The Love of Money…

Our house is not very nice. We own it, of course, and that is a great accomplishment as mother has often reminded us whenever we grumbled. But we girls always thought there were some drawbacks even to that, because we couldn’t ask the landlord for new wallpaper or fresh paint, and as for us – we never had, money to spare for the little things we wanted.

There are only four of us, Mother, Jack, Rose and I. We children have been busy all our lives trying to get a good education. We hoped to get a good job when we finished so that mother could spend the rest of her life in luxury. In the meantime she is getting by with the bare necessities since father has died, leaving us little more than we had right now. Mother was extremely busy trying to supply us with food and pay the bills, and she still managed to have the house very neat and tidy. No place could be more beautifully kept than was our home, but the furnishings were nothing to boast about. Mother said it was her faith in God to supply our basic needs that kept her going and that she should not grumble if we did not have the most fancy furnishings as we did have food and shelter.

Our bedroom was the worst of all with its odds and ends of things. “Other girls have silver- backed hairbrushes!” wailed Rose one night, looking at her old one with a scornful glance.
“Yes, and chairs that don’t tip over,” I added, as I managed to save myself from a fall.
“Isn’t it horrid to be poor, Mary?” said Rose.
“It’s no joke.” I was very grim because I had bruised my hand on the rickety chair and tomorrow I had a music lesson and this bruise would make it painful to play.

It was then and there that we decided to do something about our pathetic situation as we saw it. We didn’t speak loud enough for mother to hear us – we weren’t mean enough for that! She’d have been only too glad to help matters if she could. So we had our planning meeting between the two of us girls. We said we’d had enough of old furniture and cheap sash curtains, and we decided it was time to act.

Having reached this decision, we started thinking of a plan and were surprised at how quickly we came up with an idea. I had a talent for music, and Rose was good in Math. The next day I walked around to many of the houses in our neighborhood looking for students who wished to study music. Rose went directly to the home of the Cowans, who had been looking around for a math tutor for their twins. We had discussed the possibility of Rose teaching the Cowans before because they had asked us, but Rose had said that she was so busy with her own studies that she simply didn’t have time for them if she wanted to graduate on time.

It makes a difference when you get interested in something for yourself. We girls soon viewed our new jobs in the light of the furnishings for our room, and felt sure we could squeeze them in – and we did. I found six beginner students and Rose began tutoring the Cowans. They had asked her to teach all four of their children instead of just the two twins. It seemed the whole family had difficulties with math, and their mother was delighted to get a break from her children.

Well, we did it! It wasn’t easy either. My half-dozen students were well on their way in their music studies and my patience had been tried to the limit. Rose also feared her hair would be white before the end of the term. You see, when there’s a certain amount of housework you feel obliged to do, and when your studies are clamouring for attention the rest of the time, it sets your nerves awry to keep the tempo of clumsy fingers that go just half as fast as they should; or to teach over and over again that four times five are always twenty .

But I suppose all these trials helped us to appreciate our possessions when we did get them. They were just as sweet and dainty as we had hoped. We got two single beds – white enamel with brass trimmings – and a pretty mirror in a neat frame. Our old dressing table looked like new with fresh drapery, and there were full-length curtains that actually matched. Two lovely white rockers, two other chairs, and a little round stand made us feel simply blissful. We painted our bookshelves with white enamel paint, and did our woodwork ourselves. Jack painted the floor a soft grey that would blend with anything, and after it was dry we laid on it one of our chief treasures. It was a grass rug, in low shades of green, with a stenciled border and a general air of elegance that almost overpowered us. It was large enough almost to cover the entire floor, and we stenciled green borders on our curtains and drapery in the same Grecian pattern.

It seemed too good to be true as we stood in the door and viewed the landscape that we had just finished. “It isn’t often that our dreams come true!” sighed Rose.

“But this one has,” I assured her,
She nodded happily. “Yes, and it’s just as nice as we thought it would be!”
“Won’t it do our hearts good to ‘give notice,’ as the cooks say!” “I can hardly wait to tell those awful Cowan kids that they have to learn to get along in math without me. I am so tired of them, Mary.” “I know you are. I wouldn’t mind the music so much if I had time. But it’s dreadful when your own studies drag like millstones about your neck. I’m not clever at learning as you are, Rose. I have to work for what I get. So I shall tell them, next Tuesday, that I’ve decided not to teach any more until school’s finished.” Jack stopped on his way down the hall to look over our shoulders. “Humph!” is all he said. “Doesn’t it look lovely?” asked Rose, her face all smiles. Jack patted her check, and said, “It certainly does,” and then he passed on abruptly. “Something is bothering him!” I declared as he shut his room door behind him. “I can’t imagine what it is, and it’s of no use to ask him. It is difficult to get anything out of’ him until he is ready to speak.”

