Can’t Afford to Play
“Why, John, can this be you? It is so unusual to see you anywhere but on the box, that I can hardly believe my eyes. Have you left the Tramways Company?”
John Carrington took Mrs. Markham’s questions in order, and replied, “Yes, ma’am, it is me sure enough. It is strange to see me walking about, for I believe most people are so used to notice me a-front of a tram-car, that they think I sleep on the driving-seat. I have been driving something or other ever since I grew big enough to take a good grip of the rains, and that’s over fifty years since. I have not left the Company.”
“Then, I suppose, you are having a holiday, John?”
“Queer sort o’ holiday,” returned John, speaking in a very husky voice, and from under a thick muffler. “Spent it on my back, in bed. I can’t say but I could have done with a little extra rest, for working hours are very long. But being in bed is one thing, and resting is another. I had bronchitis, and when you feel as if you were going to suffocate almost, and your breath comes whistling out of your throat with a noise loud enough to serve as a signal to start the horses, you gain very little comfort by that sort of rest, do you, now?”
“Indeed, you do not, and you ought to be resting at this moment, for you are still unfit to be out of doors. You should have stayed in on such a keen frosty day as this, seeing you are not on duty,” said Mrs. Markham.
“Come out to get hardened to it a bit, ma’am. Doctor said it wouldn’t do to go straight from bed to the driving-box.”
Mrs. Markham felt troubled at John’s words. He was quite the favourite tram-car driver on that route, and liked by all his passengers. He was constantly on the lookout for his patrons, and saluted them by a flourish of the whip, or a touch of his white hat, sometimes even by a brief remark, when practicable. He anticipated their signals, telegraphed through the window to know if he were to stop at the usual place, and managed to do almost double duty as driver and conductor.
A crusty new-comer in the latter capacity would sometimes remark that, but for collecting fares, there might as well be no guard when John was on the box, for he didn’t seem to know what was his own share of the work. But John’s unfailing good temper and cheery ways were certain to convert the grumbler into a friend before many days were over.
It seemed to Mrs. Markham such a pity for the man to be out in the keen air when he was better fitted for bed, and she urged him to go home and stay indoors a little longer.
John shook his head and replied gravely, “No use talking, ma’am, thank ye all the same. I can’t afford to play. You see, there’s my old woman has been an ailing body for many a year. The doctor has been kind, and charged as little as he could afford. But a-many things go to making an invalid comfortable, beside the doctor and the physic. I must go at it again to-morrow, for certain.”
“I thought you tram people had a fund of some kind, so that when laid by through illness, you would have a weekly allowance,” said Mrs. Markham.
“There is one for the young ’uns. But when I started in the service there was no such thing, and now there is, I am too old to join.”
“That seems hard. Those most likely to need the help are shut out from it.”
“Excuse me, ma’am, but there’s no hardship in it. They could not take on old men members that would come on to the fund very soon after they began paying, and it would not be fair to the young ’uns. It is expected that you will pay for a good while before you want anything back, except through accident or sudden illness. Young and old must take their chance of such things. The fund is started so that members may get ready for the rainy day whilst the sky is clear overhead. I cannot benefit by it myself, but I thank God when I think that, if these young fellows live to be old and ailing, they will not have to choose between working when they are not fit for it, or playing and starving.”
John was preparing to pass on his way with a touch of the hat, and “Good-day to ye, ma’am, and thank ye. A kind word always cheers me up a bit, and I tell it over again to the old woman,” but Mrs. Markham stopped him to bestow a little sum which would insure him a couple of days more rest, and left him with kindly wishes for his recovery.
“I can’t afford to play.”
There is something very touching in the expression when we think of its meaning, as John Carrington used it. As most of us understand the word, play means recreation, happy pastime, accompanied by brightness, enjoyment, and freedom from care for the time.
We hear it spoken, and straightway we see visions of merry youngsters, gambolling in the fields, or home, and making the air ring with, or the walls echo, their joyous shouts and laughter.
But the word in the mouth of working folk carries a sadder meaning. As a rule it refers to the enforced idleness brought about by the lack of something for the busy hands to do, and, if long continued, means want of everything else for wives and children at home.
