Alice; or, Always at Work for Others

Written by Elizabeth Prentiss
Introduction by Amber Moeller

In reading through Elizabeth Prentiss' book "Only A Dandelion and Other Stories", I happened to read the following story about a girl named Alice. What a poignant example this story gives in finding the true meaning of happiness.

Alice

One afternoon, Alice, after moping about for an hour and a half, went and seated herself near the window, with her head on her hand. There was no other person in the room, so she had the miserable satisfaction of looking as wretched as she pleased. Her thoughts were somewhat in this style: "Oh! dear, I wish I had something to do! How gloomy every thing looks out of doors! I don't believe any body would care a snap, if I should die."

Just then the door opened, and her mother came in. She looked at Alice, but said nothing, as she examined the library as if in search of a book.

"I should think Mamma might ask what is the matter with me," thought she. "But it is just as I said. She doesn't care for me enough for that."

Unfortunately for this assertion, her mother now came towards her, saying, "Why, what is the matter, Alice?"

"Nothing!" Alice answered peevishly, for she had by this time quite altered her mind, and did not see why she should be catechized in this way. "I wish I might look as I please, without having every body asking the reason. I'm sure I don't know any reason. This is my room and I wish people wouldn't come in here, teasing me." Perhaps her mother guessed her thoughts, for she made no further remark and presently went away. As soon as the door closed, Alice burst into tears. "Oh! what a cross old thing I am!" she said to herself. "Mamma was as kind as she could be, and I a good-for-nothing--"

"Alice! Alice!" called her sister Lucy from the foot of the stairs, "come down here; Papa is going to tell us a story."

"I don't want to hear any stories," Alice was just going to say, but she checked herself and only answered, "I can't come yet." She went to the glass, to see if her eyes looked as if she had been crying. For some reason or other, this glance at her own disconsolate countenance only induced a fresh burst of tears. She threw herself upon the bed and sobbed as if her heart had been quite broken, till all her tears were used up, and then she felt better. "I wonder what made me cry at all?" thought she, and from this wonder she went on to another, till at last she fell fast asleep. From these slumbers she was only aroused by the tea-bell. The rest of the family being in fine spirits, Alice soon recovered her own, and the evening passed off as usual.

Now Alice was the happy possessor of a judicious mother, who witnessed not without anxiety those daily fits of depression in her daughter, of which we have given a specimen. That if allowed free indulgence in these propensities, Alice would grow up selfish and morose, seemed at least probable. What, then, should be done?

Alice was very sensitive on many points, but particularly so on this. She never willingly spoke of her own private feelings, nor did she like others to pry into them. One day, just as she had established herself in her favorite corner, with one of the fits coming on, an intimate friend of hers came in to spend the afternoon. In a moment, Alice was all smiles and gaiety; at first, to be sure, it was an assumed cheerfulness, but very shortly it became the reality.

When the visitor had taken her leave, her mother said, "Well, Alice, so it seems Ellen has cheated you of a nice fit of blues."

"Nice! Mother," reechoed Alice.

"Why, yes; nice in one sense. People who indulge themselves in these seasons of depression really take a sort of pleasure in being miserable."

Alice could not deny this, so she said nothing.

"But Alice," her mother continued, "do you know I often fear that you are establishing a habit of this kind, which will make you very unlovely?"

"But I can't help feeling gloomy, sometimes, Mamma," said Alice, secretly wishing the subject had not been introduced.

"How then happened it, my dear, that as soon as Ellen came, you became so apparently cheerful? Does not this prove that your spirits are really somewhat under your own control?"

Alice was silent. She did not quite like to say what she thought, which was simply this: "Mamma does not know any thing about such things; she never feels so."

Her mother read it, however, in her face.

"I can guess what you think, Alice," she said; "but I assure you that at your age I used to have the blues, as you call them, very frequently; but from the time you were given me, my dear child, I had little leisure for the indulgence of fancied sorrows. I learned then, that constant and useful occupation is one of the best of preventives in such cases, and you know," she added, smiling, "that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Alice smiled too. She was touched by the gentle allusion to her own infancy and childhood, which she knew to have been, owing to her feeble constitution, a season of much trial and anxiety, and she resolved to test her mother's opinions by her own experience.

I do not know how Alice succeeded. Those of my readers who understand, by scenes in their past histories, her early difficulties, may perhaps, with her choose to try this simple recipe for uniform cheerfulness: "always at work." Or, perhaps I should say, always at work for others; for the benevolent never have unreasonable moods of despondency; because they can not find time to nurse them.

This story originally appeared in an 1854 edition of "Only A Dandelion and Other Stories" by Elizabeth Prentiss.

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