Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-09-03
GOOD DEEDS IN A BAD WORLD.
How the Carpenters and Brick Layers
Helped Frank Seveck.

From the Chicago Tribune.
The cynics and pessimsts must pause in their
clamor against the baseness, observation-disclosures
and ingratitude of this wicked and inhospitable
world as they consider the episode in the life
of Mr.. Frank Seveck. Prior to the hard storm
of last month Mr.. Seveck, Bohemian laborer,
was wholly unknown to fame. Few beyond his
immediate neighbors had ever known or heard
of him, and but for that storm be might have
remained as he always had been, mere unit
in the vast population Of Chicago. of no import
ance to any one save the little family dependent
upon him. When the furious gale, however,
blew down and demolished his home it became
known from the newspaper reports that Seveck
had been an industrious, economical and frugal
unit; that the pile OF ruins represented the saw
ings Of years Of hard labor, and that he had
nothing left with which to make home.
1t was at this juncture that generosity and
human kindness, the claims Of human brother
hood. the prompt recognition of a fellow-being
of the pessimists. For what did the carpenters
do one Sunday but swarm all over the lot and
do their part of the work toward restoring the
little cottage, under the direction of the build
ing inspectors of the city? And what did the
brick layers do the next Sunday but gather in
force and do their part of the work? And last
Sunday what did carpenters and brick layers
do but come together to finish up their work?
And as Sunday was the only day they could
spare from their own toll, would not the stern
est old Puritan have forgiven them for this
generous and fraternal violation of the Sab
bath2 Nay, more, would he not have gone to
the dinner which the good women of the neigh
borhood provided for the workmen. and may
hap have drunk their health in a tankard of the
beer which the brewers SO generously provided,
tor 1t was hot work Sunday restoring Brother
Seveck's house. particularly as they thought of
the cool spots in the parks where they might
have been had not charity imposed her mission
upon them?
And then, when the workmen had finished
their Sunday job and the children of the hum
BILE neighborhood came bringing flowers to
adorn it, would not the stern old Puritan, who
was naturally averse to floral display or dec
GRAFTON of any kind, have been reused by the
sight of this good deed to bless the men who
gave the lumber, boards, laths shingles, bricks
sand, and lime, and the fellows whose stout
arms had wrought them together until Brother
Seveck's cottage stood confessed again ready,
as soon as it is dry for him and his family to
move in and start again just as before?
And yet. not just as before, for Mrs. Seveck,
feeling that she should do something to cele-
brate the bright and beautiful episode in her
husbands life, what does she do while the car
penters and bricklayers were at work and the
children were consecrating it with their fow-
ers but provide him with new boy, SO that
they will go into the new house with male
quintette. The Sevecks are obscure people,
The new house is a little one. The people who
have built it are not famous, but no more beau
tiful or charitable deed every illuminated this
world 1t should silence the pessimists.