“SOMEBODY."



"OH yes," said Grandma Edson, "I lived in the same house with Jenny's father and mother when Jenny was a little girl, and I know just how it was that she first began to say to herself, 'Somebody means Jenny.' She was at that time very nearly six years old. One day her brother Dick came into the house, . shouting, 'Ting-a-ling! Ting-a-ling, a-ling! Who's got a string? 

The boys are waiting, and my top's waiting for a string! Two red apples for a string! What does become of the strings? 

There ought to be somebody to take all the strings and paper that come into the house, and put them in a good place!'

"Jenny was sitting on a cricket by Aunt Dorothy, her mother's Aunt Dorothy, and as Dick went out, he patted her on the head, and said,' Sis, do you know who somebody means? It means Jenny.'

"After Dick had left the room, Jenny looked up at Aunt Dorothy with so curious an expression that the old lady asked, 'What is my little girl thinking about so soberly?'

"Jenny waited a moment or two, and then she told Aunt Dorothy that she felt a little voice saying something.

"'You mean that you hear a little voice,' said Nell, her older sister.

"'No, feel the little voice,' said the child, earnestly.

"'But what does the little voice say?' asked Aunt Dorothy.

"'Say, say what Dick says,' answered Jenny.

"'For my part,' said Nell, 'I can't make out what this young puss is talking about.'

'"I think I know,' said Aunt Dorothy; 

'I think the idea has come into her mind that perhaps it is really true that "somebody" means Jenny.'

"'You say it 'zactly right, Aunt Dorothy,' Jenny exclaimed.

"'I am glad to find out, at last, who "somebody" is!' said Nell, laughing. 

Aunt Dorothy looked thoughtful, but said nothing. Not long after this, she took Jenny out for a walk. They walked across the fields as far as a clump of maple-trees, and there they sat down and had a quiet talk. And in the course of the talk, Aunt Dorothy said to Jenny, 'My dear, if you live long in this world, you will many times hear of acts which "somebody" ought to do. Now I hope you will not grow up a selfish person, thinking only of your own needs and your own comforts. I hope that when you hear of these 'good deeds which "somebody " ought to do, you will very often "feel a little voice" saying, "Somebody means Jenny." And you can begin now, in a small way, even if this small way is nothing more than taking care of the strings and the wrapping-paper, and I will show you how to do this.'

"I was often in and out of their part of the house after that, and it was very curious to see how eagerly the little girl watched for packages, and to see the little fingers and thumbs fold away the papers and pick away at the strings. 

Everybody in the house got fun out of the business. Her father would come behind her and drop great sheets of stiff brown paper on her head for fun. She found strings rolled up in the toes of her stockings, and strings tied in bowknots on her kitty's tail. Her mother and Nell, just for fun, would bring her all the little wrappers which came around starch, or yarn, or bread-loaves, buttons, spools of cotton, shoestrings, if the paper was no more than two inches square, they gave it to Jenny.

"I remember plenty of incidents connected with her school-life," said Grandma Edson, "for I was the school-ma'am a part of the time; and I want to tell you some of them, to show you how it was that a woman who did a great deal of good in the world began very early in life to 'feel a little voice' saying, 'Somebody means Jenny.'

"Among the scholars was a poor child named Peggy Dunbar, who wore black pantalettes to school. It was the fashion, in those days, for the small girls, say those under thirteen, to wear pantalettes reaching down to the ankle. The every-day ones were of the same material as the dress, the best ones of white, with fancy trimmings. Now Peggy, whose parents were poor and were newcomers in the neighborhood, wore a calico dress and black pantalettes. The schoolgirls made fun of her, and sometimes the fun was plain enough for Peggy to notice it. One day, when they were talking the matter over, Sukey Sims said, 'It's too bad! Somebody ought to go to that child and tell her, kindly, that black pantalettes are not the thing!'

"The very next day Jenny walked home with Peggy Dunbar, and not only explained to her, all in a friendly way, that pantalettes like her dress would be prettier than black ones, but actually went into the house and waited until a roll of the calico could be found, and then helped to piece some strips of it together.

"The boys and girls had recess at different times, and the girls, at their recess, used to rush for the boys' sleds, and coast down hill. There were not enough sleds to go round, and so 'the little ones,' as the smaller girls were called, seldom got any. 

One recess-time a passer-by made the remark, 'Somebody ought to give the little ones a ride, and not let them stand there shivering.” After this, many a 'little one' got a ride with Jenny.

"As Jenny grew to be a young woman, she saw hard times, very hard times. Her brother Dick was lost at sea, her sister Nell married a man of the good-for-nothing kind, and moved away to the western country, as Ohio was then called, and her father and mother died, and she was left without a home and with very little money. 

She then hired two rooms, and by taking in sewing managed to support herself and Aunt Dorothy. After the old lady's death she gave up the rooms and went to live, for wages, in a neighbor's family. But what I wanted particularly to say was, that through all this time she must have very often felt the little voice saying, 'Somebody means Jenny.' For in watching the sick, and in lending a helping hand here, there, and everywhere, she was sure to be foremost.

"Why, there couldn't be a subscription paper circulated but that Jenny must attend to it. 'Pray how is it,' people would ask, 'that Jenny, more than others, finds time for all these things?'  I told them just exactly how it was, for I could trace her life all the way back to her childhood, and I saw that she had never forgotten what Aunt Dorothy said to her about 'the little voice.'

"One useful thing she accomplished was the starting of a 'Fragment Committee' in the town. The idea came into her head from hearing a remark of this kind,' There are old garments and reading-matter stored away in the garrets of some families, which, if somebody would only go round and collect them, would do a great deal of good to families who need them.'

"Jenny began by collecting these things herself, and carrying them where they were needed. Afterward others joined her. They called themselves 'The Fragment Committee,' because they gathered up what was left; and there has been such a committee in the town from that day to this. They collect clothing, bedding, reading matter, food, fire-wood, anything that anybody has to spare, and see that all these things go to the right places. Even the boys and girls helped in this, for, as Jenny said, it seemed as if their feet were made on purpose to run from house to house.

"When Jenny was between thirty and forty years old, she went to a distant city to work in a shop, and her friends lost sight of her for a number of years. We found, afterward, that to the last week of her life she remained the same unselfish, earnest person who had made us all love her so well.

"In the city there was plenty of work for 'somebody' to do. Somebody was needed to collect poor children for Sunday schools, and to teach in those schools; somebody was needed to collect ignorant people for evening classes, and to teach in those classes; somebody was needed to carry flowers to the poor who were sick, to talk with them pleasantly, to read to them pleasantly, and to look at them pleasantly; somebody was needed to help in the mission schools; somebody was needed to ask the rich for means to aid the poor; somebody was needed to search out destitute families who were too shy or too proud to ask for help, and to give them that help in a delicate way; somebody was needed to procure work for such as could not get work; somebody was needed to visit those who were degraded by sin and to assure them that they still had power to rise. And we found that in very many of these cases, our dear friend had 'felt the little voice' saying, 'Somebody means Jenny.'

"Such a life as Jenny's," said Grandma Edson, "was worth the living. It was a blessing not only to Jenny herself, who was one of the happiest people I ever knew, and to those whom she helped, and to those whom she taught to become helpers, but to others who knew her only by hearsay. For the phrase, 'Somebody means Jenny,' has come to be a proverb in her native town, and is sure to be repeated, and with good effect, too, whenever an undertaking is mentioned which 'somebody' ought to attend to, and which calls for self-forgetfulness and real hard work." 





Youth's Companion.