Mother came up the stairs just then waving a note in her hand. “It’s from Helen Hunt!” She announced joyfully. “She is going to spend a day and a night with us next week on her, way to Groveport. I shall be so glad to see her.” Mrs. Hunt and mother have been friends more years than Rose and I have lived, and they very seldom meet any more. So we girls were almost as glad as mother was, because that dear woman doesn’t have as many pleasures as she deserves.

After we went to bed that night, we planned the surprise. The visitor would have our lovely new nest, and we’d go and camp in the shabby old guest-room. We knew it would please mother, for she hadn’t had so pretty a place to entertain Mrs. Hunt in for many years. It did please her, too, so much that she almost cried, and she hugged us and thanked us till we felt very happy and self-satisfied. Jack was standing by, and he said, “Humph!” again, in that same queer tone. Then mother turned and hugged him. and Rose and I said to each other how strange that Jack should be jealous when his mother hugged his own sisters.

The sun was shining on the day Mrs. Hunt was to arrive. Mother went to the station to meet her, and, as she started out, she called back, “Children, if any of you have occasion to go into my room while I’m gone, be sure to shut the door when you come out!”

We answered, “All right!” all three at once, and then Rose said, “How funny! What do you suppose made her tell us to do that? She’s never said that before.”
“I can’t imagine,” I replied, and then Jack smiled. If it had been anybody but our jolly old Jack, I’d have said his smile was sarcastic; but no one ever accused that boy of anything so ill natured. Then he said in a quiet even voice: “It doesn’t take a very smart person to figure that one out. She wants to make sure that Mrs. Hunt doesn’t see the contrast between her room and the one across the hall. She might not understand – or approve.”
And with that he took his cap and went out.

Stunned? I guess we were! Rose and I stared at each other as if we had seen a ghost. Then we put our arms around each other and went upstairs without a word. It was mother’s door we opened, and we stood there and gazed as if we’d never seen that room before. She had been darning her carpet again.
We could see the careful stitches and the frayed edges her art couldn’t quite conceal. “She has polished her furniture too! See how it shines, Mary. She tried to make it look its best.” Rose’s voice was mournful, so I tried to speak cheerfully.

“She sure did and she has made it look as nice as possible.” Then we turned and both of us choked back a sob at what we saw. She had taken our discarded dressing-table drapery, cut out the best portions, ruffled it daintily, pressed it neatly, and put it on her own bureau. Our worn-out sash curtains, nicely laundered, veiled her bookshelf.

“Mary, our mother – our precious jewel of a mother! We’ve taken everything selfishly for ourselves and left her the rags!
Since Father died, Mother has sacrificed and worked so hard just so we could keep our house and have food on the table.”
Rose had her head on my shoulder, and by that time 1 was crying as hard as she was.
“No wonder Jack was dissatisfied!” 1 sobbed, “Rose, why didn’t he tell us?”
“0 Mary, why did we need telling? That’s what breaks my heart. We were so selfish. Even our rickety chair is fixed up and set back in the comer of her room. 0 1 can’t stand it!”
“We’ve got to!” 1 stiffened up grimly. “We’ve got to stand it, and it serves us right. But we’ll make it up to her as soon as Mrs. Hunt is gone.”
“Yes, if we can live until then.”
“1 think we’ll manage to. Mortification won’t kill us in twenty-four hours. We’ll make her sleep in there tonight, and they can have one cosy visit in suitable quarters. Monsters we are.”

Rose didn’t resent being called a monster. She knew it was appropriate.
We did some thinking that night. 1 never felt so utterly insignificant in my life. We realized at last that there are other ways to show love than letting its object do all the sacrificing, all the giving and enduring, while the one who bestows it revels in selfishness. We didn’t say anything then, but mother was not allowed in the kitchen that night. We cooked the meal and cleaned up so that she could spend time with her friend. If Rose and 1 sat over our books an hour after our usual bedtime, it hurt no one but ourselves and we deserved it.

