PETER CRISP had something the matter with his eyes; he needed spectacles to help him see. But this was no uncommon misfortune: hundreds of people who do ten good hours’ work every day, use spectacles, and cannot get along without them. No; the trouble in Peter’s case was not in having to wear spectacles, but in the particular kind of spectacles that he wore. They seemed to have the strange quality of undergoing a change of color at certain times; so that everything seen through them underwent a corresponding change.

At one time they took on a dark color—almost black. And, as this made everything look dark and gloomy, he was made to feel accordingly.

“I could iron these collars better myself,” he exclaimed one morning as he was dressing, after putting on these glasses. And a few moments later: “Not a single pin in this cushion, as usual!” And presently again: “Who has taken away my comb and brush?” though both of these useful articles were lying within his reach, and just where he himself had left them.

Had any of the children chanced to come into the room about that time, it would have been an unlucky visit for them.

When he sat down to breakfast, it was with a frown upon his brow, and a deep wrinkle between his eyes, caused, apparently, by the weight of the spectacles.

“Bridget never did make a good cup of coffee in her life,” he remarked.—“My dear,” he continued, turning to his wife, “I do wish you would take the trouble to go down once—only once—and show her how.”

Mrs. Crisp ventured to answer in a meek voice that she went down every morning. Peter had no reply—especially no thanks—to offer for this; but he took another sip, puckered up his lips as though he had swallowed a dose of medicine, and pushed the cup away from him.

After this cheerful breakfast he put on his hat to go to the store (for Peter was a business-man); but when he had gone as far as the front door, he came back with a quick step to the foot of the stairs, and there stood calling out in a loud voice that he really felt ashamed at the condition of the steps and the sidewalk. No others in the neighborhood, he declared, looked so shabby.

In the street a few minutes afterward he was joined by a fellow business man, and as they walked down town together Peter was as gay and lively as any one could have wished him to be. The two talked with each other about the fine weather and their prosperous trade, and even touched on their happy families. And when they spied a bachelor-friend in the distance, Peter grew merry at his expense, and expressed pity for him as a poor fellow who had no home!

But when, a little later, he entered his counting-room alone, it was plain he had the dark glasses on still. Not a man about the establishment worked as he should do, he said. It used to be different when he was a boy. Then he turned and went out of the house with a look of disgust.

As soon as he was gone the bookkeeper scolded the clerk, the clerk scolded the boy, and the boy went out to the front door and abused the porter. And after that, throughout the day, everything seemed to go wrong with Peter himself and all who were about him; yet surely the fault was his own.

A few mornings after this it seemed as though Peter’s glasses had undergone another change. They appeared now to be of a blue color. He was in a milder frame, but low in spirits. He was sorry to see the nursery carpet wearing out, for he did not know where another would come from. At breakfast he watched the children taking butter, and took hardly any himself. He begged Mrs. Crisp to put less sugar in his coffee. The frown was gone from his brow but a most dejected look had taken its place.[157]
[158] Spying a hole in the toe of his boy’s shoe, he drew a long breath; and, hearing that the dressmaker was engaged to come the next week for his daughters, he sighed aloud. On his way down town, walking alone (for he avoided company), he looked as if he had lost a near relation, and at the store all day seemed to feel like a man who was just on the eve of failing in business, though there was, in truth, no danger of his doing any such thing.

There was one more change that Peter’s glasses used to undergo. The color which they then assumed could never be exactly made out, but it seemed to be more of a smoky hue than anything else. This did not come upon them so often as either of the others, but when it did it had a very singular effect. The glasses then seemed to befog Peter rather than help him see. For after putting them on when he got up of a morning, he would dress without speaking a word. At breakfast he would say nothing, and make it plain that he did not want anybody else to. Consequently, the whole family, little and big, would sit and munch their food in silence. Then he would rise up from the table and walk out of the house as if he were dumb. And although it was a relief when he had gone, and made matters something better, a chilling influence remained behind him the whole day.

