The Spokane press. [volume] (Spokane, Wash.) 1902-1939, 1904-09-20
The Struggle and the Reward

This business man had a severe attack of the blues.
You see, business was not very good. He leaned his
head on his hands and thought of the years of hard work
he had endured and wondered, elias it paid?" His
thoughts ran something like this: ~ have shaved from the
time | earned my first dollar. There has been no let-up. l
have endured more hardship than my poorest employe,
and responsibility has streaked my hair with gray. I'm
tired, too. Once | could run a mile, and | got up with the
chickens. I went to bed when the lights were out.
''Now l hunt for the easy chair, and the boys in the
Office speak of me as the old man. l haven't accumulated
riches. 1 am only a step from genteel poverty. Has it
paid? Does it ever pay? I can see nothing ahead but a
fight for a living, with competition growing keener every
hour"
He growled like a bear when a messenger boy mo-
Tested his bitter musings and handed him this telegram:
+ seabright, Sept. 20. !:
l. Dearest: Many happy returns of the day. I love you ::
T. Daughter. !:
Happy returns?' Sure enough, a birthday, and God
bless her, a girl. HIS girl had remembered the day and
taken the time to send a shaft of sunlight right into his
heart. 81 love YOU" Real love, too. You can not buy it,
for it is always a gift, a fawless diamond, fit for an en-
perors crown, and within the reach of the humblest.
More musing:
Let's see! It was % years ago when the girl who
wrote that telegram was a growing baby. How fat she
was, and how her "dad'' used to like to press kisses on
the back of her neck and play 'little pig went to market"
on her pink toes. She learned fast, and she grew hand
somer every day. When she won a prize at school she
carried it home to "dad' and cried because she was
happy and he was pleased. And then she was a young
woman, and as she developed one could see the grand
qualities of her mother growing in her.
Remember that little trick Of hers? Gathers tired
tonight she would say, and then a soft hand would
rub the wrinkles out of ''dad's'' brow, and the other
to him in a voice that thrilled his soul, and she even
would smooth his scanty locks until, somehow, he would
fall asleep and forget that there was a worry in the world.
She read to him when his eyes were tired; she sang
wanted to go down into the city and the turmoil of bust
ness and load some of his cares on her young shoulders.
Yes, she is unmarried yet. She refused a young fell
low because he wasn't as good a man as father. She's
single. She is still dads girl and the joy of her home.
She remembered that birthday. She thinks of everything.
She loves the man who had just dreamed that he was a
failure, when, in fact, he is as rich in the things that count
as it is possible for a human being to be.
1t is a new man who rises from his desk and rever-
emily lays away the telegram that gave him SO much
boy. Hes tired still, but there is only happiness and re-
solve in his face. He has fought, and he will continue to
light Perhaps a wise Providence meant that men should
be tired in order to make them appreciate the blessings
they enjoy.
lis question is answered. 1t pays.