# "Chet" (Yates)/Chapter 14

IT was the middle of October when Bess got home, and from that time on, the days fairly flew, until, before we knew it, Christmas was looming up about three weeks off. She and I got to talking about it one Saturday early in December.
"What you going to give your father?" I asked.
"I bought him one very, very fine handkerchief in each town I was in this Fall, and I've been embroidering his signature on them."
"His initials, you mean," I grinned.
"No, I don't, I mean his signature. I took it off of the bottom of a letter, with carbon-paper, and worked over it."
"Forger!" I said.
Bess laughed. "It was awfully hard to do, for the letters were so little and uneven; but they looked all right when they were done, and he thinks they're fine.'
"He does? You haven't shown them to him?"
​Bess nodded. "I gave them to him the last time he was at home."
I stared. Bess wasn't the kind of a girl who couldn't keep a thing to herself, or wait for the proper time. "What did you do it for?" I asked.
"Well," said Bess, "I had them finished, and I didn't see any reason for keeping them for a month or so, when he might as well be using them. I don't see the sense in saving up all your kindnesses to do in a bunch, once a year. Why not scatter them along a little?"
"But what'll you do Christmas? He 'I'll expect you to give him something more then."
"No, he won't," said Bess.
"Oh, you told him they were a Christmas present?"
"Indeed I didn't. I told him that I made them for him because I love him, and wanted to do it, and not just so I could give him something at some particular time, only because he'd expect something, and everybody else would be giving things. He saw the point, and said he'd a lot rather have a gift just when the feeling prompted a person—instead of from habit, or from fashion."
​It did sound sort of sensible, and I remembered how much more my compasses meant, coming as a surprise, and only because she knew I 'wanted them, than as if she'd held them back for Christmas, when I'd have been expecting something. Besides, I'd had a chance to get a lot of good out of them during the Fall.
"I'm going to give Mother a gold thimble," I said. "I heard her say, one day last Summer, that when she was a little, little girl, she wanted a gold thimble,—and she'd wanted one ever since. She had always intended to get one, but people kept giving her silver ones, and keeping her supplied, and she guessed she'd never get her stock low enough to warrant buying one for herself. So I made up my mind that I'd get her a gold one for Christmas. But since she's lost two or three of her 'stock,' I've been desperately worried for fear she would buy one herself, before the time came, because I know she's needed one.'
"It will make a nice gift," said Bess.
I was thinking. "Isn't it funny," I said, at last, "that I never even thought of getting it for her right then,—or anyway, as soon as I knew ​she needed one? I had the money and could have bought the thing just as well as not, but all I thought of was what a nice Christmas gift it would make. It seems sort of foolish, when you come to think of it, doesn't it?"
"It surely does," said Bess.
I thought again. "Well," I said, "what's the matter with getting it right now? We have 'em in the store, and Dad will give it to me at cost. She's only got one left, and she's doing a lot of embroidery for Christmas; and whenever she picks that up, her thimble is up in the sewing room, in her work basket; and when she goes todarn anything, it's down in the pocket of her embroidery apron. I heard her say the other day that she was going to bore a hole in it and hang it around her neck, so she wouldn't wear the stairs out so."
"And the gold one would be perfectly fine to keep with her embroidery all the time," said Bess.
"Of course she could keep it there after Christmas," I said. I wasn't quite ready to take the Christmas label off of it, after all.
"But the embroidery will be all done then," said Bess.
​I knew it would; for Mother only does it when Christmas comes in sight, and then she nearly sews her fingers off for a couple of months and scarcely goes out for a breath of air. "I believe I'll get it now," I said. "Come on down to the store with me and help pick it out."
Bess agreed, and we started. At first we chatted for a while, and then Bess got to thinking and was pretty quiet for several blocks. By and by she said:—"Chet, when we do something nice for a person, we always like that person better, don't we?"
"Yep," I said, "I've noticed it."
