“Miss De Voe told me long ago about your savings-bank fund for helping the poor people. Now that I have come into my money, I want to do what she does. Give a thousand dollars a year to it—and then you are to tell me just what you do with it.”
“Of course I’m bound to take it, if you insist. But it won’t do any good. Even Miss De Voe has stopped giving now, and I haven’t added anything to it for over five years.”
“Why is that?”
“You see, I began by loaning the fund to people who were in trouble, or who could be boosted a little by help, and for three or four years, I found the money went pretty fast. But by that time people began to pay it back, with interest often, and there has hardly been a case when it hasn’t been repaid. So what with Miss De Voe’s contributions, and the return of the money, I really have more than I can properly use already. There’s only about eight thousand loaned at present, and nearly five thousand in bank.”
“I’m so sorry!” said Leonore. “But couldn’t you give some of the money, so that it wouldn’t come back?”
“That does more harm than good. It’s like giving opium to kill temporary pain. It stops the pain for the moment, but only to weaken the system so as to make the person less able to bear pain in the future. That’s the trouble with most of our charity. It weakens quite as much as it helps.”
“I have thought about this for five years as something I should do. I’m so grieved.” And Leonore looked her words.
Peter could not stand that look. “I’ve been thinking of sending a thousand dollars of the fund, that I didn’t think there was much chance of using, to a Fresh Air fund and the Day Nursery. If you wish I’ll send two thousand instead and then take your thousand? Then I can use that for whatever I have a chance.”
“That will do nicely. But I thought you didn’t think regular charities did much good?”
“Some don’t. But it’s different with children. They don’t feel the stigma and are not humiliated or made indolent by help. We can’t do too much to help them. The future of this country depends on its poor children. If they are to do right, they must be saved from ill-health, and ignorance, and vice; and the first step is to give them good food and air, so that they shall have strong little bodies. A sound man, physically, may not be a strong man in other ways, but he stands a much better chance.”