The Debtor's Daughter CHAPTER 7.
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When a final settlement of Mr. Wilkins's estate was made, the result was not far from what had been anticipated. The one hundred and seventy thousand dollars of assets had shrunk, under the hand of the Assignee, to eighty thousand, net; thus giving the creditors about sixty-five percent of their claims.
"Well sir," said Putnam to Mr. Wilkins, meeting him one day after the last dividend had been made, "that business of yours has wound up very poorly!"
"In what respect?" asked Mr. Wilkins.
"All of your creditors have lost large amounts."
"It has divided as much as I expected, under the mode of settlement that was adopted. Had you given me the privilege of winding up of the business, I could have obtained a far better result."
"I don't believe it!"
"You are at liberty to believe as you think best," said Mr. Wilkins, who was a good deal annoyed, not only at the fact of being addressed on the subject of his late business by one who had marred everything by his ill-natured, narrow-minded policy — but with the manner of the address in particular. "You had your own way in the settlement of my affairs — and the least you can do is to be satisfied with the result."
"Indeed! No doubt you find it a very pleasant sport, to snap your fingers in the face of a man who has lost some three or four thousand dollars by your failure!"
"Mr. Putnam!" exclaimed Mr. Wilkins. "This is an outrage!"
"Not half so great as to withhold from me what is my due!" said the creditor, sneeringly.
"What am I to understand by your use of the word withhold?" asked the debtor, a good deal excited.
"Just what the word expresses!"
"Do you mean, sir, that I did not relinquish all my property at the time I made an assignment?"
"I don't know, I am sure. I hope, for your own conscience sake, that you did."
"Then to what do you allude?"
"You are in the receipt of a handsome salary."
"Well?"
"And, instead of living on one half of it, and letting the other half go towards the payment of your debts — you live extravagantly for the debtor that you are, and thus consume the whole of your income."
It was some time before Mr. Wilkins, thus accused, could reply. He then said, in a subdued voice, for he was deeply hurt.
"I have a family to provide for and to educate."
"But, you have no right to provide for them luxuriously, and educate them expensively — at my charge! When I see your daughter going to the same high-priced school where mine goes, I say to myself: All that is very well; but I pay the bills!"
"No sir, you do not!" replied Mr. Wilkins, with some warmth, for the words of his overbearing creditor stung him. "I pay the bills."
"But the money is mine," retorted Putnam.
"It is not true! With my own labor, I provide for my family. You took everything; and not content with that; you still hold me down with your foot upon my neck. Had you permitted me to rise from my prostrate condition; to stand firmly on my feet again, I might have recovered myself. I have ability, but you would not permit me to exercise that ability. You have tied me hand and foot — and yet call upon me to run. But, sir, you call upon me in vain! Had you released me when I gave up everything — then others would have done the same; and now, instead of being simply in the receipt two thousand dollars a year, I would have been in active business, with a capital at my command, and, in a fair way of recovering all I had lost. And He who knows my heart, knows that I would, if prosperous, have paid off my debts to the uttermost farthing. That hope is gone now! Gone through your agency — and yet you stoop to assail and censure me! Suppose I were to deprive my family of comforts and my children of a liberal education, in order to pay the debt your mismanagement of my effects has left hanging over me? How much could I pay? Say eight hundred dollars a year. Why, the interest on the balance of forty-five thousand dollars which remains, is some twenty-seven hundred dollars per annum! The case is hopeless under the present state of affairs! And what would be you're annual dividend under this system of disbursement? About sixty dollars! And for this paltry sum, sir, would you, who count your tens and tens of thousands, rob my children of a good education?"
"All very good talk," said Putnam, who felt himself shrinking before his aroused debtor. "But it doesn't alter the case at all. You are spending more money than a debtor is authorized to spend. Your children are no better than the children of a man whose income is but a thousand dollars, and have no more abstract right to receive a better education. If you wish to act justly, live on half your income — and pay the rest of your debts off!"
