Life Insurance by Oliver Optic

Some six months after, while Jones was engaged in raising a house, he fell from the plate to the ground, striking upon a rock in his fall. He was conveyed to his home, and a council of physicians pronounced it a hopeless case. His spine was injured, and there was no possibility of recovery.

He lingered along for a month in the most excruciating agony, and then died. The expenses of his sickness and of the funeral absorbed all his little savings; and when his disconsolate wife, followed by her three fatherless children, returned from the grave of her husband, she realized that she was not only alone in the world, but that she was penniless -- literally penniless.

It was a sad thought for the poor woman. Not even a short season of mourning, which her widowed heart craved, could be allowed her. Her children must not starve, and there was no bread in the house.

Her neighbors, suspecting her situation, were kind to her, and sent in provisions in abundance; but instinctively she shrunk from the mortifying alternative of accepting charity.

Poor woman! what could she do? How could she support her fatherless children? She had no wealthy relatives -- she was from the house of poverty herself. But she could not live on charity.

The village in which she resided was a large place, and though she was too proud to accept a gift, she was not too proud to solicit work. With her eyes yet red with weeping over her husband's bier, she called upon several wealthy families to ask for their washing.

It was given her, and she began to feel a certain sense of independence again, as she returned with her bundles of clothes to her desolate home.

All she could do was given her; and with a severe struggle, she was able to support herself and children, and refused any overtures of aid which were made her by her neighbors. Mrs. Brown attempted to assist her friend, in a delicate way, but without success. Mrs. Jones toiled on with all her strength and energy, preferring independence to every other consideration.

But it soon became evident to her neighbors that her health was suffering severely from this unremitting toil. Remonstrances were in vain; and ere another six months had rolled away, Mrs. Brown was watching over the dying bed of her friend. Little children, not old enough to understand their lonely condition, were gathered around it to receive the parting kiss of a dying mother.

Poor orphans! God will take care of you, though all the world be cold and cruel! Ye shall not find another mother, but the Father of the fatherless shall watch over and protect you.

She died, and they placed her by the side of her husband, over whose grave the grass had not yet grown. The hard lot of poverty had hurried her into that early grave. The want of a few of those dollars which the gay and heartless thoughtlessly squander by the thousand, had carried her down to that bourn where there is no sorrow, and the weary are at rest.

The orphans were carried to the poorhouse. Life was a desert to them. Home was no more. Love was in the cold grave.

Was Jones right, or was he wrong? Would not that boon of our progressive age, life insurance, have averted some part of this long list of calamities? Would it not have saved a mother's life? Would it not have redeemed those lonely orphans from the degradation and neglect of the poorhouse?

It could not have saved Jones's life, but it could have been a blessing to his family -- a blessing that would have reached down to distant generations. It might have saved a home, and more, far more than all beside, a devoted mother, to those fatherless little ones.

Brown, too, has gone to his rest. But his death entailed none of the miseries upon his family, which were the lot of Jones's. His widow is a frugal and industrious woman; but labor is her helpmate -- her husband now: she is not the slave of toil. Brown left her the POOR MAN'S LEGACY.