Sowing and Reaping - A Temperance Story

Sowing and Reaping - A
Temperance Story

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Sowing and Reaping, by Frances Ellen
Watkins Harper, Edited by Frances Smith Foster
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Title: Sowing and Reaping
Author: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Release Date: February 10, 2004 [eBook #11022]
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
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SOWING AND REAPING
A Temperance Story
A Rediscovered Novel by
Frances E.W. Harper
Edited by Frances Smith Foster

Chapter I
"I hear that John Andrews has given up his saloon; and a foolish thing
it was. He was doing a splendid business. What could have induced
him?"
"They say that his wife was bitterly opposed to the business. I don't
know, but I think it quite likely. She has never seemed happy since
John has kept saloon."
"Well, I would never let any woman lead me by the nose. I would let
her know that as the living comes by me, the way of getting it is my
affair, not hers, as long as she is well provided for."
"All men are not alike, and I confess that I value the peace and
happiness of my home more than anything else; and I would not like to
engage in any business which I knew was a source of constant pain to
my wife."
"But, what right has a woman to complain, if she has every thing she
wants. I would let her know pretty soon who holds the reins, if I had
such an unreasonable creature to deal with. I think as much of my wife
as any man, but I want her to know her place, and I know mine."
"What do you call her place?"
"I call her place staying at home and attending to her own affairs. Were
I a laboring man I would never want my wife to take in work. When a
woman has too much on hand, something has to be neglected. Now I
always furnish my wife with sufficient help and supply every want but
how I get the living, and where I go, and what company I keep, is my
own business, and I would not allow the best woman in the world to
interfere. I have often heard women say that they did not care what
their husbands did, so that they provided for them; and I think such
conclusions are very sensible."
"Well, John, I do not think so. I think a woman must be very selfish, if
all she cares for her husband is, to have a good provider. I think her

husband's honor and welfare should be as dear to her as her own; and
no true woman and wife can be indifferent to the moral welfare of her
husband. Neither man nor woman can live by bread alone in the highest
and best sense of the term."
"Now Paul, don't go to preaching. You have always got some moon
struck theories, some wild, visionary and impracticable ideas, which
would work first rate, if men were angels and earth a paradise. Now
don't be so serious, old fellow; but you know on this religion business,
you and I always part company. You are always up in the clouds, while
I am trying to invest in a few acres, or town lots of solid terra firma."
"And would your hold on earthly possessions, be less firm because you
looked beyond the seen to the unseen?"
"I think it would, if I let conscience interfere constantly, with every
business transaction I undertook. Now last week you lost $500 fair and
square, because you would not foreclose that mortgage on Smith's
property. I told you that 'business is business,' and that while I pitied
the poor man, I would not have risked my money that way, but you said
that conscience would not let you; that while other creditors were
gathering like hungry vultures around the poor man, you would not join
with them, and that you did not believe in striking a man when he is
down. Now Paul, as a business man, if you want to succeed, you have
got to look at business in a practical, common sense way. Smith is dead,
and where is your money now?"
"Apparently lost; but