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TWO AND ONE.

I.

The winter sun streamed pleasantly into the room.  On the tables lay the mother’s work of the morning,—­the neatly folded clothes she had just been ironing.  A window was opened a little way to let some air into the room too closely heated by the brisk fire.  The air fanned the leaves of the ivy-plant that stood in the window, and of the primrose which seemed ready to open in the warm sun.  Above, there hung a cage, and a canary-bird shouted out now and then its pleasure at the sunny day, with a half-dream perhaps of a tropical climate in the tropical air with which the coal-fire filled the room.  Mrs. Schroder leaned back in her old-fashioned rocking-chair, and folded her hands, one over the other, ready to rest after her morning’s labor.  She was willing to take the repose won by her work; indeed, this was the only way she had managed to preserve her strength for all the work it was necessary for her to do.  She had been conscious that her powers had answered for just so much and no more, and she had never been able to make further demands upon them.

When years before she was left a widow, with two sons to support and educate, all her friends and neighbors prophesied that her health would prove unequal to either work, and agreed that it was very fortunate that she had a rich relation or two to help her.  But, unfortunately, the rich relations preferred helping only in their own way.  One uncle agreed to send the older boy to his father’s relations in Germany, while the other wished to take the younger with him to his home in the South; and an aunt-in-law promised Mrs. Schroder work enough as seamstress to support herself.

It is singular how hard it is, for those who have large means and resources, to understand how to supply the little wants and needs of those less fortunate.  The smallest stream in the mountains will find its way through some little channel, over rocks, or slowly through quiet meadows, into the great rivers, and finally feeds the deep sea, which is very thankless, and thinks little of restoring what is so prodigally poured into it.  It only knows how to sway up with its grand tide upon the broad beaches, or to wrestle with turreted rocks, or, for some miles, perhaps, up the great rivers, it is willing to leave some flavor of its salt strength.  So it is that we little ones, to the last, pour out our little stores into the great seas of wealth,—­and the Neptunes, the gods of riches, scarcely know how to return us our due, if they would.