He paused, lost in contemplation of the picture he had conjured up.
“Yes,” I went on catechistically, determined, if I could, to rout out this matter of giving, this actual example of the modus operandi of Christian charity. “What do you do? How do you get along without giving them money?”
“I don’t get along without giving them some money. There are cases, lots of them, where a little money is necessary. But, brother, it is so little necessary at times. It isn’t always money they want. You can’t reach them with old clothes and charity societies,” he insisted. “You’ve got to love them, brother. You’ve got to go to them and love them, just as they are, scarred and miserable and bad-hearted.”
“Yes,” I replied doubtfully, deciding to follow this up later. “But just what is it you do in a needy case? One instance?”
“Why, one night I was passing a little house in this town,” he went on, “and I heard a woman crying. I went right to the door and opened it, and when I got inside she just stopped and looked at me.
“‘Madam,’ I said, ‘I have come to help you, if I can. Now you tell me what you’re crying for.’
“Well, sir, you know she sat there and told me how her husband drank and how she didn’t have anything in the house to eat, and so I just gave her all I had and told her I would see her husband for her, and the next day I went and hunted him up and said to him, ‘Oh, brother, I wish you would open your eyes and see what you are doing. I wish you wouldn’t do that any more. It’s only misery you are creating.’ And, you know, I got to telling about how badly his wife felt about it, and how I intended to work and try and help her, and bless me if he didn’t up and promise me before I got through that he wouldn’t do that any more. And he didn’t. He’s working today, and it’s been two years since I went to him, nearly.”
His eyes were alight with his appreciation of personal service.
“Yes, that’s one instance,” I said.
“Oh, there are plenty of them,” he replied. “It’s the only way. Down here in New London a couple of winters ago we had a terrible time of it. That was the winter of the panic, you know. Cold—my, but that was a cold winter, and thousands of people out of work—just thousands. It was awful. I tried to do what I could here and there all along, but finally things got so bad there that I went to the mayor. I saw they were raising some kind of a fund to help the poor, so I told him that if he’d give me a little of the money they were talking of spending that I’d feed the hungry for a cent-and-a-half a meal.”
“A cent-and-a-half a meal!”
“Yes, sir. They all thought it was rather curious, not possible at first, but they gave me the money and I fed ‘em.”
“Good meals?”
“Yes, as good as I ever eat myself,” he replied.
“How did you do it?” I asked.
“Oh, I can cook. I just went around to the markets, and told the market-men what I wanted—heads of mackerel, and the part of the halibut that’s left after the rich man cuts off his steak—it’s the poorest part that he pays for, you know. And I went fishing myself two or three times—borrowed a big boat and got men to help me—oh, I’m a good fisherman, you know. And then I got the loan of an old covered brickyard that no one was using any more, a great big thing that I could close up and build fires in, and I put my kettle in there and rigged up tables out of borrowed boards, and got people to loan me plates and spoons and knives and forks and cups. I made fish chowder, and fish dinners, and really I set a very fine table, I did, that winter.”
“For a cent-and-a-half a meal!”
“Yes, sir, a cent-and-a-half a meal. Ask any one in New London. That’s all it cost me. The mayor said he was surprised at the way I did it.”
“Well, but there wasn’t any particular personal service in the money they gave you?” I asked, catching him up on that point. “They didn’t personally serve—those who gave you the money?”
“No, sir, they didn’t,” he replied dreamily, with unconscious simplicity. “But they gave through me, you see. That’s the way it was. I gave the personal service. Don’t you see? That’s the way.”
“Yes, that’s the way,” I smiled, avoiding as far as possible a further discussion of this contradiction, so unconscious on his part, and in the drag of his thought he took up another idea.
“I clothed ‘em that winter, too—went around and got barrels and boxes of old clothing. Some of them felt a little ashamed to put on the things, but I got over that, all right. I was wearing them myself, and I just told them, ‘Don’t feel badly, brother. I’m wearing them out of the same barrel with you—I’m wearing them out of the same barrel.’ Got my clothes entirely free for that winter.”
“Can you always get all the aid you need for such enterprises?”
“Usually, and then I can earn a good deal of money when I work steadily. I can get a hundred and fifty dollars for a little yacht, you know, every time I find time to make one; and I can make a good deal of money out of fishing. I went out fishing here on the Fourth of July and caught two hundred blackfish—four and five pounds, almost, every one of them.”
“That ought to be profitable,” I said.
“Well, it was,” he replied.
“How much did you get for them?”
“Oh, I didn’t sell them,” he said. “I never take money for my work that way. I gave them all away.”
“What did you do?” I asked, laughing—“advertise for people to come for them?”
“No. My wife took some, and my daughters, and I took the rest and we carried them around to people that we thought would like to have them.”
“Well, that wasn’t so profitable, was it?” I commented amusedly.
“Yes, they were fine fish,” he replied, not seeming to have heard me.
We dropped the subject of personal service at this point, and I expressed the opinion that his service was only a temporary expedient. Times changed, and with them, people. They forgot. Perhaps those he aided were none the better for accepting his charity.
“I know what you mean,” he said. “But that don’t make any difference. You just have to keep on giving, that’s all, see? Not all of ‘em turn back. It helps a lot. Money is the only dangerous thing to give—but I never give money—not very often. I give myself, rather, as much as possible. I give food and clothing, too, but I try to show ‘em a new way—that’s not money, you know. So many people need a new way. They’re looking for it often, only they don’t seem to know how. But God, dear brother, however poor or mean they are—He knows. You’ve got to reach the heart, you know, and I let Him help me. You’ve got to make a man over in his soul, if you want to help him, and money won’t help you to do that, you know. No, it won’t.”
He looked up at me in clear-eyed faith. It was remarkable.
“Make them over?” I queried, still curious, for it was all like a romance, and rather fantastic to me. “What do you mean? How do you make them over?”
“Oh, in their attitude, that’s how. You’ve got to change a man and bring him out of self-seeking if you really want to make him good. Most men are so tangled up in their own errors and bad ways, and so worried over their seekings, that unless you can set them to giving it’s no use. They’re always seeking, and they don’t know what they want half the time. Money isn’t the thing. Why, half of them wouldn’t understand how to use it if they had it. Their minds are not bright enough. Their perceptions are not clear enough. All you can do is to make them content with themselves. And that, giving to others will do. I never saw the man or the woman yet who couldn’t be happy if you could make them feel the need of living for others, of doing something for somebody besides themselves. It’s a fact. Selfish people are never happy.”