Three People

P >> Pansy >> Three People

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

The two laughed immensely over these directions, then swallowed their
last drops of coffee and departed, leaving Tode in an ecstasy of glee.
He had learned how to secure the management of those horses; they were
not beyond his reach after all. If so great things were attainable
merely from the following out of those simple rules, why then the
position of coachman was attainable to him.

"Easy enough thing to do," he said, as he freshened the tables for new
comers. "It's just going straight ahead, pitching into what you've got
to do, and doing it first-rate, and finding out about everything under
the sun as fast as you can. I can do all _that_."

And having reduced the synopsis of all success to language that best
suited his style, Tode straightened the cloths and brought fresh
napkins, and gave an extra touch to the glittering silver, and managed
to throw so much practice from his newly acquired stock in trade into
his movements, that Mr. Roberts, passing through the room, said within
himself: "That queer scamp is improving again. I believe I'll hold on to
him a while longer." So sunshine came back to Tode. Not that he gave up
the horses--not he, it was not his way to give up; but he had bright
visions in the dim distant future of himself seated grandly on a stylish
coach box, and he whistled for joy and pushed ahead.

The very next afternoon Tode was sent on an errand to the Hastings
mansion. It wasn't often he got out in the daytime, so he made the most
of his walk; and the voice was fresh and cheery which floated up to
Pliny Hastings as he tossed wearily among the pillows in his mother's
room.

"Is that Tode? Yes, it is, I hear his voice. Dora, ring the bell, I want
to have him come up here."

"My son--" began Mrs. Hastings.

"Oh now, mother, do let a fellow breathe. I've staid poked up here until
I'm ready to fly, and he's just as cute as he can be. Ring the bell,
Dora."

Dora obeyed, and in a very few minutes thereafter Tode was ushered into
the elegance of Mrs. Hastings' sitting-room.

"_You_ sick," he said, pausing in his work of gazing eagerly about him
to bestow a pitying glance on Pliny's pale face. "Jolly! that's awful
stupid work, ain't it? What's the matter?"

"I should think it was," Pliny answered, laughing a little though at
Tode's tone. "I've a confounded sick headache, that's what's the
matter."

"Pliny!" Mrs. Hastings said, rebukingly.

"Oh bother, mother! Excruciating headache then, if that suits you
better. Tode, have you seen Ben to-day?"

"Not a sign of him. Couldn't think what had become of you two. You're as
thick as hops, ain't you?"

Pliny glanced uneasily at his mother, but a summons to the parlor
relieved him, and the three were left alone. Dora returned to her
writing, and her small fingers glided swiftly over the page. Tode
watched her with wondering and admiring eyes.

"Be you writing?" he exclaimed at last.

"Why, yes," said Dora. "Don't you see I am?"

"How old be you?"

"I'm eleven years old. You never studied grammar, did you?"

"And you know how to write?"

"Why, yes," said Dora again, this time laughing merrily. "I've known how
more than a year."

Tode's answer was grave and thoughtful:

"I'm fifteen."

"Are you, though?" said Pliny. "That's just my age."

"And can't _you_ write?" questioned Dora.

"Me?" said Tode, growing gleeful over the thought. "I shouldn't think I
could."

"Aren't you ever going to learn?"

"Never thought of it. Is it fun? No, I don't suppose I'll ever learn.
Yes, I will, too. You learn me, will you?"

"How could I? Do you mean it? Do you truly want to learn? Dear me! I
never could teach you; mamma wouldn't allow it."

For an answer Tode stepped boldly forward, deterred by no feeling of
impropriety, and looked over the little lady's shoulder at the round
fair letters.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to the first letter of a sentence.

"That is T; capital T. Why, that's the very first letter of your name."

"I don't see anything capital about it; it twists around like a snake.
What do you curl it all up like that for?"

"Why, that's the way to make it. Mamma says I make a very pretty letter
T, and it's a capital because--because--Oh, Pliny, why is it a capital?"

"Because it is," answered Pliny, promptly.

"Oh yes," said Tode, quickly. "Course that's the reason. Queer we
didn't think of it." Then to Dora. "Let's see you snarl that thing
around."

Dora quickly and skillfully obeyed.

"Do it again, and don't go so like lightning. How can a fellow tell what
you're about?"

So more slowly, and again and again was the feat repeated until at last
Tode seized hold of the pen as he said:

"Let me have a dab at the fellow; see if I can draw him."

"Why, you do it real well. Really and truly he does, Pliny," said the
delighted Dora.

