_ CHAPTER FIVE. COURAGE FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS
I. IMPARTING COURAGE
FROM Norway comes a moving tale of a lighthouse keeper. One day he went to the distant shore for provisions. A storm arose, and he was unable to return. The time for lighting the lamp came, and Mary, the elder child, said to her little brother, "We must light the lamp, Willie." "How can we?" was his question. But the two children climbed the long narrow stairs to the tower where the lamp was kept. Mary pulled up a chair and tried to reach the lamp in the great reflector; it was too high. Groping down the stairs she ascended again with a small oil lamp in her hand. "I can hold this up," she said. She climbed on the chair again, but still the reflector was just beyond her reach. "Get down," said Willie, "I know what we can do." She jumped down and he stretched his little body across the chair. "Stand on me," he said. And she stood on the little fellow as he lay across the chair. She raised the lamp high, and its light shone far out across the water. Holding it first with one hand, then with the other, to rest her little arms, she called down to her brother, "Does it hurt you, Willie?" "Of course it hurts," he called back, "but keep the light burning."
The boy was wise beyond his years. He would do the important thing, no matter how it hurt. Here the thing of chief importance was looking out for the men at sea. To put them first took real courage. But what of it? That is the attitude toward life of the worker worth while; he does not stop to ask, "Is this easy?" Instead he asks, "Is this necessary? Will it be helpful?" Having answered the question he proceeds to do his best. It may hurt at first, but the time will come when it will hurt so much to leave the service undone that the inconvenience involved in doing it is lost sight of.
I. IMPARTING COURAGE
A young man won local fame as a bicycle long-distance rider. But over-fatigue, possibly coupled with neglect, caused contraction of certain muscles. He was unable to stand erect. He walked with bent back, like an old man. "What useful work can he do, handicapped as he is?" his friends asked.
But he did not lose courage. He continued to smile and make cheer for others. Finally he secured work in the office of the supervisor of a National Forest. And he made good. Most of his activities were at the desk; when he sat there his back was normal.
According to the idea of many, it would have been enough for the crippled man to look out for himself. What could he do for others? But he had not been trained in such a school; the cheerfulness that enabled him to be useful made it impossible for him to see another in need and not plan to do something for him.
The man who needed him was at hand--a cripple, whose feet were clumsy, misshapen. No one else thought that anything could be done for him but to speak dolefully and to assure him that he was fortunate in having parents and brothers who would look out for him.
But the man in the Forestry Service urged the cripple to apply for a summer appointment on the rocky, windy summit of a mountain nine thousand feet high. There it would be his duty to keep a vigilant eye on the forest stretching far away below his lofty eyrie, and to report the start of a forest fire. At first he laughed at the idea; had he not been told that he could never hope to do anything useful? Yet as he listened to his friend his eyes began to sparkle. Finally he dared to agree to make application for the position.
During the winter months the forester spent many evenings with his friend, coaching him in some of the lore of the forests, giving him books to read, and showing him what his specific duties would be, and how to perform them.
In the spring the situation was secured, and when the season of forest fires came the young man bravely climbed the steep trail over the snow to his lonely cabin. An able-bodied man is able to make the climb from the end of the wagon road in much less than an hour; the cripple required more than five hours to reach the top. Then he took up his residence there, cooking his own food, making his observations from morning until night, receiving his mother and his brothers when from time to time they came to see how he was getting on and to help him in some of the rougher tasks about the cabin. They thought they would need to speak words of cheer to a lonely, discouraged man, but they soon learned their error; not only did he have cheer enough for himself, but he was able to send his visitors away happier than when they came because of their contact with the man for whom life had been made over by the acts of a thoughtful friend, a friend whose own courage had been increased by his efforts to encourage a friend. _