They had a lovely time together. We could hear their soft voices rise and fall, and once in awhile a ripple of laughter, till we dropped off to sleep. The next night, mother went back to her own room. We didn’t say a word to prevent it, though it hurt us to think of our old rags in there for mother to use.
The next day there was an early morning phone call from Mrs. Hall, an old neighbour, urging mother to meet her downtown at 10 o’clock. There was some important shopping on hand and mother’s advice was indispensable. Mother did not suspect that her daughters had frantically counseled with Mrs. Hall the day before to come up with some scheme to get mother out of the house for most of the day. “All day, Mrs. Hall!” we pleaded. “We’ve planned a surprise for her, and it will take quite some time to arrange it.” Mother didn’t see how she could take the time to go, but we assured her that since we’d be at home, she wasn’t needed at all for the day. If this struck her as a most unusual state of affairs, she was too polite to say so, and, true to her habit of helpfulness, she dressed and went to: Mrs. Hall’s rescue.

We didn’t waste any time, I assure you. We couldn’t paint the floor just then, but Jack stained it around the edges where it wouldn’t have to be walked on, and the grass rug covered the rest. We burned the old rag rugs. It did our hearts good to see them crisp and turn to ashes.
Into the attic went the ugly old things, and across the hall came the pretty new ones, – curtains, dressing table, chairs, every single. dainty belonging, even the drapery from our bookshelves. Our neighbor Tom came in and helped carry things, and Jack worked like a beaver. He didn’t need any urging either. If ever a boy’s face shone like a full moon, Jack’s did that happy ,day, though he stopped at least a dozen times to hug his sisters. “What a beast I was to think you could be as selfish as all that!” he exclaimed once, “I ought to have known better!”

“But we were just that selfish, Jack,” we told him. “We didn’t mean to sail under false colours. We’d never have thought, if it hadn’t been for you.”
“Yes, you would. The first jolt would have woken you up. Lend a hand here, Mary.”
It was done at last, all cosy and fresh. Rose stopped in the door. “It looks like mother,” she said. “It’s pure and sweet like her.”

“The other one looks pretty forlorn, girls. What are you going to do about it?” Jack had a hand on our shoulders as he spoke, and we felt his sympathy.
“Do?” we chirped up as brisk as millionaires. “Why, furnish it, of course.”
“We have one bed to start on,” Rose reminded him. “That’s a big help, and the floor and woodwork are still painted. How are we to do it? Lessons, to be sure. Cowans and music scales.”
“I thought you wanted to quit.” Our brother looked troubled.

“My dear brother, we’ve changed our minds. Our most ardent desire now is to keep on,” I told him. Rose smiled. “I am seriously considering refurnishing the whole house,” she remarked. “The Cowans are good for the next 10 years, judging from their present understanding of math, and it’s great practice for me.”

We didn’t give mother a hint until after supper. It was hard to wait, but we made ourselves do it so everything would come about quite naturally. She took her bonnet and wrap up to put them away, and we three tagged, as softly as if we had pads on our feet, like cats. She opened her door and gave one bewildered glance, and then she turned and saw us. “It’s yours, Lovely, every bit!” we told her.

“Darlings, I couldn’t,” she said. “Your hard work – your dear new treasures! I couldn’t permit such a sacrifice, my darlings 1” We just would not cry, though the lumps in our throats made our voices sound as if they belonged to someone else.
“They aren’t our new treasures, they’re yours.”
Who has been making sacrifices for us all of our lives?”

“We love you so – you couldn’t hurt us by refusing.” “There is no question about refusing.” Rose spoke with great emphasis. “This room is yours mother, once and for all, and there is no more to be said about it.”
We tucked her into her pretty white bed that night, and we kissed the dear face on the ruffled pillow. Jack came in for his good night, too, and we all stood looking down at her, so happy we couldn’t talk. She lifted her arms- those arms that had worked so hard for us – and gathered the three of us to her at once. “My darlings! May the Lord richly bless you.” Was all she said, and we crept out softly, knowing we had received her blessing.

Yes, we are getting our second collection of furniture into shape slowly but surely. But we have learned that there are more precious things to be had in homes than beds and chairs, or even green grass rugs. We have them – the precious things – so, now that mother’s room is accomplished, we can wait very happily for the beds and chairs – Rose, Jack and I.

So if you are not happy about your present condition in life, stop complaining and do something about it if it is possible. If you can’t change things, just be content that the Lord has provided food, clothing and shelter for you. Along the way remember, it is more blessed to give than to receive. It is not a sin to have money or to be rich; as long as the money has been obtained in an honest manner and also that it is used wisely and not selfishly. “The love of money is the root of all evil.” 2 Tim. 6: 10.