Words for the Wise Part 20

"Try your best. You will never again have such an opportunity."

Peyton did try, but in vain. Those who could lend it to him considered him "too good-hearted a fellow" to trust with money; and he was forced to see that tide, which if he could have taken it at the flood, would have led him on to fortune, slowly and steadily recede.

To Merwin the same offer was made. He had fifteen hundred dollars laid by, and easily procured the balance. No one was afraid to trust him with money.

"What a fool I have been!" was the mental exclamation of Peyton, when he learned that his fellow-clerk had been able, with his own earnings, on a salary no larger than his own, to save enough to embrace the golden opportunity which he was forced to pa.s.s by. "They call Merwin _mean_ and _selfish_--and I am called a _generous fellow_. That means, he has acted like a wise man, and I like a fool, I suppose. I know him better than they do. He is neither mean nor selfish, but careful and prudent, as I ought to have been. His mother is poor, and so is mine.

Ah, me!" and the thought of his mother caused him to clasp both hands against his forehead. "I believe two dollars of his salary have been sent weekly to his poor mother. But I have never helped mine a single cent. There is the mean man, and here is the generous one. Fool! fool!

wretch! He has fifteen hundred dollars ahead, after having sent his mother one hundred dollars a year for five or six years, and I am over five hundred dollars in debt. A fine, generous fellow, truly!"

The mind of Peyton was, as it should be, disturbed to its very centre.

His eyes were fairly opened, and he saw just where he stood, and what he was worth as a generous man.

"They have flattered my weakness," said he, bitterly, "to eat and drink and ride at my expense. It was easy to say, 'how free-hearted he is,'

so that I could hear them. A cheap way of enjoying the good things of life, verily! But the end has come to all this. I am just twenty-seven years old to-day; in five years more I shall be thirty-two. My salary is one thousand dollars. I pay one hundred and fifty dollars a year for boarding; one hundred and fifty more shall clothe me and furnish all my spending-money, which shall be precious little. One year from to-day, if I live, I will owe no man a dollar. My kind old mother, whom I have so long neglected, shall hear from me at once--ten dollars every month I dedicate to her. Come what will, nothing shall touch that. After I am clear of debt, I will save all above my necessary expenses, until I get one or two thousand dollars ahead, which shall be in five years. Then I will look out for a golden opportunity, such as Mervin has found. This agreement with myself I solemnly enter into in the sight of heaven, and nothing shall tempt me to violate it."

"Are you going to ride out this afternoon, Peyton?" inquired a young friend, breaking in upon him at this moment.

"Yes, if you'll hire the buggy," was promptly returned.

"I can't afford that."

"Nor I either. How much is your salary?"

"Only a thousand."

"Just what mine is. If you can't, I am sure I cannot."

"Of course, you ought to be the best judge. I knew you rode out almost every afternoon, and liked company."

"Yes, I have done so; but that's past. I have been a 'fine, generous fellow,' long enough to get in debt and mar my prospects for life, perhaps; but I am going to a.s.sume a new character. No doubt the very ones who have had so many rides, oyster suppers, and theatre tickets at my expense, will all at once discover that I am as mean and selfish as Mervin; but it's no great odds. I only wish I had been as truly n.o.ble and generous in the right quarters as he has been."

"You are in a strange humour to-day."

"I am in a changed humour. That it is so very strange, I do not see--unless for me to think wisely is strange, and perhaps it is."

"Well, all I have to say is, that I, for one, do not blame you, even if I do lose a fine ride into the country now and then," was the frank response.

Peyton went to work in the matter of reform in right good earnest, but he found it hard work; old habits and inclinations were very strong.

Still he had some strength of mind, and he brought this into as vigorous exercise as it was possible for him to do, mainly with success, but sometimes with gentle lapses into self-indulgence.

His mother lived in a neighbouring town, and was in humble circ.u.mstances. She supported herself by keeping a shop for the sale of various little articles. The old lady sat behind her counter, one afternoon, sewing, and thinking of her only son.

"Ah, me!" she sighed, letting her hands fall wearily in her lap, "I thought Henry would have done something for himself long before this; but he is a wild, free-hearted boy, and I suppose spends every thing as he goes along, just as his father did. I'm afraid he will never do any thing for himself. It is a long time since he wrote home. Ah, me!"

And the mother lifted her work again, and strained her dimmed eyes over it.

"Here's a letter for you at last, Mother Peyton," said the well-known voice of the postman, breaking in upon her just at this moment. "That boy of yours don't write home as often as he used to."