An anxious, careworn woman in real distress will say, “My husband is on short time. He has worked three days and played three, every week for the last two months.” Or, “He has played since Christmas and we are into February.”
Such an application of the word gives little heartache to those who hear it for the first time, and who have hitherto regarded play and joy as twins.
There are tens of thousands of toilers who, like John Carrington, have home claims which compel them to go the endless round of daily work, because they cannot afford to lose an hour’s pay, though they are unfit for labour.
Think of this, you who call your time your own. Who have so much of it at your disposal that you are put to shifts and contrivances to kill it, or fritter away the hours which drag on too slowly, whilst you wait for some new pleasure that you have promised yourselves.
Think of it, you who have never experienced a moment’s anxiety about a supply of the bread that perisheth and all its luxurious accompaniments which you would call the necessaries of life.
Try to imagine what it would be to go on, on, on, ever repeating the same tasks in the same place, with nothing new to look at even, no expectation of anything better, no hope of cessation, except through sickness which means suffering, or lack of work to do, which means lack of food also. And all this to support a bare existence of ceaseless toil, and for the barest bread as its reward.
Have you ever thought that a day’s rest to such would be like a foretaste of heaven? A something longed for, but never hoped-for or looked for, by tens of thousands? A something you might give now and then without feeling the cost of it, though, having never been placed in such circumstances, you could not estimate its value. I do not mean the giving a day in the country. That kind of change is a very delightful one, a summer blessing which dwellers in dim city alleys know how to value. But this day of rest that I mean, would be an all-the-year-round boon, and would perhaps, be most precious in winter time, because then, the aching eyes and head of the weary seamstress suffer more, on account of the small allowance of light. Then the delicate frames shrink most from the pinching cold; and to have, just for one day, wages without toil, and food without having first to earn it, the freedom to sit at ease by a warm fireside, without being driven back to toil by the voice of necessity, would, I say, be heaven upon earth to many a deserving worker, who can never “afford to play.”
I know a lady who gives this happiness now and then, to some of her poor acquaintances. When she sees one of them beginning to droop, say over her sewing machine, she says “What will a day’s rest cost. Tell me, and I will pay for it.”
Sometimes there is a press of work, and even the paying would not secure the holiday, but she bides her time, and waits, till the toiler would be allowed the day off, if she could afford to take it. Then the money is forthcoming, only the giver bargains that the day shall be spent happily and restfully, and the task work entirely put aside. She gives more than the wages, which are often small enough, so that there may be food and fire without stint, and advises that part of the time be spent out of doors, weather permitting, except where the person helped will be benefited by staying in and enjoying warmth and rest together.
One poor woman said to her, “You made me promise not to work, ma’am, and, at first, it seemed so strange to be able to do as I liked, that I felt quite lost.
“Then, I thought, I might do a bit—not enough to tire me—for we want so many things, and half a day’s wage would be something extra. But I was vexed at myself for even thinking of breaking my promise when you had been so kind as to set my hands free and make things comfortable for the day. So I set to work to enjoy myself. I cooked the dinner, such a good one! And I had a real play with the children, poor things! They could hardly believe their ears when they saw my face and heard me laughing, and we all sat down instead of snatching a bite anyhow.
“After dinner, the sun was shining, and we went for a short walk, and looked in at shop windows, and after that I nodded in the old chair whilst they played with some more children in the court.
“I went to bed same time as they did, knowing I must begin again in the morning, but one day’s rest did me more good than medicine, and I felt twice the woman after it that I did before it, thanks to God and you, ma’am.”
If anybody wants to make a poor toiler happy, let her look round for some worthy, weary body, and give it a day’s rest, by bestowing a conditional day’s wages and the little more which shall spread the board and brighten the hearth. Such an expenditure pays good and immediate interest, and the night’s rest of the giver will be all the sweeter for the memory of the drop of sweetness which she has been able to infuse into the cup of one less favoured than herself.
The Master will not forget the work of love, and those are precious words which tell us, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.”