"But do you know there are two t's?" she added, turning again to her
pupil. "One has a cross to it, just so. You make a straight mark with a
little crook to it; then you cross it, _so_."

Pliny from his sofa chuckled and exclaimed over this explanation: "A
straight mark with a little crook to it. Oh, ho!" But the others were
absorbed, and bent eagerly over their paper, and thus the horrified Mrs.
Hastings found them on her return from the parlor, the offshoot from a
cellar rum hole bending his curly head close beside _her daughter's_!

She exclaimed in indignant astonishment:

"Dora Hastings!"

And eager, innocent Dora hastened to make answer:

"Mamma, he can make the two t's; the capital and the other, you know;
and he has them both on this piece of paper. Just see, mamma."

"Say, now," interrupted Tode, "I've decided to do them all. You learn
me, will you? I'm to come up here every night after this with the seven
o'clock mail. Just you make a letter on a paper for me, the big fellow,
and the little one, you know, and I'll work at it off and on the next
day, and have it ready for you at night. Will you do it? Come now."

Pliny raised himself on one elbow, his face full of interest:

"Take a figure, Tode, with your letters; figures are a great deal
sharper than letters. I'll make one a night for you."

"All right," said Tode. "I don't mind working in a figure now and then.
A fellow might need to use 'em."

"Mamma," said Dora, "may I? I should so love to; it would be real
teaching, you know. He is fifteen years old, and he don't know how to
write, and it won't take one little minute of my time. Oh please yes,
mamma."

What _could_ the elegant Mrs. Hastings say? What was there to say to so
simple, original, yet so absurd a request? Still she was annoyed, and
looked it, but she did not speak it, and Tode was not sensitive to
looks, or words either, for that matter, and moved with a brisker, more
business-like step back to the hotel, and someway felt an inch taller,
for was he not to have a new letter and a figure every evening, and did
he not know how to make two t's?

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VIII.

WHICH SHALL PROSPER, THIS OR THAT?

The Rev. John Birge stood before the window in his cosy little study,
and drummed disconsolately and dismally on the pane. Without there was a
genuine carnival among the elements, a mingling of snow and rain, which
became ice almost as it fell, and about which a regular northeast wind
was blustering. The Rev. John looked, and drummed, and knitted his
brows, and finally turned abruptly to little Mrs. John, who sat in the
smallest rocking-chair, toasting her feet on the hearth.

"Now, Emma, isn't it strange that of all the evenings in the week
Thursday should be the one so constantly stormy? This is the third one
in succession that has been so unpleasant that very few could get out."

This sentence was delivered in a half-impatient, half-desponding tone;
and Mrs. John took time to consider before she answered, soothingly:

"Well, you will have the satisfaction of feeling that those who come out
this evening love the prayer-meeting enough to brave even such a storm
as this, and of remembering that there are many others who would brave
it if they dared."

But the minister was not to be beguiled into comfort; he gave an
impatient kick to an envelope that lay at his feet, and continued his
story.

"I haven't a _thing_ prepared suitable for such an evening as this. My
intention was to have a short, practical, personal talk, addressed
almost entirely to the unconverted; and I shall have Deacon Toles and
Deacon Fanning, and a few other gray-haired saints, who don't need a
word of it, to listen to me. I had in mind just the persons that I hoped
to reach by this evening's service, and that makes it all the more
discouraging to feel almost absolutely certain that not one of them will
be out to-night. I certainly do not see why it is that the one evening
of the week, which as Christians we try to give to God, should be so
often given up to storm."

Mrs. John could not see her husband's face this time, it had been turned
again to the window pane; but there was that in the tone of his voice
which made her change her tactics.

"It _is_ a pity and a shame," she said, in demure gravity, "that
Thursday evening of all others should prove stormy. Do you think it can
be possible that our Heavenly Father knows that so many of his people
have made it an evening of prayer? Or if he does, can't he possibly send
some poor little sinner to meeting, if it be his will to do so, as well
as those saints you spoke of?"

The minister did not reply for a little. Presently he turned slowly from
the window and met his wife's gaze; then he laughed, a low, half-amused,
half-ashamed laugh. He could afford to do so, for be it known this was a
new order of things in the minister's household. Truth to tell, it was
the little wife who became out of sorts with the weather, with the
walking, with the people, and had to be reasoned, or coaxed, or petted
into calm by the grave, earnest, faithful, patient minister; and his
rebellious spirit had been slain to-night by the use of some of his own
weapons, hurled at him indeed in a pretty, graceful, feminine way, but
he recognized them at once, and could afford to laugh. Afterward when he
had buckled his overshoes and buttoned his overcoat, and prepared to
brave the storm in answer to the tolling bell, he came over to the
little rocking-chair.

