180 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



ous, many, both sick and well, are apt to take ad- 

 vantage of the sympathetic ear and ready hand, and 

 bearing one another's burdens gradually takes on an 

 air of duty rather than pleasure. The joy of giv- 

 ing grows small by degrees and unbeautifully less. 

 If only we were really as dull as some persons choose 

 to believe, or were really only Easy Marks, we 

 should slip more smoothly along life's vexed and 

 tortuous way. But we are not. When I give vent 

 to observations concerning the demoralizing effects 

 of long-continued poverty or dependence to one 

 more worldly-wise than I, they are greeted with a 

 melancholy nod of affirmation. Something goes 

 down in the struggle — a proper pride and several 

 lesser items. Also we descry causes for this long- 

 continued poverty. To name but one among many : 

 thriftlessness, nay destructiveness. Where I keep 

 a piece of property in speckless condition for years 

 the poverty howlers will ruin it in a month. So it 

 is with everything. They have little because they 

 are too careless, or too superior to petty cares; they 

 have never acquired the automatic, systematic habit 

 of taking thought for what they have ; ergo, present- 

 ly they have nothing. Then comes the inevitable 

 whine — "If I had as much as you have it would be 

 worth while to bother!" To which senseless com- 

 plaint reply would be a mere waste of energy. There 

 was a day when extreme verdancy prompted a kind- 

 ly meant explanation, but verdancy has long since 

 been nipped by the bitter frosts of experience 



The working-boarder proposition may be said to 

 have died a natural death. The he-come, haven't- 



