Chapter VI A Plan
It’s nice to get gifts,
But better to give:
For giving leaves always a glow
That warms up a part
In every heart;
The joy of it never can go.
There was woe in Ethelwyn’s heart and pain in her throat, and the woe was on account of the pain; for Elizabeth and her mother had gone to town to arrange things for Dick, who was to be taken to the hospital, where he was to undergo an operation that would, in all probability cure him. And now Ethelwyn, ever desirous of being at the head and front of things, had taken this wretched cold and could not go.
Very shortly after Mrs. Flaharty had told them about Dick, their mother had taken them to see him. His home was a long way from their cottage, where the fisher people lived, and the sights and smells in the hot summer air were hard to bear even for those who were well. Poor little Dick, lying day after day on his hard bed, with no care except what the kind-hearted washerwoman could give him, felt that life was an ill thing at best, and he was fast hastening out of it, with the assistance of ill nutrition and bad ventilation. Dick’s own mother and father were dead, and his stepmother, a rough-looking creature, when she remembered him at all, looked upon him as a useless encumbrance, and by her neglect was making him very unhappy.
Ethelwyn and Elizabeth, quite unused to suffering of this sort, sat soberly by, during their first visit, and watched their mother bending tenderly over the feeble little invalid, and ministering to his needs.
In a week’s time they had changed things marvelously. The stepmother had, for a sum that meant a great deal to her, relinquished all claim upon Dick, so he was placed in the care of a sewing woman, who, by reason of rheumatism in her fingers, could not sew any more; and she filled the starving sore spot in her childless heart with a loving devotion to Dick. The sum paid her for this care kept them both in comfort, and Dick, with flowers and birds about him, and with wholesome, dainty food, gradually lost his gaunt, hunted look and began to take a fresh hold of life.
The doctor attending him gave it as his opinion that in one of the city hospitals the little fellow might be cured, and it was to see about this that Elizabeth and her mother had gone to town.
The night before they were all in their sitting-room, talking it over. Aunty Stevens, who was greatly interested, had brought her knitting and joined them.
“It would be a lovely work,” said Mrs. Rayburn, thoughtfully looking at the fire, “to make a home for Dick and many such poor little weaklings, somewhere up on these heights where, with fresh air and good, well-cooked food, they could have a fighting chance for life.”
“There’s our money,” said Ethelwyn, cuddling her hand in her mother’s. “Let’s make one with it.”
“Would you like that?”
“Yes, indeed we should,” they answered in a breath.
“But it would take a great deal of money, and instead of being very rich when you grow up, and being able to travel everywhere and have beautiful clothing and jewels, you might have to give up many things of that sort.”
“But,” said Elizabeth, climbing up into her mother’s lap, “isn’t doing things for poor children like Dick, better than that?”
“There’s no doubt about it,” said their mother, her eyes shining as she kissed the tops of the two round heads now cuddled on her shoulders, in what Beth called her “arm cuddles.”
“Well, we don’t mind then, do we, sister?”
“No indeed,” said sister promptly, kicking her foot out towards the fire. “Dresses are a bother, and always getting torn, and traveling makes you very tired, only the luncheon’s nice. But I’d lots rather build a home.”
“Let’s see,” said mother, “if you are as ready to give up something now. Elizabeth’s birthday is next week and Ethelwyn’s next month. I had thought we might take a short yachting trip,—all of us, Nan, Aunty Stevens—”
“O, mother,” they cried, turning around to hug her.
“Then there is a doll in town that can walk and talk. Beth, deary, you choke me so I can’t talk;—and a camera for sister. Would you mind giving up these things to help pay the hospital expenses, or to buy a wheel chair or some comfort for Dick?”
Down went the heads again, and dead silence reigned except for the crackling of the fire and the clicking of Aunty Stevens’ needles.
“May we go away and think it over?” said Ethelwyn soberly.
“Yes.”
So they slid down and disappeared to think it out alone, as they always did when obliged to settle questions for themselves. Ethelwyn went outdoors, and crawled into the hammock on the porch. The wind blew mistily from the sea and was heavy with dampness and cold, but the child paid no attention to that; she was so busy thinking. Surely, she thought, there was money enough for Dick and the others without giving up her camera and the sea trip. She had longed for a camera all summer. Nan had the use of her mother’s and had taken their pictures in all places and positions, and she did so wish for one. But then, there was poor Dick, how uncomfortable he had looked.
Elizabeth, meantime, went to the bedside of her beloved doll family. They were lying serene and placid, exactly as she had placed and tucked them in at bedtime, with her own motherly hand, and the memory of Dick lying racked with pain on the comfortless bed where she had first seen him, almost decided her at once. But a doll that could walk and talk, though, would be lovely.
“But then, darlings,” she said, after a little, “you might think I would love her better than you, and you are such dears, you don’t deserve that.”
So Beth kissed them all with fervor, her mind quite made up.
While they were away, Aunty Stevens said, “Isn’t that a pretty hard test?”
The children’s mother shook her head thoughtfully at the dancing fire.
“I hope not,” she said. “I don’t wish them to do things now that they will repent of afterwards. But it seems to me that if they are trained now to be unselfish, they will always be so. Don’t you think, dear Mrs. Stevens, that the whole trouble with the world is its selfishness?”
“No doubt at all about it,” said the older woman, nodding emphatically over her flying needles.
“Then if the world is to be made better, and rid of this, which lies at the bottom of all the crime, sin and unhappiness, the younger ones of us will have to be taught to sacrifice, at least some luxuries, to help give less fortunate ones the necessities of life,” said Mrs. Rayburn, getting interested, and talking fast and earnestly.
“How I hate the expression ‘Look out for number one,’ It’s such teaching as this, that makes human beings so forgetful of others,” she went on after a little pause, “and the modern socialist only seems to be trying to exchange one set of selfish, grasping rules for another of the same sort. So the world will go on, until the laws are again based on the teaching of our Lord, and Christian socialism will prevail.”
“Yes, you are quite right, but what are you among so many?” asked Aunty Stevens, smiling across at her friend.
Mrs. Rayburn’s cheeks flushed. “Yes, I know,” she said. “I suppose it looks as though I alone were trying to reform the world; but I am not. I am only one little atom trying to teach still smaller atoms that they must do their share.”
“Was it not in ‘Bleak House’ that that exceedingly unpleasant personage used to give away her children’s pocket money? And the black looks she received from them when she was not looking, were something dreadful.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Rayburn, laughing, “I hope you don’t think the cases are parallel.”
“No indeed, I don’t. I was trying to say, I think you are right because you go at it in the right way, and let them choose. Then, because they love and have perfect confidence in you, they will be pretty likely to choose the right way.”
“People so often say, ‘Let children have a good time,’ but interpreted, from their point of view, a good time, means a selfish time. That is selfish enjoyment, but it might be good occasionally to put to the test the truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Elizabeth now came in with her baby doll in her arms. She soberly climbed up again into the blessed fold of her mother’s arms.
“I’d just as lief Dick would have it as not, momsey, for I’ve my heart chock full of dolls now, and it will be so good to have Dick and others well and comfyble.”
Ethelwyn came a moment later.
“It’s all right, mother,” she said, also climbing up to her place. “I can make pictures with a pencil more easily than I can bear to think that Dick needs my camera money, I’ll be glad to do it, mother.”
But Ethelwyn’s voice was hoarse, and the next morning she was not well enough to go to town.