"My dear," he said, "we will kneel down and have a word of prayer, that
our Father will have this meeting in his care, and bring good out of
seeming ill."

And as they knelt together they had changed places again, and the
minister's wife looked up with a kind of wistful reverence to the calm,
earnest face of her husband.

"It storms like the mischief," Mr. Roberts said on this same evening, as
he closed the door with a bang, and a shrug of his shoulders. "Very few
people will venture out this evening. Tode, if you want an hour or two
for a frolic, now is your time to take it. After you have been up with
the mail you can go where you like until the train is due."

Here was fun for Tode. This would give him two full hours, and he had at
least two dozen schemes for filling up the time; but it chanced that
wind and sleet and cold were too much even for him.

"Jolly!" he said. "What a regular old stunner _that_ was," as a gust of
wind nearly blew him away; and he clapped both hands to his head to see
if his cap had withstood the shock.

"This ain't just the charmingest kind of an evening that ever I was out.
I'd tramp back to our hotel quicker, only a fellow don't like to spend
his evening just exactly where he does all the others when it's a
holiday. I wonder what's in here? They're singing like fun, whatever
'tis. I mean to peek in--might _go_ in; no harm done in taking a look.
'Tain't anyways likely that it blows in there as it does out here. Tode
and me will just take a look, we will."

And he pushed open the door and slipped into the nearest seat by the
fire just as the singing was concluded, and the Rev. John Birge began to
read; and the words he read were about that strange old story of the
great company and the lack of food, and the lad with the five barley
loaves and two small fishes, and the multitude that were fed, and the
twelve baskets of fragments that remained--story familiar in all its
details to every Sabbath-school scholar in the land, but utterly new to
Tode, falling on his ear for the first time, bearing all the charm of a
fairy tale to him. There was just one thing that struck this ignorant
boy as very strange, that a company of men and women, some of them
gray-headed, should spend their time in coming together that stormy
evening, and reading over and talking about so utterly improbable a
tale. He listened eagerly to see what might be the clew to this mystery.

"We are wont to say," began Mr. Birge, "that the age of miracles is
past; yet if we knew in just what mysterious, unknown paths God leads
the children of this day to himself, I think some of their experiences
would seem to us no less miraculous than is this story which we are
considering to-night."

No clew here to the mystery; only a number of words which Tode did not
understand, and something about God, which he could not see had anything
to do with the fairy story. I wonder if we Christian people ever fully
realize how utterly ignorant the neglected poor are of Bible truth. One
more ignorant in the matter than was Tode can hardly be imagined. He
knew, to be sure, that there was a day called Sunday, and that stores
and shops as a general rule were closed on that day, just why he would
have found very difficult to explain. He knew that there were such
buildings as churches, and that these were opened on these same Sundays,
and that well-dressed people went into them, but they had nothing
whatever to do with _him_. Oh no, neither had Sunday nor churches. He
knew in a vague general way that there was a Being called God, who
created all things, and that the aforesaid well-dressed people were in
some way connected with him; but it chanced, oh, bitter chance, that
there had never come to him the slightest intimation that God in Christ
was busy looking up the homeless, the friendless, the forsaken ones of
earth, and bidding them find home and friend and joy in him. The meeting
continued with but one other interruption. Midway in the services the
door opened somewhat noisily, and with many a rustle and flutter Mrs.
Hastings and Miss Dora made their way from out the storm and found
shelter in the quiet chapel. This was just as Deacon Fanning asked a
question.

"Mr. Birge, don't you think this little story is to teach us, among
other things, that God can take the very few, weak, almost worthless
materials that we bring him, and do great things with them?"

"I think we may learn that precious truth from the story," answered Mr.
Birge. "And I never feel saddened and discouraged with the thought that
I have nothing with which to feed the multitudes, that this story does
not bring me comfort. God doesn't need even our five barley loaves, but
stoops to use them that we may feel ourselves workers together with
him."

What queer talk it was! Tode had never heard anything like it in his
life.

Then Deacon Toles had something to say.

"Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, just expresses our feelings, I think,
sometimes. 'There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves, and two
small fishes; but what are they among so many?' Andrew was gloomy and
troubled even while talking face to face with Jesus. Not disposed to
think that the Master could do anything with so little food as that,
it's just the way I feel every now and then. 'Lord, here we are, a
handful of people, and we have fragments of the bread of life in our
hearts: but what are we among so many?'"

"Yet the Lord fed the five thousand despite Andrew's doubts," chimed in
the pastor. "May we not hope and pray that he will deal thus graciously
with us?"

Tode could make nothing of it all, and was half inclined to slip out and
go on his way; but the same dear Savior who had so long ago fed the five
thousand had his All-seeing Eye bent on this one poor boy, and had
prepared a crumb for him.

There arose from the seat near the door an old gray-haired man. His
dress was very plain and poor, his manner was uncultured, his language
was ungrammatical. There were those who were disposed to think that so
illiterate a man as old Mr. Snyder ought not to take up the valuable
time. However old Mr. Snyder prayed, and Tode listened.

"O, dear Jesus," he said, "the same who was on the earth so many years
ago, and fed the hungry people, feed us to-night. We are poor, we want
to be rich; take us for thy children; help us to come to thee just as
the people used to do when thou didst walk this very earth, and ask for
what we want. We need a friend just like Jesus for our own--a friend who
will love us always, who will take care of us always, who will give us
everything we need, and heaven by and by. We know none are too poor or
too bad for thee to take and wash in thy blood, and feed with thy love
which lasts forever. Give us faith to trust thee always, to work for
thee here, and to keep looking ahead to that home in heaven, which thou
hast got all ready for us when we die. Amen."

There were those present who did not quite see the connection of this
prayer with the topic of the evening. There were those who thought it
very commonplace and rather childish in language. But how can we tell
what strange, bewildering thoughts it raised in the heart of our poor
Tode?

Was there really such a somebody somewhere as that man talked about, who
would make people rich, or anyhow give them all they needed; who would
take care of them, no matter how poor or how bad; who would even take
care of them in that awful time when they had to die, and all this just
for the asking? If there were any truth in it why didn't folks ask, and
have it all? But then if there wasn't, what did these folks all mean?

"They don't look like fools; now that's a fact," said Tode,
meditatively, and was in great bewilderment.

The meeting closed. Mrs. Hastings rustled up to the minister.

"So sorry to have intruded upon you, Mr. Birge, but the gale was so
unusually severe. Dora and I were making our way to the carriage, which
was but a very short distance away, and just as we reached your door
there came a fearful gust of wind and we were obliged to desist."

While Mr. Birge was explaining that to come to prayer-meeting was not
considered an intrusion, Dora turned to Tode. Now Tode had in mind all
day a burning desire to tell Dora that he had made all the twenty-six
letters of the alphabet, just twenty-six times on twenty-six old
envelopes that he had gathered together from various waste-baskets, and
could "make every one of 'em to a dot." But instead of all this he said:

"Say, do you believe all this queer talk?"

"What do you mean, Tode?"

"Why this about the youngster, and his fishes and bread, and such lots
of folks eating 'em, and more left when they got done than there was
when they begun. Likely story, ain't it?"

Dora's eyes were large and grave.

"Why, Tode, it's in the Bible," she said, reverently.

Tode knew nothing about reverence, and next to nothing about the Bible.

"What of that?" he said, defiantly. "It's queer stuff all the same; and
what did that old man mean about his friend, and taking care of folks,
everybody, good or bad, and feeding 'em, and all that?"

"It's about Jesus, Tode. Don't you know; he died, you see, for us, and
if we love him he'll take care of us, and take us to heaven. Sometimes
do you think that you'll belong to him, Tode? I do once in a while."

"I don't know anything what you're talking about," was Tode's answer,
more truthful than grammatical.

"Why, give your heart to him, you know, and love him, and pray, and all
that. But, Tode, won't you run around to Martyn's and order the carriage
for us? John was to wait there until we came, and I guess he'll think we
are never coming."

Mrs. Hastings repeated the direction, and Tode vanished, brushing by in
his exit the very man who had prayed at his dying mother's bedside years
before, and who had intended to keep an eye on him. As he slid along the
icy pavements the boy ruminated on what he had heard, and especially on
that last explanation, "Why, give your heart to him, you know, and love
him, and pray, and all that." To whom, and how, and where, and when?
What a perfectly bewildering confusion it all was to Tode.

"I'll be hanged if I can make head or tail to any of it," he said aloud.