"Well," said Bess, slowly, "there's one person that you and I don't like as well as we ought to."
"Who?" said I.
"That other girl."
I didn't say a word.
"It's up to us, Chet," said Bess. "We've got to get ready to like her, anyway. If she comes while we feel this way, she won't have a fair show,—and we won't, either. We'll be looking for trouble all the time, even if we try not to. I've been working on it, but I don't feel like hugging ​her yet; and sometimes I feel distinctly sour, when I think of her coming."
"I feel that way all the time," I said. "She'll just have to make the best of what she finds when she comes, that's all. I'm going to be selfish and take it the way that will be easiest for me. I haven't got but one life to live."
Bess shook her head. "We're taking it the way that will be the very hardest for us both, and her too. It's a great deal harder to be sour than'to be sweet."
"Not for me."
"Yes it is. When a thing is all over and you come to average it up, you'll find that all of the hard things have come of the sourness,—and all of the easy things have come of the sweetness."
That was a new way of looking at it.
"And so I was thinking," went on Bess, "that if we each of us want to do something for the other,—not for Christmas, but for friendship,—the really best thing would be for us both to do something for that other girl."
I bit some of the ragged edges off of the top of my lead pencil. "How can we?" I asked, after ​a while, "She hasn't come yet, and we don't even know where she lives."
"But we could get it in advance, you know." Bess was very much in earnest. "You put in whatever you were going to spend for me, and I'll put in what I was going to spend for you, and we'll club together and get something to have ready for her when she comes."
Somehow I liked the idea. I wouldn't have supposed that such a thing would look good to me, but it did. "What'll we get?" I asked. "We don't know what sort of things she likes."
"It would be nice to get something for her room," said Bess; and we talked it over, all the way to the store, and at last decided upon a writing desk, if we could get one to fit our purses.
Uncle Rob was behind the counter when we went in, and helped us to choose the thimble, and we got a dandy, and then waited for Dad to come in and tell us what it would cost. Of course I knew the cost mark, ordinarily, but the one we picked out seemed to have been marked wrong, for I was positive that it cost more than the letters made it. While we were waiting, Bess and I browsed around, and she found a silver key ring ​that she wanted, and put her hand in her pocket for her purse,—and it wasn't there.
"Why," she exclaimed, "I'm perfectly sure I put that in my pocket before I started!"—and then she went on saying some things about nothing being lost, and so on, as if she were trying to reassure herself, while she was looking about for it.
"Bess!" said Uncle Rob, looking at her in a surprised way.
Bess bit her lip.
"What's the matter?" I asked. "It's all right for her to use her Science to help her know it isn't lost, isn't it?"
"It certainly is," said Uncle Rob. "Bess, you tell him what was the trouble."
"Partly bad manners," said Bess, shrugging her shoulders. "It's just as bad manners to take your dose of Christian Science out loud in public, as it is to have your bottle and teaspoon at the table and take your dose of medicine under everybody's nose. When any one brings his medicine bottle to the table, every one else feels like throwing plates at it; and when you talk your Science treatments out loud, every one feels like throwing contradictory thoughts at them."
​"I wish I wasn't so material in my thinking," I said. "I believe things that I see; no matter how hard I try to know differently."
"Do you really believe everything you see?" asked Uncle Rob. We had some new clerks in for the holidays, and so he was not so very busy just then.
"Why, sure I do," I said.
"Some one has said, 'Matter is experience.' When you look down a long stretch of railroad track, you see the rails come together at a point in the distance, don't you?"
"Yes."
"But do they?"
"No."
"But you might think that they did, excepting for experience, might you not?"
I had to admit that I probably would. "But," I said, "if I see anything the matter with me, that's different. I have to believe that scratch on my hand,—I know where I got it, too."
"That's the main trouble," said Uncle Rob; "you think you know where you got it;—and lots of times you hit your hand and think you've hurt it, until you look and see that there isn't ​any mark, and then you decide that you haven't, and it doesn't bother you any more. Experience, based upon lack of understanding, is what makes all the bother."
