A Damsel in Distress

Trouble sharpens the vision. In our moments of distress we can see

clearly that what is wrong with this world of ours is the fact that

Misery loves company and seldom gets it. Toothache is an unpleasant

ailment; but, if toothache were a natural condition of life, if all

mankind were afflicted with toothache at birth, we should not

notice it. It is the freedom from aching teeth of all those with

whom we come in contact that emphasizes the agony. And, as with

toothache, so with trouble. Until our private affairs go wrong, we

never realize how bubbling over with happiness the bulk of mankind

seems to be. Our aching heart is apparently nothing but a desert

island in an ocean of joy.

George, waking next morning with a heavy heart, made this discovery

before the day was an hour old. The sun was shining, and birds sang

merrily, but this did not disturb him. Nature is ever callous to

human woes, laughing while we weep; and we grow to take her

callousness for granted. What jarred upon George was the infernal

cheerfulness of his fellow men. They seemed to be doing it on

purpose--triumphing over him--glorying in the fact that, however

Fate might have shattered him, they were all right.

People were happy who had never been happy before. Mrs. Platt, for

instance. A grey, depressed woman of middle age, she had seemed

hitherto to have few pleasures beyond breaking dishes and relating

the symptoms of sick neighbours who were not expected to live

through the week. She now sang. George could hear her as she

prepared his breakfast in the kitchen. At first he had had a hope

that she was moaning with pain; but this was dispelled when he had

finished his toilet and proceeded downstairs. The sounds she

emitted suggested anguish, but the words, when he was able to

distinguish them, told another story. Incredible as it might seem,

on this particular morning Mrs. Platt had elected to be

light-hearted. What she was singing sounded like a dirge, but

actually it was "Stop your tickling, Jock!" And, later, when she

brought George his coffee and eggs, she spent a full ten minutes

prattling as he tried to read his paper, pointing out to him a

number of merry murders and sprightly suicides which otherwise he

might have missed. The woman went out of her way to show him that

for her, if not for less fortunate people, God this morning was in

His heaven and all was right in the world.

Two tramps of supernatural exuberance called at the cottage shortly

after breakfast to ask George, whom they had never even consulted

about their marriages, to help support their wives and children.

Nothing could have been more care-free and _debonnaire_ than the

demeanour of these men.