NOW, Sadie, I knew, was temperamental. Sadie was sensitive. But surely there wasn’t quite enough in that dull musical comedy, that afternoon, to make anyone weep. But, as I had noticed Sadie dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief, off and on through the first act, when the curtain went down, I demanded the reason.
Somewhat reluctantly Sadie handed me a letter. “Did you ever see anything as heartless as that?” she asked. “It’s about a package I sent to Eldora, last week.”
I read it. Then, uncertainly: “Why, I don’t know,” I replied; “seems all right enough to me. ‘Ever so much obliged for the birthday package.’ What’s the matter with that?”
“Why, she might just as well have said, ‘Yours of the 16th at hand and contents noted’!” And as Sadie snatched back the letter she was already emptying the vials of her resentment.
A while ago, it appeared, when she was visiting Sadie in New York, Eldora had raved over some fawn-colored gloves she had seen, with those awfully wide black stitchings down the back. Though fairly weak after a bad attack of the flu, poor Sadie had tramped through shop after shop, from 34th Street to 56th Street last week, to find those particular gloves; actually fighting for them, at the last, with a mob of wild women at a bargain sale. Well, Sadie had gone and bought a fancy box. Sadie had wrapped that package with neatness and with fondest care. Sadie had walked twenty-one blocks (so she said) to a Post Office. Sadie had stood there in line for half an hour, more or less, to have it weighed and insured.
“And I just loved it all—I loved doing it for Eldora,” wailed Sadie. “And now all she says is that she is ‘ever so much obliged’!”
“Oh, well,” said I loftily, “we oughtn’t to give things just for the thanks, you know.”
“Never mind the thanks!” snapped Sadie, “but did she like those gloves? Good gracious, you want to know whether you’ve pleased a person or not, don’t you? Were they the right shade? Did they match her gown? Were they the size? Did they fit her? Has she worn them? Why, she might have said something about them!”
“Well, at any rate,” I offered in appeasement, “she answered you promptly. That’s something. Why, loads of people don’t even acknowledge gifts at all, nowadays.”
“Yes, and that’s just the point,” declared Sadie. “I’ve no doubt she thinks she’s really quite polite and kind. Oh, she ‘means well,’ I suppose—they all do. But the trouble with Eldora is simply that she hasn’t got the Educated Heart.”
“The Educated Heart?” I queried, amused, “what d’you mean, the Educated Heart?”
THE lady was growing a little calmer now. “Why, I’ve called it that to myself so long that it seems as if anyone ought to understand. Well, it’s this way. You know you can usually tell an educated man, can’t you? There’s something about him that’s—oh, I don’t know—extra. Finish, it is, perhaps. Distinction, or something. He knows how to—”
“But the Educated Heart!” I insisted, “prithee, the Educated Heart!”
“Why, it’s just the same with hearts as it is with heads,” quoth my Mentor. “Some hearts seem to be self-made, you know—rough-dry—unvarnished—amateurish. And then some hearts are just as if they’d been to college, and been graduated in Kindness. They’ve got their B.K., or D.K., even, sometimes. Yes, I know at least one Doctor of Kindness. Why, I mean, oh, they have that extra touch of consideration—thoughtfulness, you know—imagination—and—oh, dear, why do we like to have flowers on the dinner table? They’re not necessary, of course; but doesn’t that extra touch always make the soup taste perfectly wonderful? It’s all the difference between just eating and dining. Ever see a woman without style jam on a beautiful hat and make it look like a waste-basket? Well, some people are like that, when they try to be kind. Style—that’s what it is! It’s just style in kindness that most people lack. Oh, it’s the rarest thing in the world—the Educated Heart!”