"But how can I help believing that scratch?—and it feels sore now that we're talking about it, too."
Uncle Rob took up a sheet of stiff paper, about six by nine inches, and rolled it into a cone which was something like an inch and a quarter across the big end, and three-fourths of an inch at the little end; then he fastened it with a scrap of gummed paper from the stamp drawer, and snipped off the corner at the top, so as to make it straight around.
Bess and I were watching him curiously.
"Now, Chet," he said, "hold the big end of this close to your right eye, up tight against it, with your eye open so that you can look through."
I did.
"Now hold your left hand with the palm toward your face, and the edge of your hand resting against the cone at about two inches from the big end. Now keep both eyes open, and what do you see?"
"A hole clear through the palm of my hand."
​"Are you sure?"
"Yep. I can see my hand all around the hole, just as plainly as I ever saw anything in my life, and I can see you right through the centre of it."
"Does it hurt any?" asked Uncle Rob.
"Not a bit."
"I'll guarantee that it would, if you thought that you could remember the experience of getting the hole there, though," said Uncle Rob.
I was interested. "I guess you're right," I said. "If I'd shot myself in the hand, and it was all bandaged up, and a doctor would come in with one of these things, fixed up to look professional, and tell me that it was a sort of an X-ray business which would look through the bandages and show me the condition of my hand;—and I looked through and saw what I see now;—why, I'd think I was maimed for life,—and no one could tell me any different, because I could see for myself. I'll bet it would hurt like the dickens, too;—and if it didn't, I'd think the nerves were paralyzed, and that would be worse still."
Uncle Rob laughed. "Well, you think a little about matter being experience," he said, "and ​then eliminate all of the experiences that you can't absolutely and infallibly depend upon,—and see what you have left. It's worth trying."
Just then Dad came in and we went back to the thimble case. I showed him the one that we had picked out. "All right," said Dad; "You may have it at cost."
"But what is the cost?" I asked.
Dad looked disgusted. "Chet," he said, "you've known that cost mark for five years. What's the matter with you?"
"But this one can't be marked right," I said. "I know it cost more than a dollar and a half."
"Of course it did," said Dad.
"But see,—'m-a-q,'—that's what it's marked."
"Chet," he said, "haven't you any eyes or any reasoning powers at all? Don't you see that little '2' up there above the last letter?"
"Yes; but what does it mean?"
"Well, what should it mean excepting that it cost just twice what the mark says? Isn't that plain enough?"
"Yes, when you know it," I said; "but you never did that before."
"Well, such a lot of people have come to know ​our mark, that I have got to make some change in it; and I'm marking part of the new goods this way. It's plain enough if you use a little common sense."
I had to admit that it was, and Uncle Rob put the thimble into a box while Bess and I browsed some more among the new Holiday stuff. After a while I found a portfolio that I wanted, and looked at the mark, and then I took it to Uncle Rob. "What would you think that cost?" I asked.
"A dollar and a half," said Uncle Rob,—"the same as the thimble didn't."
"And it's marked to sell at one-twenty-five!"
"Better buy at retail," said Uncle Rob. "But wait, there's that little two-spot, exactly where the other one was,—that makes it cost three dollars."
"Worse and worse! But what do you suppose it really did cost?"
"Can't prove it by me," said Uncle Rob, shaking his head.
I waited until Dad came up the store again. "Say, Dad," I called; "I want to buy this portfolio."
"Well then, why don't you buy it," said Dad.
​"I—I don't know what it cost."
Dad came over to the counter. "Well, why don't you look at the cost mark, Chester?" he said.
I shook my head, and he turned the portfolio over and put the point of his pencil on the ticket. "Can't you see that?" he asked. "What does that letter stand for?"
"One."
"And that?"
"Five."
"And that?"
"Naught."
"Well then, what is it?"
"A dollar and a half."
