Mrs. Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters, Volume 3Various
Religion
Mrs. Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters, Volume 3
Various
Christian life -- Periodicals
He immediately ordered his servants to take off their nice new clothes
and to put on their old garments, and he sent them back to the forest,
ever after to eat their bread _by the sweat_ of their brow.
* * * * *
Original.
OLD JUDA.
Many years since, I took into my service an old colored woman by the
name of Juda. She was a poor, pitiful object, almost worn out by hard
and long service. But I needed just such services as she could render,
and intrusted to her the general supervision of my kitchen department.
Under the care bestowed upon her she fast recruited, and I continued to
employ her for three years. I gave her good wages, and, as for years I
had induced all my help to do, I persuaded her to deposit in the
savings' bank all the money she could spare. Fortunately for poor old
Juda, she laid up during these three years a considerable sum.
Before this, she had always been improvident, careless of her earnings,
and from a disposition to change often out of place. But as one extreme
is apt to follow another, when she found that she had several dollars
laid aside, entirely a new thing for her, there was quite a revolution
in her feelings and character. She now inclined to covetousness, and
could hardly be persuaded to expend a sum sufficient to make herself
comfortable in extreme cold weather which sensibly affected her in her
old age and feeble health. At length her disposition to hoard up her
earnings increased to that degree that she resorted to many unnecessary
and imprudent means to avoid expense and to evade my requirements with
regard to her apparel. But for this parsimony she might have held out
some years longer. She greatly improved in health and strength for the
first two years, and was more comfortable and useful than I expected she
would be. Always at her post, patient, faithful, economical and
obliging, I really felt grateful for the relief she afforded me in the
management of a large family; but at length I was obliged to dismiss her
from my service. For a few months she found employment in a small
family, but soon fell sick, and required the services of a physician.
She had to find a place of retirement and take to her bed, and soon her
money began to disappear.
Her miserable sister, who had exercised an injurious influence over
Juda, and whom I had found it necessary to forbid coming to my house,
now came constantly to me for this money, for Juda's use, it is true,
but which I had reason to fear was not wisely spent. Under this
impression, I broke away from my cares and set out to look after her
welfare. I was pained to find her in a miserable hovel, surrounded by a
crew of selfish, ignorant, lazy and degraded women, who were ready to
filch the last farthing from the poor, helpless invalid.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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