have more than I can properly use already.
There's only about eight thousand loaned at present, and nearly five
thousand in bank."

"I'm so sorry!" said Leonore. "But couldn't you give some of the money,
so that it wouldn't come back?"

"That does more harm than good. It's like giving opium to kill
temporary pain. It stops the pain for the moment, but only to weaken the
system so as to make the person less able to bear pain in the future.
That's the trouble with most of our charity. It weakens quite as much as
it helps."

"I have thought about this for five years as something I should do. I'm
so grieved." And Leonore looked her words.

Peter could not stand that look. "I've been thinking of sending a
thousand dollars of the fund, that I didn't think there was much chance
of using, to a Fresh Air fund and the Day Nursery. If you wish I'll send
two thousand instead and then take your thousand? Then I can use that
for whatever I have a chance."

"That will do nicely. But I thought you didn't think regular charities
did much good?"

"Some don't. But it's different with children. They don't feel the
stigma and are not humiliated or made indolent by help. We can't do too
much to help them. The future of this country depends on its poor
children. If they are to do right, they must be saved from ill-health,
and ignorance, and vice; and the first step is to give them good food
and air, so that they shall have strong little bodies. A sound man,
physically, may not be a strong man in other ways, but he stands a much
better chance."

"Oh, it's very interesting," said Leonore. "Tell me some more about the
poor people."

"What shall I tell you?" said Peter.

"How to help them."

"I'll speak about something I have had in mind for a long time, trying
to find some way to do it. I think the finest opportunity for
benevolence, not already attempted, would be a company to lend money to
the poor, just as I have attempted, on a small scale, in my ward. You
see there are thousands of perfectly honest people who are living on day
wages, and many of them can lay up little or no money. Then comes
sickness, or loss of employment, or a fire which burns up all their
furniture and clothes, or some other mischance, and they can turn only
to pawnbrokers and usurers, with their fearful charges; or charity, with
its shame. Then there are hundreds of people whom a loan of a little
money would help wonderfully. This boy can get a place if he