"Well then, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, only it's marked to sell at one-twenty-five."
Dad pulled it closer to him; then he said, "Oh!" and put his pencil on the little "2." "Can't you see that?" he asked.
"Yep."
"Well then, what more do you want? Can't you divide a dollar and a half by two? If you can't do it in your head, here's my pencil," and he looked sarcastic.
​"Oh, then it cost seventy-five cents?"
"Why, certainly," said Dad. "I do wish that you would try to use some common sense, Chester, instead of having to have everything explained to you, as if you were five years old!"—and then he went off down the store again.
When I had my packages done up and Bess had her key ring,—she had found her purse in her blouse instead of her pocket,—we went over to the furniture store to look for a desk. We got just about discouraged, because everything was so expensive, and were about ready to think that we would have to decide upon something else, when the furniture man said,—
"Say, I've got one here that I can sell you cheap if you can use it. The pigeon-holes got broken in shipping; and the house gave me a rebate on it, rather than have it sent back. I'm no good at little delicate jobs like that;—I can tackle a sofa or a table, but a thing of that kind would take me longer than it's worth;—and it's been here more 'n a year, now. If you think you can fix it up, you can come down here and do it, and use my tools,—and you can have it at your own price."
​It was a mighty pretty little oak desk, with a lid that closed up and locked, and I knew at a glance that it would be just fun to make new pigeon-holes for it,—and Bess and I jumped at the bargain, quick.
I couldn't go to work at it until after Christmas, for I had to put in all of my spare time at the store through the Holiday season; but when that was over, I went down to the furniture shop for three Saturdays and worked on it; and when it was finished, no one would ever have guessed but that it was perfectly fresh from the factory.
I thought a good deal while I was working on it, too,—about how queer it was that I should be giving all this time to fixing something for that other girl,—when I had made up my mind to hate her. And that made me think of some Chinese characters that I had seen explained; how certain marks meant certain things, and then they were grouped together to mean other ideas; and the marks which went to make up the word "hatred," meant, when separated, "crookedness of the heart." And crookedness in people is deformity, and every one dreads and turns away from deformity. It seemed queer to think ​that I had been willing to let myself be deformed that way,—when I didn't have to be—It would be worse to have your heart crooked, than your spine, too,—and it would show just as plainly, when it had once worked to the surface.
And I got to thinking pretty soberly about that other girl,—how she didn't have any home, and was coming among strangers and didn't know what they would be like,—and probably she was feeling sort of worried and frightened about it; and I began to see how much bigger a thing it was in her life than in mine, because it would all be new to her,—a new place, and new people, and everything different from what she had been used to; and I began to see that it was up to me to help her all I could;—and I worked more decent thoughts into those little pigeon-holes than I ever got into line in double that time in my life before.
Bess was making a writing set for the desk,—a blotting pad with leather corners, and a blotter and penwiper. She did a lot of the same sort of thinking over her work; and when we came to compare notes, we found that we'd spent our money to mighty good advantage, and given each ​other a lot more that was worth while than we were giving to that other girl.
We didn't tell anybody about the desk, because we didn't want to have to talk about her. We'd got to feeling pretty respectably toward her—and we didn't want anybody else butting in; so we left it at the furniture store until we should be ready for it.
The month of January dragged some, as it always does; but February was a short month and we sailed over that, just touching the high places. I read a good deal in the Christian Science text-book during the winter evenings; and found a lot of difference between looking for things that I could understand, and looking for things to quarrel with. It was perfectly astonishing how friendly the difficult ones became, when I had made friends with their relations!—and I got real chummy with the best society of thoughts that I'd ever come into contact with;—and some of them I hadn't even had a bowing acquaintance with before;—and there were some perfectly fine ones that I had been in a habit of throwing stones at whenever I caught a glimpse of them, that I found now to be a lot better company than all ​the companions that I had ever had before in my life. I used to ask Bess a lot of questions—not so that I could contradict them, but because I wanted to know how she looked at them.
