Them Hindoos and South Sea
Islanders may be savage and ignorant, by our scale of measuring folks;
but that is no reason why we folks should send all our money off
there, while our own folks are starving at home."
"Did you put anything into the box?" asked Lyman Drake.
"No, I didn't. When they shoved it into my face, I told 'em I'd left
all my money at home--and so I had."
"You're about right, Sam," said Bill Robinson. "But I did more than
you did. When the box was handed to me, I spoke right out, so that
everybody around me heard. I told the old deacon if he'd take up a
subscription to help the poor in our town, I'd put in something."
"What did he say to that?"
"Why--he said, 'Souls are of more consequence than bodies.' So I just
said back that I guessed he'd find it hard work to save a soul out of
a starving body. But you see that isn't the thing. They won't try to
save the souls, or the bodies either, of their own townfolks. Now when
Squire Truman came here to settle, they tried quick enough to save his
soul. Ye see his body was already salted down with ten thousand
dollars, so his soul was worth something to 'em. Why don't they try to
save poor old Israel Trask's soul, and his wife's too?"
"Wasn't there a committee of the church that visited old Israel last
month?" queried Drake.
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