Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories Part 6

"Oh, yes, I'd have made something--more, a good deal, than I can make by day's work. The fact is, I set my heart on that job as a stepping stone to contract work; and am bitterly disappointed at its loss. Much good may it do both Jackson and Clinton. I shouldn't be much sorry to see the new dam swept away by the next freshet."

"Why, Maxwell! This is not the spirit of a Christian man. Envy, malice--these are what the Bible condemns in the plainest terms; and for these sins, the poor have quite as much to answer for as the rich--and perhaps more. If you go from church on the Sabbath with no better thoughts than these, I fear you are quite as far from the Kingdom of Heaven as you have supposed Mr. Clinton to be."

"Good day," said Maxwell, turning off abruptly from his friend, and taking a path that led by a nearer course than the one in which they were walking, to his home.

A few weeks later, the person with whom Maxwell thus conversed, had occasion to transact some business with Mr. Clinton. He had rendered him a bill for work done, and called to receive payment.

"You've made a mistake in your bill, Mr. Lee," said Clinton.

"Ah? Are you certain?"

"You can examine for yourself. I find an error of twenty dollars in the additions."

"Then you only owe me sixty dollars?" said Lee, with a disappointment in his tones that he could not conceal.

"Rather say that I owe you a hundred, for the mistake is in your favour.

The first column in the bill adds up fifty, instead of thirty dollars."

"Let me examine it." Lee took the bill, and added up the column three times before he felt entirely satisfied. Then he said,

"So it does! Well, I should never have been the wiser if you had only paid me the eighty dollars called for by the bill. You might have retained your advantage with perfect safety."

Lee said this on the impulse of the moment. He instantly saw a change in Mr. Clinton's countenance, as if he were slightly offended.

"Oh, no; not with safety," was gravely replied.

"I never should have found it out."

"But there is coming a day, with every man, when the secrets of his heart will stand revealed. If not now, it would then appear that I had wronged you out of twenty dollars."

"True! true! But all men don't think of this."

"No one is more fully aware of that than I am. It is for me, however, to live in the present so as not to burden my future with shame and repentance. Knowingly, Mr. Lee, I would not wrong any man out of a single dollar. I may err, and do err, like other men; for, to err is human."

After the expression of such sentiments, Lee felt curious to know what Mr. Clinton thought of, and how he felt towards Maxwell. So he said, after referring to the new mill-dam in the process of erection--

"You didn't take the lowest bid for its construction."

"I took the lowest competent bid."

"Then you do not think Maxwell competent to do the work?"

"I do not think him a man to be trusted, and, therefore, would not have given him the contract for such a piece of work at any price. You are aware that the giving way of that dam would almost inevitably involve a serious loss of life and property among the poor people who live along the course of the stream below. I must regard their safety before any pecuniary advantage to myself; and have given Mr. Jackson, who has the contract, positive instructions to exceed his estimates, if necessary, in order to put the question of safety beyond a doubt. I know him to be a man whom I can trust. But I have no confidence in Maxwell."

"A good reason why you declined giving him the job."

"I think so."

"Maxwell was greatly disappointed."

"I know he has spoken very hard against me. But that avails nothing. My principle of action is to do right, and let others think and say what they please. No man is my judge. Maxwell is not, probably, aware that I know him thoroughly, and that I have thrown as much in his way as I could safely do. He is not, of course, aware, that one of my sons overheard him, in reference to this very mill-dam, say--'I'm bound to have that contract whether or no. I have learned the lowest bid, and have put in a bid still lower.' 'How did you learn this?' was asked of him. 'No matter,' he answered, 'I have learned it.' 'You can't go lower and build the dam safely,' was said. To which he replied--'I can build the dam, and make a good profit. As to the safety, I'll leave that in the hands of Providence. He'll take care of the poor people below.' Mr.

Lee! I felt an inward shudder when this was repeated to me. I could not have believed the man so void of common honesty and common humanity. Was I not right to withhold from him such a contract?"

"You would have been no better than Maxwell, if you had given it to him," was answered. "And yet, this same man speaks against the rich, and thinks their chance of heaven a poor one."

"Simply because they are rich."

"Or, it might with more truth be said, because they will not yield to his covetous and envious spirit. He is not content with the equivalent society renders back to him for the benefit he confers, but wants to share what of right belongs to others."

"That spirit I have often seen him manifest," was replied. "Well, if simple riches are a bar to man's entrance into heaven, how much more so are discontent, envy, malice, hatred, and a selfish disregard for the rights and well-being of others. The rich have their temptations, and so have the poor, and neither will enter heaven, unless they overcome in temptation, and receive a purified love of their neighbour. This at least is my doctrine."

"Of the two, I would rather take Clinton's chance of heaven," said Lee to himself, as he went musing away, "even if he is a rich man."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANOTHER DEBT PAID.]

WHAT FIVE DOLLARS PAID.

Mr. Herriot was sitting in his office, one day, when a lad entered, and handed him a small slip of paper. It was a bill for five dollars, due to his shoemaker, a poor man who lived in the next square.

"Tell Mr. Grant that I will settle this soon. It isn't just convenient to-day."

The boy retired.

Now, Mr. Herriot had a five-dollar bill in his pocket; but, he felt as if he couldn't part with it. He didn't like to be entirely out of money.

So, acting from this impulse, he had sent the boy away. Very still sat Mr. Herriot for the next five minutes; yet his thoughts were busy. He was not altogether satisfied with himself. The shoemaker was a poor man, and needed his money as soon as earned--he was not unadvised of this fact.

"I wish I had sent him the five dollars," said Mr. Herriot, at length, half-audibly. "He wants it worse than I do."

He mused still further.

"The fact is," he at length exclaimed, starting up, "it is Grant's money, and not mine; and what is more, he shall have it."

So saying, Herriot took up his hat and left his office.

"Did you get the money, Charles," said Grant, as his boy entered the shop. There was a good deal of earnestness in the shoemaker's tones.

"No, sir," replied the lad.

"Didn't get the money!"

"No, sir."

"Wasn't Mr. Herriot in?"

"Yes, sir; but he said it wasn't convenient to-day."