One day I said, "Bess, if the healing isn't the most important part of Christian Science, why couldn't a person be a Christian Scientist and leave that part out of it?"
"Well, for goodness' sake," said Bess; "what do you suppose is the reason that Christian Scientists use it, when they are sick?"
"Well," I said, "I suppoes it is because you think it would be wrong to have a doctor,—and because you want to be consistent and—" I couldn't think of any other reason.
"You've left out a rather important point," she said
"What is it?"
"That they wish to get well!"
"Oh!"
"—and that, quickly,—and to stay well. I think that is a fairly good reason in itself. Don't you?"
"But they don't—always."
"Do doctors' patients—always?"
​"No. But, honestly, if you were very, very sick, wouldn't you be afraid not to have a physician?"
"Why, Chet, I'd a million times rather trust the case to a Christian Science practitioner. Not but that the doctors are honest and noble and good, but I believe that Christian Science treats the real causes, clear down at the foundation of the trouble,—like taking away the reason for the sorrow, instead of putting something in your eyes to stop the tears."
"But," I said, "there are some other ways of healing without medicine,—and they seem to really cure people sometimes, too. Why aren't those as good as Christian Science, if they heal?"
"Well," said Bess, "suppose that when you were a little, wee boy, you had wakened up one night and thought that there was a tiger under your bed. And suppose you had gotten up and run to your mother and told her about it, and she had comforted you and told you that there was no tiger there, and explained to you that there were no tigers loose in this country, and even if there had been, one couldn't get into the house and under your bed; and then she would take a light ​and go with you and show you that there was nothing there, and could be nothing there, and that there was nothing to be afraid of. Then you would know the truth, and wouldn't have any more fear, and every time that you wakened up frightened, after that, you'd know that there was nothing to be afraid of, and the fright would leave you right off.
"Now, suppose that when you were first frightened, you had gone to some one else instead of your mother, and he had humored you and said:—'Oh, dear me, is there really a tiger under your bed? Isn't that dreadful? We'll have to shoot him.' And then he'd get a gun and fire under the bed and then run back to you and slam the door. And the next morning there would be no tiger there, and you would think that it had been driven away; and your fear would be gone. But the next night you would waken up as before, and be sure that the tiger had come back, and you would run to the person again, in a panic, and it would have to be driven out once more,—and again next week and again next month,—and you would get so that you would be in constant fear of it,—and you would suffer as much as if ​there really were a tiger to come and be driven away.
"Now do you see the difference? In both cases, the fear is quieted, and you go back to sleep. With your mother's treatment, the ignorance from which you were suffering is destroyed right at the start, and so it doesn't come back again; or if it seems to for a moment, as soon as you remember the facts, it is gone, and you get out of the habit of thinking of it. But with the other way of handling it, the person is working all the time to drive out the tiger, instead of proving that there isn't any; and so that tiger or another one keeps on coming back—and back, and you never do get over being frightened about it; and by and by the fear of it may eat you up, even if there isn't any tiger to do the job."
"I see," I said. "To be healed just physically by any means, is only to try to drive away the tiger;—but to know the truth and in that way wipe out the thing that you called sickness,—is to get rid of the article that made a noise like a tiger, for keeps. He can't come back when you know he isn't!"
"Good," said Bess. "I'm glad you're doing ​some thinking. Lots of folks seem to think that the idea of the text-book is—
but it isn't that way at all;—it gives you something to think about. No one ever got wisdom by swallowing it whole, any more than he'd get a vocabulary by swallowing a dictionary;—it comes only through studying, and working, and contemplating, and proving. If you don't chew things, you'll get mental indigestion,—unless you're just shovelling them into a bag and looking pleasant, the way Bean-stalk Jack did with the hasty pudding."
I got up and stretched my arms. "Bess," I said, "that word 'chew' reminds me of something. You get the chocolate and sugar in shape, and I'll crack the butternuts."