"A letter from Henry! Oh, that is pleasant! Dear boy! he doesn't forget his mother."

"No, one would think not," muttered the postman, as he walked away, "considering how often he writes to her."

With trembling hands, Mrs. Peyton broke the seal; a bank-bill crumpled in her fingers as she opened the letter. A portion of its contents was:

"DEAR MOTHER--I have had some very serious thoughts of late about my way of living. You know I never liked to be considered mean; this led me to be, what seemed to everybody, very generous. Everybody was pleased to eat, and drink, and ride at my expense; but no one seemed inclined to let me do the same at his expense. I have been getting a good salary for six or seven years, and, for a part of that time, as much as a thousand dollars. I am ashamed to say that I have not a farthing laid by; nay, what is worse, I owe a good many little bills.

But, dear mother, I think I have come fairly to my senses. I have come to a resolution not to spend a dollar foolishly; thus far I have been able to keep my promise to myself, and, by the help of heaven, I mean to keep it to the end. My first thought, on seeing my folly, was of my shameful disregard to my mother's condition. In this letter are ten dollars. Every month you will receive from me a like sum--more, if you need it. As soon as I can lay by a couple of thousand dollars, I will look around for some means of entering into business, and, as soon after as possible, make provision for you, that your last days may be spent in ease and comfort."

"G.o.d bless the dear boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Peyton, dropping the letter, while the tears gushed from her eyes. The happy mother wept long for joy. With her trembling hand she wrote a reply, and urged him, by the tenderest and most sacred considerations, to keep to his good resolutions.

At the end of a year Peyton examined his affairs, and found himself freed from debt; but there were nearly one hundred dollars for which he could not account. He puzzled over it for one or two evenings, and made out over fifty dollars spent foolishly.

"No doubt the rest of it will have to be pa.s.sed to that account," said he, at last, half angry with himself. "I'll have to watch closer than this. At the end of the next year, I'll not be in doubt about where a hundred dollars have gone."

It was but rarely, now, that you would hear the name of Peyton mentioned. Before, everybody said he was a "fine, generous fellow;"

everybody praised him. Now he seemed to be forgotten, or esteemed of no consideration. He felt this; but he had started to accomplish a certain end, and he had sufficient strength of mind not to be driven from his course.

"Have you seen Peyton of late?" I asked, some two years after this change in his habits. I spoke to one of his old intimate a.s.sociates.

"No, not for a month of Sundays," was his lightly-spoken reply. "What a remarkable change has pa.s.sed over him! Once, he used to be a fine, generous fellow--his heart was in his hand; but now he is as penurious as a miser, and even more selfish: he will neither give nor take. If you happen to be walking with him, and, after waiting as long as decency will permit to be asked to step in somewhere for refreshments, you propose something, he meets you with--'No, I thank you, I am not dry,' or hungry, as the case may be. It's downright savage, it is!"

"This is a specimen of the way in which the world estimates men," said I to myself, after separating from the individual who complained thus of Peyton. "The world is wonderfully impartial in its judgment of men's conduct!"

At the end of five years from the time Peyton reformed his loose habits, he had saved up and placed out at interest the sum of two thousand dollars; and this, after having sent to his mother, regularly, ten dollars every month during the whole period. The fact that he had saved so much was not suspected by any. It was supposed that he had laid up some money, but no one thought he had over four or five hundred dollars.

"I wish you had about three thousand dollars," said Merwin to him, one day. Merwin's business had turned out well. In five years, he had cleared over twenty thousand dollars.

"Why?" asked Peyton.

"I know a first-rate chance for you."

"Indeed. Where?"

"There is a very good business that has been fairly established, and is now languishing for want of a little capital. The man who has made it will take a partner if he can bring in three thousand dollars, which would make the whole concern easy, perfectly safe, and sure of success."

"It's more than I have," returned Peyton, in a voice that was slightly sad.

"So I supposed," Merwin said.

"Although such needn't have been the case, if I had acted as wisely as you through life."

"It's never too late to mend our ways, you know."

"True. But a year mis-spent, is a whole year lost. No matter how hard we strive, we can never make it up. To the day of our death, there will be one year deficient in the sum of life's account."

"A just remark, no doubt. How much would every man save, if he would take good care not only of his years, but of his weeks and days! The sum of life is made up of small aggregations."

"And so the sum of a man's fortune. A dollar mis-spent is a dollar lost, and never can be regained. You say that it will require three thousand dollars to admit a partner into the business of which you just spoke?"