Peter had been wearing these glasses a good many years,[159]
[160] when, as he was meditating alone one evening, he thought to himself that things never looked very cheerful in his eyes and he was never very happy, and it occurred to him that perhaps his spectacles had something to do with it. Then he remembered that a neighbor of his, one Samuel Seabright, who also wore glasses and often used to complain of them, now seemed to have gotten over his trouble and always to have a pleasant face on. Meeting Samuel the next morning, he said:

“Neighbor, if it is not making too free, may I ask what was the matter with your spectacles when I used to hear you find fault with them so often?”

“Certainly you may,” replied Samuel, “for I have not the least objection to tell you. They used to get strange shades and colors over them; so that nothing looked natural or as it ought to look, and of course this affected my spirits.”

“Is it possible?” said Peter. “And have they got perfectly clear and transparent now?”

“Clear as crystal; so that everything looks just right, and they give me no trouble at all.”

“And would you mind telling me how you got them so?”

“I went to the doctor’s, and did exactly as he directed.”

“And can you tell me where that doctor lives?”

“Of course I can. You remember that large stone building with a beautiful stained-glass window at one end of it, and a high tower on top, with a chime of bells in the tower?”

“Oh yes; I pass it every day.”

“Well, the doctor lives next door to that.”

That very day Peter stopped at the doctor’s house and rang the bell, and was shown into his office. The doctor himself was there, and after looking into Peter’s eyes began to ask him questions.

“Do you walk much in the open air?” said he.

“Yes, every day,” replied Peter, “but it is mostly in going down to my store and back again. Though sometimes of an afternoon my wife and I stroll out together.”

“What streets do you generally walk in?”

“Only the best-kept and most respectable streets.”

“Are you in the habit of visiting much?”

“A good deal.”

“I suppose, then, you are kept up late at night sometimes?”

“I can’t help it. You see, my relations, almost all of them—I may say all that I keep up any acquaintance with—are rich people. Now, last night I was at my uncle’s house. He had just finished papering his parlor with the most beautiful paper I ever saw. Then he had newly[163]
[164] covered his furniture with satin damask, and bought carpets and curtains to match, and he kept me looking at these things ever so long.”

“Are you often kept up in this way?”

“Yes, quite often. The night before that I went to my cousin’s. He gave a very handsome dinner. There were fifteen courses set on the table. I am sure his dinner cost enough to feed a plain family of moderate size, for half a year. But nobody was there except the most select and fashionable people. To tell you the truth, doctor, these are pretty much the only kind of people I visit. They live in fine houses, with large rooms that are well ventilated and well lighted, and I don’t see how my eyes, or my spectacles, either, can get any harm while I am there. Indeed, I am longing all the time for the day when I can live in such a house myself, instead of the little pinched-up dwelling I have to stay in now.”

“Well, I have formed my opinion about your case,” said the doctor, “and am ready to say what you should do. But I must tell you beforehand that it will be different from what you expect, and probably from what you would choose.”

“Oh, as for that,” replied Peter, “I am not at all particular; you will find me willing to do whatever you say.”

“The first thing I want is that you should stop walking in those broad, sunny, handsome streets, and walk through the narrower and poorer streets, where there is not such a glare of light.”

“I wouldn’t like to walk in them, for I don’t care to be seen in any but the most respectable streets.”

“Well, then there is no use of my prescribing for you any further.”

“Oh, if it comes to that, I’ll do it; for I want to get my eyes well more than anything else.”

“The next thing is that you should stop occasionally and rest while you are walking there, and call at some of the houses in those streets.”

“Why, doctor, I can’t see how that could possibly do me any good. As I have told you already, the houses where I visit are among the finest in town, well ventilated and heated, and some of them are just getting in the new electric—”

“Very well,” interrupted the doctor; “it is for you to say whether you will do as I prescribe or not.”

“I suppose I will have to do it, then, though I have never visited such places in all my life.”

