The Secret of It
One October afternoon Frank Stevens was gathering apples in his father’s orchard. Great piles of golden pippins and rosy Baldwins lay under the trees, waiting to be sorted and packed in the barrels that were standing near. His brother Kent, many years older than himself, was helping. It so happened that their work lay for a time near the main road where people came and went. Leaning against the fence was Mr. Marvin, who had stopped for a little neighborly chat.
Down the hill, trotting leisurely along, came a black pony. On his back was Harry Porter, one of Frank’s schoolmates. He, too, drew up by the fence, and as he called, “Halloo, Frank!” cast a longing eye at the red apples.
After chatting a few minutes, he trotted off again, an apple in his hand, and two in each pocket.
“That’s a splendid boy!” said Mr. Kent Stevens.
“Yes; there’s the making of a fine man in him,” answered Mr. Marvin; “he’s uncommonly bright, I noticed him at the examination last spring; clear as a bell he was, working hard examples and talking off the explanation as glibly as the professor himself. I reckon it would have puzzled some of us committee to have done it.”
Frank listened in silence as the talk went on while he sorted the fair apples from the knurly. He had a gloomy, cross look on his face, as though his thoughts were not pleasant ones, and he did not work in his usual brisk way.
When Mr. Marvin went away, his thoughts came out.
“No wonder,” he said, “that Harry Porter is always praised up so. He has some chance in the world. His father is rich; he has a new book every time he turns around; his father never goes away but he brings him one; then he goes travelling. He has been out West and been to Boston and New York. He has been on the top of Pike’s Peak, and he has seen Bunker Hill monument and the obelisk. Why shouldn’t he know more than any of the rest of us? He has lots of time besides, to study, and have fun, too. Out of school he needn’t do anything but trot about on that pony. What’s the use of a fellow like me trying to make anything of himself?”
It was not such a very long time ago that Kent Stevens had been a boy himself, even if he was now a young lawyer in the city. He came every summer to the old home for a play spell, he called it, and then he proved that he had not forgotten how to rake hay and pick apples. He had not forgotten, either, how a boy feels, so he was excellent company for Frank. He placed the last apple in a closely packed barrel, then he turned and looked curiously at his brother.
“Why, Frank! What has got into you to-day?” he said. “You don’t seem one bit like our bright cheery boy. Do you think you are one of the fellows who has no chance? Let us sit down in this sunny spot and rest ourselves, and count up some of your chances.—A good home, a splendid father and mother—to say nothing of a very wise brother—a few good books, a weekly newspaper, a church and Sabbath-school, an excellent, day-school, good eyes and ears and stomach, a pair of legs that can run like a squirrel, two strong arms, and a very good mind, and here you talk of not having ‘chances!’
“How do yours look when you cast your eye at little Tim Morey with a drunken father and a shanty for a home, or at Johnny Wilson, who is almost blind, or poor Will Smith who must go for the rest of his life on crutches and suffer much pain? Or compare your lot with the boys who work in the factory, who must go to their work at seven in the morning and stay until seven in the evening, day after day, year after year. What about their chances? Don’t you know, dear boy, that as a rule, it is not boys with rich fathers who turn out to be the greatest men?
“Look at me,” he said, straightening himself up and marching about with mock pompousness. “Haven’t I put the sweat of my brow and my muscle into this old farm? Didn’t I get out of my bed at cock-crowing and go after the cows in wet grass up to my knees?
“Haven’t I milked and ploughed and planted corn and hoed it and husked it? And yet, I got through and had no more hard work than was good for me, I believe now, though I used to grumble sometimes just as you are doing now.
“I tell you, my boy, it is not in having this or that, or going here and there, that makes a success, but it is improving, to the very utmost, the advantages one has, though they be not the best.
“There is another secret too. One must be in dead earnest; must have an aim and stick to it in spite of anything, and the greatest secret of all is, that aim must not be alone to be a rich man or a learned man, but it must be this—‘to make the very most of one’s self for Christ’s sake.’ And you can’t begin too young; the younger the better.
“I heard something about two men the other day, that is just in point here—but perhaps you are tired of my preaching and want to go in.”
“Oh no, tell it,” said Frank. “You know I would rather have you preach to me than anybody else.”
“Well, a good many years ago two boys lived in the same town and went to the same school. They both had pretty good advantages and were naturally bright and clear-headed. All the difference between them was, that from the time they were very little fellows, John was always laying plans to have a ‘good time.’
“Will loved fun as well as he did, but in both fun and work, his chief aim was to be right and true.
“As they grew up to be young men, Will held fast to the choice he had made when a little boy.
“The Lord Jesus Christ was his master.
“John had an entirely different master; he shirked his lessons, and wasted his time and money in what he called ‘fun.’
“When school days were over, one of them had a fine start in his education, but poor John was almost a dunce, it was surprising how little he knew thoroughly.
“When Will went into business, he made a resolution in the very beginning to give a certain part of his money to the Lord’s work, whether he made much or little. He was prospered, and he grew to be a rich, strong man, foremost in every good work; everybody loved and honored him. He was a grand temperance worker, and he gave great sums to the poor and helped educate many young men for the ministry. The more he gave away the richer he grew, but he kept giving, and for some time before his death it is said that he gave away a thousand dollars a day!
“Will was William E. Dodge who died a few weeks ago in the city. You remember the papers were filled with accounts of him. Nobody could say a word against him, and the whole city was in mourning.
“It is strange that as the boys came into the world about the same time, they left it within a few days of each other. But oh! so differently. There were no weeping friends at John’s funeral. Nobody said over his coffin, ‘Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.’ Not one cried, ‘How shall his place be filled.’
“John had become a miserable sot. Nearly all his old friends had lost sight of him. He lived without God, and so he died without him, miserable and alone, and he was carried to his grave from the almshouse—just a rough pine box in a cart—and that was the last of John, for this life.
“Don’t you see, Frank, that under God’s blessing, every boy has it in his own power to choose whether his life shall be lived and ended like John’s or like William E. Dodge’s?”
“It was a good sermon, Kent,” Frank said soberly, as they walked up to the house. “It helps me; I’ll not forget.”