or oftener have your daughter returned to you, her beauty eat up by sorrow, her ears tinglin’ and heart burnin’ with experiences a poor girl would never know. And bring up your sons to idleness and temptation, when you know, Mr. Astofeller, that it is Earnest Toil, wise-headed, hard-handed step-ma, that goads her sons on to labor and success. And it is not, as a rule, the sons of millionaires who are our great men. It is the sons of Labor and Privation that hold the prizes of life to-day and will to-morrow.”
And sez I, reasonable: “What is the use, Mr. Astofeller, of so much money, anyway? You can’t ride in but one buggy at a time, or wear more than one coat and vest, or sleep on more than one bed and three pillers at the outside, or eat more than three meals a day with any comfort, so why not let poorer folks have a chance to eat one meal a day––lots of ’em would be tickled to death to.
“Our Lord said: ‘Take no thought for the morrow what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink;’ and He must have meant 380 that the time wuz comin’ when juster laws should prevail, when Mammon should yield to Mercy and plunder changed to plenty for all and no burden of riches for any. The Bible sez that in those days when the pure influence of Jesus still rested on his disciples that they had everything in common.”
Sez Mr. Astofeller, “Start ten men out rich Monday morning, and nine of them would be poor Saturday night, and the tenth one would own the money of all the rest.”
And I sez: “I presoom so, if they had their own way, and that is a big argument to prove that there ought to be a wise head and a merciful hand at the hellum to look out for the hull on ’em. A good father and mother with a big family of children takes care of the hull on ’em. And if one is miserly and one a spendthrift and one a dissipator and one over-ambitious they watch over ’em and curb these different traits of theirn and adjust ’em to the good of all and the honor of their pa and ma. They spur on the indolent and improvident, hold back the greedy and ambitious, watch and see that the careless and good-natured don’t git trod on, nor the strong make slaves of the weaker. The feeble are protected, temptations are kept out of the way of the feeble wills; the honest, industrious ones hain’t allowed to perish for want of work they would gladly do, and the strong, keen-witted ones hain’t allowed to steal from the onfaculized ones. Why, how it would look for that pa to let some of his children heap up more money than they could use, whilst some of the children wuz starvin’? It would make talk and ort to.”
Mr. Astofeller said, “Millionaires are very charitable; look at their generous gifts on every side.”