“Stop here to-morrow afternoon, after business-hours,” continued the doctor, “and, as you are not used to such calls, I will go with you to make a beginning.”

The next day Peter’s glasses gave him more trouble than usual, and he was at the doctor’s office punctually by the time appointed. The doctor did not keep him waiting, but put on his hat and led him a considerable distance, to quite another part of the town from that in which he was in the habit of walking. It had once been a fashionable part, but was deserted long ago by the richer class, and was now tenanted by only the poorest people. The houses had a decayed, tumble-down look; the front doors (once so jealously guarded) were standing wide open, the halls scarred and bare-looking, every room being occupied by an entire family.

Going into one of these houses, the doctor led Peter up to the third story. There he knocked at a door.

“Come in,” said a faint voice.

Entering, they saw a poor woman sitting in an armchair. She was moving her head from side to side in the effort to get her breath. A bottle of medicine stood on a rickety table near by. The bedstead at her side, covered over with a counterpane, was evidently without a mattress, or anything else save the canvas sacking, to lie on. Two little girls, pale and scantily clad, shrank back to a corner as the visitors entered.

The doctor sat down beside the poor sufferer, and after inquiring about her sickness led her on gently to tell something[169]
[170] of her past history—how in her youth, in her father’s house, she had every want supplied; how she had married with bright prospects, and for a time been happy, until her husband, fallen through drink from one depth of poverty to another, had at last left her and her little ones to starve, except for the kindness of those who took pity on them.

“Yet God has taken care of me,” she said, “in all my troubles, and I know he will keep on doing so. Yesterday I awoke in the morning and sat up on the edge of my bed, and cried, for I did not know where a mouthful of food was to come from for me and my children. But before night I had plenty.”

Peter looked from her face to the doctor’s while she was speaking. He knew that the doctor was familiar with such scenes, yet he saw him put his finger up to his eye and draw it across the lids to prevent a tear from falling.

Coming out of this house and walking a little way, the doctor turned into a narrow alley that led back from the main street. Here he entered a house that was shut in from the air and the light by high walls on every side. In a lower room of this house was a man, tall and of large frame, once evidently very strong, but now pale and weak, looking as if he were hardly able to stand. Five young children, in various degrees of raggedness, and the man’s wife were with him.

Peter looked around the room. The walls had been so often covered with whitewash that it stood out in layers and ridges upon them, except in some spots where the plaster had fallen off, leaving the lath bare underneath. Peter could not help thinking of the beautiful paper in his rich uncle’s house.

The doctor asked how they had got along since he last saw them. It was but poorly, they said. The father had been able to work only a few days—two or three in a week—and the mother had to make up for the rest. Beside doing the work at home, she went out washing and scrubbing almost every day.

“But it is hard on us,” she said; “he needs good food, and we can’t get it. I do all I can, but it’s not a great deal, for it pulls me down so. I feel tired all the time—when I go to bed at night, and when I get up in the morning.”

As she spoke Peter thought that her thin, worn face told her story even more pitifully than her words did.

It was quite late when they got through this visit, but the doctor walked with Peter all the way to his home, talking with him about his own ailment and telling him what he ought to do. “For,” he said, “the trouble with your eyes is a serious one which comes from something worse than poor spectacles, and is often more deeply seated even than the eye itself.”

As they parted he said:

“I want you to be at my office again at the same hour to-morrow afternoon.”

Peter was there at the time named, and the doctor took him in still another direction, to a street near the water. Here, entering a narrow but very high house, the doctor led him up a dark winding stair. It was so dark that Peter had to grope his way, for he could not see a step before him. They came at last to the garret, which the doctor entered without knocking. The windows of this room opened toward the river, and the masts of ships were visible rising above the roofs of the houses that stood between. A seaman’s chest, a chair and a broken, propped-up bedstead were all the furniture the room contained.

On the bed lay an old white-haired man. He had been a sailor, and his seamed and rugged face still told of his hard life upon the deck, and on the mast, amid wind and storm.