Then he whistled, but after a moment his whistle broke off into a great
heavy sigh. Someway there was in Tode's heart a dull ache, a longing
aroused that night, and which nothing but the All-seeing, All-pitying
Love could ever soothe.

"There were fourteen people in prayer-meeting," the Rev. John informed
his wife. "The two deacons of whom I spoke, and several other good men.
I couldn't make use of my lecture at all, for there were none present
but professing Christians, save and except Mrs. Pliny Hastings, who
apologized for _intruding_!"

And then the husband and wife laughed, a half-amused, half-sorrowful
laugh.

After a moment Mr. Birge added:

"There _was_ a rather rough-looking boy there; strayed in from the
storm, I presume. I meant to speak with him, but Mrs. Hastings annoyed
me so much that it escaped my mind until he brushed past me and
vanished."

CHAPTER IX.

"TAKE IT AWAY!"

Tode rang the bell at Mr. Hastings', and waited in some anxiety as to
whether he should get a glimpse of Miss Dora. He had some momentous
questions to ask her. Fortune, or, in other words, Providence, favored
him. While he waited for orders, Dora danced down the hall with a
message.

"Tode, papa says you are to come in the dining-room and wait; he wants
to send a note by you."

"All right," said Tode, following her into the brightly lighted room,
and plunging at once into his subject.

"Look here, what did you mean the other night about hearts, and things?"

"About what?"

"Why, don't you know? Down there to the meeting."

"Oh! Why I meant _that_; just what I said. That's the way they always
talk at a prayer-meeting about Jesus, and loving him, and all that."

"Was that a prayer-meeting where we was t'other night?"

"Why yes, of course. Tode, have you got the letters and figures all
made?"

"Do you go every time?"

"What, to prayer-meeting? What a funny idea. No, of course not. It
stormed, you know, and we had to go in somewhere. Wasn't it an awful
night?"

"Who is Jesus, anyhow?"

"Why, he is God. Tode, how queer you act. Why don't you ask Mr. Birge,
or somebody, if you want to know such things. Mamma says he is awful."

"Awful!"

"Yes, awful good, you know. He's the minister down there at that chapel.
Wasn't it a funny looking church? Ours don't look a bit like that. Tode,
where do you go to church?"

"My!" said Tode, with his old merry chuckle. "That's a queer one. _I_
don't go to church nowhere; never did."

"You ought to," answered Miss Dora, with a sudden assumption of dignity.
"It isn't nice not to go to church and to Sunday-school. _I_ go. Pliny
doesn't, because he has the headache so much. Shall I show you my
card?"

And she produced from her pocket a dainty bit of pasteboard, and held it
up.

"There, that's our verse. The whole school learn it for next Sunday.
Then we shall have a speech about it."

A sudden shiver ran through Tode's frame as he read the words printed on
that card:

"The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the
good."

He knew very little about that All-seeing Eye, but it came upon him like
a great shock, the picture of the eye of God reaching everywhere,
beholding the _evil_. He felt afraid, and alone, and desolate. He did
not know what was the matter with him, he had felt so strangely troubled
and unhappy since that evening of the meeting. Almost the tears came
into his eyes as he stood there beside Dora, looking down at that
terrible verse.

"Take it away," he said, suddenly, turning from the bit of pasteboard.
"I don't want his eyes looking at me."

"You can't help it," Dora answered, with great emphasis. "There are more
just such verses, 'Thou God seest me;' and oh, plenty of them. And he
certainly _does_ see you all the time, whether you want him to or not."

"Well stop!" said Tode, with a sudden gruffness that Dora had never seen
in him before. "I don't want to hear another bit about it, nor your
verse, nor anything--not a word. I wish you had let me alone. I don't
believe it, anyhow, nor I won't, nor I ain't a going to--so."

At that moment Mr. Hastings' note came, and miserable Tode went on his
way. _How_ miserable he was; the glimmering lamps along the gloomy
streets seemed to him eyes of fire burning into his thoughts; the very
walls of his darkened room, when he had reached that retreat, seemed to
glow on every side with great terrible, all-seeing eyes. Over and over
again was that fearful sentence repeated: "The eyes of the Lord are in
every place, beholding the evil." Just then he stopped. He had suddenly
grown so vile in his own eyes that it seemed to him that there was
nothing good left to behold; he tumbled and tossed on his narrow bed; he
covered himself, eyes, head, all, in the bed-clothes; but it was of no
use, that piercing Eye saw into the darkness and through all the
covering--and oh, Tode was afraid!

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19