African Camp Fires | Page 9

winter, sweeping many little ones into the
grave. Of their three children, two were taken; and the third was spared,
only to droop, like a frost-touched plant, and die ere the summer came.
From that time, all of Andy Lovell's customers noted a change in the
man; and no wonder. Andy had loved these children deeply. His
thought had all the while been running into the future, and building
castles for them to dwell in. Now the future was as nothing to him; and
so his heart beat feebly in the present. He had already accumulated
enough for himself and his wife to live on for the rest of their days; and,
if no more children came, what motive was there for a man of his views
and temperament to devote himself, with the old ardor, to business?
So the change noticed by his customers continued. He was less anxious
to accommodate; disappointed them oftener; and grew impatient under
complaint or remonstrance. Customers, getting discouraged or offended,
dropped away, but it gave Andy no concern. He had, no longer, any
heart in his business; and worked in it more like an automaton than a
live human being.
At last, Andy suddenly made up his mind to shut up his shop, and retire
from business. He had saved enough to live on--why should he go on
any longer in this halting, miserable way--a public servant, yet pleasing
nobody?
Mrs. Lovell hardly knew what to say in answer to her husband's
suddenly formed resolution. It was as he alleged; they had laid up
sufficient; to make them comfortable for the rest of their lives; and,
sure enough, why should Andy worry himself any longer with the shop?
As far as her poor reason went, Mrs. Lovell had nothing to oppose; but
all her instincts were on the other side--she could not feel that it would
be right.
But Andy, when he made up his mind to a thing, was what people call
hard-headed. His "I won't stand it any longer," meant more than this
common form of speech on the lips of ordinary men. So he gave it out
that he should quit business; and it was soon all over the village. Of
course Tompkins and Lyon were well enough pleased, but there were a
great many who heard of the shoemaker's determination with regret. In
the face of all difficulties and annoyances, they had continued to
depend on him for foot garniture, and were now haunted by unpleasant

images of cramped toes, corns, bunyons, and all the varied ill attendant
on badly made and badly fitting shoes, boots, and gaiters. The
retirement of Andy, cross and unaccommodating as he had become,
was felt, in many homes, to be a public calamity.
"Don't think of such a thing, Mr. Lovell," said one.
"We can't do without you," asserted another.
"You'll not give up altogether," pleaded a third, almost coaxingly.
But Andy Lovell was tired of working without any heart in his work;
and more tired of the constant fret and worry attendant upon a business
in which his mind had ceased to feel interest. So he kept to his
resolution, and went on with his arrangements for closing the shop.
"What are you going to do?" asked a neighbor.
"Do?" Andy looked, in some surprise, at his interrogator.
"Yes. What are you going to do? A man in good health, at your time of
life, can't be idle. Rust will eat him up."
"Rust?" Andy looked slightly bewildered.
"What's this?" asked the neighbor, taking something from Andy's
counter.
"An old knife," was the reply. "It dropped out of the window two or
three months ago and was lost. I picked it up this morning."
"It's in a sorry condition," said the neighbor. "Half eaten up with rust,
and good for nothing."
"And yet," replied the shoemaker, "there was better stuff in that knife,
before it was lost, than in any other knife in the shop."
"Better than in this?" And the neighbor lifted a clean, sharp-edged knife
from Andy's cutting-board.
"Worth two of it."
"Which knife is oldest?" asked the neighbor.
"I bought them at the same time."
"And this has been in constant use?"
"Yes."
"While the other lay idle, and exposed to the rains and dews?"
"And so has become rusted and good for nothing. Andy, my friend, just
so rusted, and good for nothing as a man, are you in danger of
becoming. Don't quit business; don't fall out of your place; don't pass
from useful work into self-corroding idleness, You'll be
miserable--miserable."

The pertinence of this illustration struck the mind of Andy Lovell, and
set him to thinking; and the more he thought, the more disturbed
became his mental state. He had, as we have see, no longer any heart