"After the children whom God has given me are educated and provided for, I may do as you suggest; not before. As for the difference between myself and the man who earns but a thousand dollars — it is this. My ability to serve society is greater than his, and my family are entitled to natural blessings in a different and higher ratio. Here, as the President of an Insurance Company, I am like a man moving along the highway with fetters upon his limbs; and you, sir, have thus fettered me. Yours, then, be a portion of the detriment! To all I can earn, with these manacles on my limbs, my family has a just claim, and you may be sure, Mr. Putnam, that I will pay their claim — before you receive a dollar! This I wish you to understand clearly, and also, the principle from which I act."
"Pardon me for saying Mr. Wilkins, that I think your principle is a dishonest one! What you owe is not your own, and in using the money that comes into your hands above the common necessities of life, you use what belongs to others. I speak plainly."
"What do you call the common necessities of life?" asked the debtor.
"Food and clothing sufficient for health, comfort, and a decent appearance in society. Beyond that, a man in your debtor circumstances, has no right to abstract anything!"
"Will you allow nothing for the education of my children?"
"That is provided for at the public expense. Send your children to the common schools, and it will cost you nothing."
"I might send my boy there. But not my girls."
"Are your girls better than the daughters of thousands who are more able than you are, to give their children expensive educations?"
"I am able to give them good educations," replied Mr. Wilkins with much feeling, "and I thank God for it! If I were not able, I would seek the best education I could get for them in the common schools. But, as, in the permission of divine Providence, means sufficient for the attainment of this great good are placed in my hands — I will use them in thankfulness, believing, that, in so doing, I will best discharge my duty to my offspring, to society and to my God. Estimating as highly as I do the importance of educating the forming and maturing minds of the young, you may be sure that, while my daily labor procures me the means of doing a work of so much importance for the souls committed to my care — I shall let no considerations, such as you urge, induce me to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs."
"Children's bread to dogs! What do you mean?"
"I see little in the spirit you manifest, Mr. Putnam, above that shown by a greedy dog. To give you sixty dollars a year of my earnings, and distribute in like ratio to my other creditors, not one of whom would receive a particle of real benefit from the distribution, and thus rob my children of the education they are capable of receiving and using — would be to elevate a false idea of honesty above a real good. And let me tell you sir, that in desiring such a sacrifice, you show a far more dishonest spirit than you could attribute to me."
"Dishonest, sir! Dishonest! What do you mean? I will not bear your insults!"
"I speak to you, as I think," replied Mr. Wilkins. "It's not honest in you, to seek to rob my children of the only thing left in my power to give them — an education. And not only is it dishonest towards them; it is dishonest towards the community in which you reside. They have active minds, and if well educated, will make useful members of society. The higher the education which anyone receives, the higher becomes his ability to serve the common good. Knowing this, it is my duty to society to give my children the highest attainable degree of education."
"If you steal the money to pay their tuition bills!" said Putnam, with sarcastic bitterness.
"No sir — If I can get the money by honest industry," replied Mr. Wilkins, with firmness and dignity.
"Though honorable debts may never be paid!"
"I have already explained my views on that subject," replied Mr. Wilkins. "But as you do not seem to comprehend me, let me express them a little more broadly. In equity, I do not owe a single dollar!"
"What!"
"I repeat. In equity, I do not owe a single dollar!"
"What will you do with the forty-five thousand dollars standing on your own books against you?"
"That deficit, you and your fellow creditors made, through mismanagement and a reckless mode of settling my estate. You set me aside as having no interest whatever in the property assigned; and gave me no agency in the settlement. What right, then, have you to come and demand of me to restore what you have lost?"
"That's robbery!"
"No sir! It is very far from it. You seem to forget that a debtor has rights. In this whole matter, I am the wronged one — and you are one of my oppressors. And now, in the sight of Heaven, I charge you with wrong and oppression! Shame, sir! that you have so little humanity in your bosom as to seek, still further, to trample on, and oppress me; and not me only, but my helpless children. Sir, there is no action without re-action; and this you will feel either in this world — or the next. I pray that you may feel it in this, and that it may bring you into a better state of mind."
There was an energy and dignity about Mr. Wilkins, against which Putnam had been striving in this whole interview. Unable to withstand it any longer, he turned suddenly away and left the man he had wronged and insulted. He never met him again, except as a stranger.
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