Autobiographies; Boys -- Biography; Country life; New England
There are ways in which the farmer-boy can earn money, as by gathering
the early chestnuts and taking them to the Corner store, or by finding
turkeys' eggs and selling them to his mother; and another way is to
go without butter at the table,—but the money thus made is for the
heathen. John read in Dr. Livingstone that some of the tribes in
Central Africa (which is represented by a blank spot in the atlas) use
the butter to grease their hair, putting on pounds of it at a time;
and he said he had rather eat his butter than have it put to that use,
especially as it melted away so fast in that hot climate.
Of course it was explained to John that the missionaries do not
actually carry butter to Africa, and that they must usually go without
it themselves there, it being almost impossible to make it good from
the milk in the cocoanuts. And it was further explained to him that,
even if the heathen never received his butter or the money for it, it
was an excellent thing for a boy to cultivate the habit of self-denial
and of benevolence, and if the heathen never heard of him he would be
blessed for his generosity. This was all true.
But John said that he was tired of supporting the heathen out of his
butter, and he wished the rest of the family would also stop eating
butter and save the money for missions; and he wanted to know where the
other members of the family got their money to send to the heathen; and
his mother said that he was about half right, and that self-denial was
just as good for grown people as it was for little boys and girls.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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