RELATIVE VALUES

Otago Witness, Issue 4042, 1 September 1931, Page 68

RELATIVE VALUES

By

A. H.

(Special for the Otago Witness.)

A friend of mine some time ago told me a little story of his early boyhood, which has set me thinking. The family, he said, used to attend the local sports on New Year’s Day, and each of the children was given sixpence with which to buy biscuits., or other eatables. On one occasion he went without this little treat in order to save his sixpence to buy a ball that he wished for. But imagine his disappointment when he was not allowed to have the ball, but had to give up the sixpence to his mother! Poor little chap! he must indeed have thought it hard, and I did too when I heard the story. I was much inclined to call that mother shortsighted and arbitrary, thus to deny her little son a pleasure that would have been more lasting and perhaps higher in quality than the mere enjoyment of something nice to eat. This, too, when he had voluntarily denied himself the one pleasure in the hope of having the other. But, after all, I am not in a position to throw stones at the doubtless wellmeaning woman. I was well-meaning too, and comfortably self-satisfied a few years ago, yet now I have cause for daily heartache at the sight of familiar places and objects about the home here that are associated with a lonely old man who used often to live with us—my father. For I see now, as I myself grow older, how lonely he was. Then I did not realise it, and iised to tell myself that I. had no time to leave my work and sit down and talk with him, though often I felt a twinge of sympathy when I saw his bent shoulders (once so strong and straight) drooping as he sat. in the shade by the pines and willows, or in the big chair in the kitchen. I could have cheered him so much every day had I not been absorbed by my own selfish activities—selfish even when I was dojng something for him, because I enjoyed going about freely, as he could no longer do, and I could have made him happy by cheerful companionship, much more than by material things. The comfort that I have left myself in the memory of those days arises from the little glints of love that I did give him at times—welcoming with appreciation the help he used to- give me in my work when he was able, such as drying the dishes, shelling peas, and such things. That was a little taste of what he hungered for, and what I could and should have given him abundantly—the sense that he was loved and valued among us. But like my friend in his boyhood, he was offered the material and transitory, and largely denied what he wanted much more.