The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1873-05-08
UHE 0RiBuHE.
THE LIFE LESSON.

1t is given to ordinary mortals to be.
Albert had been in the army--had gone
in at the age of twenty--fought through
from Balls Bluff to Richmond-had
come out with Captains commission
and had found his way Immediately upon
his discharge. to his early love and de-
manded the helping hand in the com
mencement of the peaceful life. Alice
did not refuse him. She had held him
in her heart through the dark years !:
and now, In the glow of the GLAD light.
she joined hands with him happily and
hopefully.
Albert had come from the army with
but little money but he had a good
trade, stout heart and a strong pair of
hands, and had borrowed no trouble for
the future. Alice had saved up few
hundred dollars from her wages as a
teacher, and when the twain had become
man and wife they found, upon care
full inventory. that they had enough to
furnish small house comfortably.
Albert proposed that they should hire a
tenement in the city but Alice thought
they had better secure pretty cottage
In the suburbs cottage which they
might perhaps, in time make their own.
Albert had no disposition to argue the
question, SO the cottage was found and
secured. 1t was a pleasant, rural loca-
ton and SO connected to the city by rail,
that Albert found no difficulty in going
to and from his workshop.
During her FIVE years experience in
school-teaching Alice had learned many
things, and having been an orphan from
an early age,she had made the problems
of real life one of her chief studies and
what she had learned in this latter de-
partment, served her well in her new
station. After marriage she found Al
bert to be just the man she had always
known him to be in other years. He
was kind to fault; free-hearted and
generous, ready always to answer the
call of friendship and prone to pluck
the flowers that bloom to-day, regard
less of what might be nartured to bloom
tomorrow.
They had been married but a few
months when Alice found he was cutting
his garments according to his daily sup
ply of cloth. Not shred was he likely
to save up for the cutting of an extra
garment for a rainy day to come
Albert" she said to him one even
ing, " do you know we ought to be saw
ing up little something's
Albert looked up from his paper and
waited for his wife to elucidate.
I think heard you tell Mr.. Green
ough that had no money-that you had
paid out your last dollar this very after
noon ?''
Exactly my dear; but you know to-
morrow is pay day.
" And you have spent your last months
earnings?"
YES"
A brief silence ensued which Albert
broke.
" Come, Alice, you've got something
on your mind. Out with it'll lis
ten.
And then Alice, in a smiling, pleasant
way, went on to tell her husband that
they ought to be laying up something.
Albert smiled in turn and asked how
such thing could be done when it cost
all he earned to live.
You can earn three dollars and half
a day., said Alice.
YES"
"George Some earns only three dol
lars day."
"You are right"
And yet he lives, and does not run IN
debt"
But he is forced to deny himself
many little comforts which we enjoy
And the one great comfort which we
might enjoy we are throwing away"
How is that Alice?'
The comfort of little sum in the
bank, which we would see growing
towards the answering of future wants"
Albert could not for the life of him see
how 1t was going to be done and Alice
feared that a lesson of empty words
might be wasted. She knew that his
ambition needed substantial prom.
Never, of his own accord, would he COM
mence by Titles. He did not estimate
money in that way. Had some kind fairy
dropped into his had fve-twenty bond
for five hundred dollars, he would gladly
have put it away aud with such a nest
egg in the start, he might have sought
to add to the store. But he could see
no hope in dollar bill, and much less
could he discover the nucleus of grand
saving in fifty cent scrip.
With Alice it was different. From
her meager earnings as school teacher,
she had in less than FIVE years, saved M |
three hundred dollars; and the first
saving she had put by was a silver dime. |
She knew what little b Y little could do |
and she was determined 10 show ii to |
her husband. She must be patient and |
perseyering, and these qualities she pos
sessed in an eminent degree.
1t was to be the grand undertaking of
he first years of her married life, and to
10 it she would bend every available en-
srgy. She planned that if possible she
would get hold of that odd fifty cents
very day; or if she could not do that
he would do the best she could.
Generous, frank, loyal and loving.
Albert was an easy prey to the wiles of a
gife as loyal and loving as himself He |
rave her money when she asked for it
md she asked for it when she thought he
lad any to give.
And here let me say that Alice knew
Ter husband would not run in debt
That was an evil they both arrayed them
elves against IL the outset. When Al. |
'ert's pnrse was empty he bought moth
nd VIII - Il. II 1