Cure for the Blues.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 445, 12 February 1890, Page 3

Cure for the Blues.

Ro man is so miserable but he may find some one poorer and more comfortless. ‘ Sometimes, when I am blue and feel deserted, I am pleased to call to mind,’ said a Lisbon-street wholesaler, Saturday, ‘ the day that I learned a practical lesson, and it was not very long ago, either, I was feeling awful blue and lonesome. I saw no joy in life. I didn’t know whether 1 was worth a dollar or not. All my venture 3 seemed to me sure to fail. My wife noticed it, and she said : “ What’s the matter ?” I told her. She looked sad and went away. • Pretty soon she came back to me, and putting her hand on my head as I sat in my chair, she said : “My dear, our neighbours down under the hill in the little house are poor. I wish you would go down and see them. You better take down some apples and potatoes, and I will find something to add to them by the time you aro ready. Then she looked in my face, and I saw something that made me feel like minding her. Well, I did as she said. I put a bushel of apples and a bushel of potatoes and some pork and some other things in the waggon, and my wife added a lot of clothes from the wardrobes of our girl and our boy, who had outgrown them. Then I started, and in due time got to the house. I saw there some one more miserable than I was. As I poured our homely gifts out into a wash - tub set to receive them, I got my first lesson in the relations of wealth. To see the woman weep tears of joy at the sight of apples and potatoes and children’s cast-off clothes ; see the little ones, half-naked, view them with wonder and almost with alarm, set roe to thinking, and I said to myself: “Man, you have done wrong. You have neglected to appreciate what has been done for you. Why, you are rich, fabulously rich, for you have a home, a business, a loving wife and ail the comforts of life.” • A great change came over me. I grew calm and still, but content, and I have never been downcast since then that I didn’t seek some poor fellow more wretched than I in the hope that we both might be made less so together by mutual ministration.’— ‘ Lewiston, Maine, Journal.’