“What is the matter with him?” asked Peter, in a low voice.

“Nothing but old age,” replied the doctor.

“And what has he to live upon?” continued Peter.

“Only the wages of his weak and sickly boy,” said the doctor, “who leaves him in the morning to go to his work, and returns at night when his day’s work is done. The long hours between he spends here alone.”

The old man put his hand upon his breast, saying that he felt pain and a smothering feeling there.

“And what do you do, my old friend,” asked Peter, “while you are lying here all by yourself, if you want anything? Suppose you want a drink?”

“I do without it,” replied the old man.

The doctor leaned over the bed and talked kindly to him, comforting him, and then placed a piece of money in his trembling hand.

As he and Peter came down the winding stair together the doctor said in a low voice, “It is not likely he will suffer long.”

When they regained the street, the doctor told Peter there was yet another visit they could pay that same afternoon if they quickened their steps; and he led the way to a neighborhood not far off, where some great cotton-mills stood. Here, in a small house, and living in one little room, were two old women who were sisters. A tiny stove stood in the room with about a double handful of coal burning in it. A bucket partly filled with coal (which they bought by the bucket only) stood beside it. A single strip of rag carpet lay along the middle of the well-scrubbed floor.

In a tin cup over the fire a small quantity of meal was boiling, and in a bowl on the table was a little milk. A few pieces of bread were lying near it. (His cousin’s elegant dinner here recurred to Peter’s mind.)

One of the old women was bedridden, but was now sitting up in her bed; and both were at work unwinding great skeins of yarn, parting the different colors and winding these up again into separate balls. This was for one of the mills in the neighborhood. Both of the old bodies were cheerful, and showed great pleasure when the doctor came in. The well one bustled about and set out a chair for him, and another for Peter. The doctor sat down and talked with them, and listened to all they had to say.

“Sister has been a good deal better for the past week,” said the well one, “and the mills are busy, and we have plenty of work.”

“But your rent?” asked the doctor. “It comes due soon, doesn’t it?”

“We have it all made up,” said the old woman, triumphantly. “It is in yonder bureau-drawer, ready now. God has been very good to us. We don’t want any help this time.”

It was nearly dark when the doctor and Peter came out of the little house. As they were about to part, the doctor said:

“To-morrow I will take you to another quarter and introduce you to some of my friends there.”

“I believe, my kind friend,” replied Peter, in a subdued voice, “that this will be needless. Your wise treatment has reached the seat of the disease. I feel my sight growing clearer every hour.”

Then, hastily bidding his companion “Good-bye,” Peter turned toward his home. He walked with a brisk step, feeling, somehow or other, as if he could hardly get there soon enough. As he entered the door he heard the merry voices of his children up stairs. He went into the dining-room. No one was there, but the fire was burning brightly in the stove, and a plentiful evening meal was already spread upon the table. Peter stood for a moment silent and alone. The sofa, the chairs, all the objects around him—-not luxurious and elegant, but comfortable and abundant—-looked different from what they used to look. The place seemed filled with blessings.

“And is it possible,” he exclaimed, “my eyes have been so blinded that I have never before been able to see them?”

Just then his wife came into the room. He went to her, took her hand tenderly in his, and told her where he had been, what he had seen, and how differently he felt.

“But,” said she, with a loving smile and an arch look, “how about those badly-ironed collars that we heard of[179]
[180] the other morning, and the dusty steps, and the weak coffee?”

“Oh,” he cried, “how could I ever let such trifles trouble me?”

“And then,” she continued, “the nursery carpet that is wearing out, and the boy’s shoes, and the girls’ dresses?”

“As for them,” he said, “we will hope to get more when they are gone. But with even half our present comforts and indulgences, and with you, my dearest, and our precious children about me, I trust I may feel too rich ever again to utter one complaining word.”

So the dark shadows were driven away from Peter Crisp’s spectacles, and he and all his family ever after led a happier life, because he had found what he never possessed before—A THANKFUL HEART.