Part 3

The boys had an idea it would be a very sober, stiff old Dick, but they soon found out their mistake. He was as full of fun as ever, only now he tried to keep it for playtimes. Study, however, was uphill work; he had been idle so long, and there were plenty of boys ready to laugh at his blunders, to tempt him into some sly fun, and especially to report every time he swore or broke a rule. Mr. Blackman, too, remembering the old Dick, was forever accusing him of this, that, and the other bit of mischief. Poor man! Wasn’t he tried almost out of his life with the care of so much perpetual motion, and hadn’t Dick always been the most troublesome screw in the machinery? And wasn’t it the most natural thing in the world, when anything went wrong, to give that the first twist?

The brook, beside which Dick gave Tod his first lesson in swearing, ran through a large field not far from the school-house. There the boys went to drill, to fly their kites, and to play base-ball. The brook was much wider there, with a high, steep bank on either side, and of late the boys had taken to walking across on the narrowest plank possible, balancing on one foot in the middle, turning somersaults, and otherwise imitating Blondin at Niagara. The water was shallow and the bottom sandy, so their frequent tumbles resulted in nothing worse than a wetting.

One day, as Tod stood by in open-mouthed astonishment at their performances, it occurred to Tom Lawrence what fun it would be to make the little fellow walk across.

“My couldn’t,” said Tod, his teeth chattering at the bare suggestion.

“Oh yes, you can,” joined in half a dozen boys, ready, as boys too often are, for any fun, no matter at whose expense. “Quick, now, or we’ll duck you!”

“Here comes Dick Vance; he’ll send him over quicker’n lightning,” cried Joe Travers.

Tod looked around at the tall, stout figure leaping the wall; almost a man, Dick seemed to him. Poor little Tod! he felt his doom was sealed, and trembled to the tips of his shiny shoes.

The boys crowded up, shouting, laughing.

“Make him go over there? Of course I can;” and Dick, swinging the little fellow upon one shoulder, bounded over the narrow plank before anybody had time to think.

The boys cheered lustily; boys are never slow to appreciate a daring deed. But “It isn’t fair!” “No play!” followed close upon the cheer.

“You’ll have to do it, Chicken Little, or they’ll make a prodigious row,” said Dick. “Look here, now. I’ll hold one hand all ready to catch you, and promise, sure as I live, you sha’n’t fall; and do you trot straight along without thinking anything about it. Why, it’s just as easy,—with me, you know.”

“You bet! By funder!” rejoined Tod, with a sudden explosion of bravery.

“Don’t let’s say that sort of words any more,” said Dick, looking ashamed and sorry. “Let’s just say we’ll try.”

“My _will_,” responded Tod, confidently, trudging on without looking to right or left. “My _can_ do it, ’cause your hand is so big.”

Tod cheered as loudly as anybody when he was safe on _terra firma_ again, and then the boys strolled off to base-ball. “What’s up now?” they wondered, as Dick struck off into the woods instead of joining them. “Oh! it’s that fuss this morning. Dick’s riled; got some of the old grit left.”

That morning Dick had made a mistake in putting an example in Long Division on the board; while he was diligently hunting it up, the boys in the back seat—of course Dick was yet in the lower classes—began to chuckle and cough provokingly. Tom Lawrence wiggled his fingers insultingly, and quick as a flash, Dick chalked out a head on the board, unmistakably Tom’s, with a big balloon for a body.

“So that’s the way you do examples!” said Mr. Blackman, coming up just as it was finished. “No wonder such a dunce calls nine times seven, sixty-four. Rub that sum out, sir, and do it over.”

Now, of course, Dick was wrong and Mr. Blackman was right; only, if the latter had known how hard Dick had studied that ninth table the night before, for fear he should fail, and how patiently he was trying to find his mistake when the boys began to laugh, he wouldn’t have spoken just so. Dick was quick-tempered,—such natures always are,—and in a trice he had swept figures and face from the board, and taken his seat.

“You are to put that example on the board again,” said the master; but Dick was firm as a rock; he couldn’t,—wouldn’t,—shouldn’t.

There the matter stood. Until he did, and at the same time made a public apology, Mr. Blackman would not consider him a pupil.

Dick sat down under a tree to think it over. Such a pity to leave school just as he was trying to learn something; but—put that example on the board again? He never could. Expelled! How grieved his mother would be; but a public apology,—never! To be sure, he ought to obey Mr. Blackman; he had really been trying to; but this,—this was too hard. How could he?

What was it Tod said? “My _can_, ’cause your hand is so big.” How queer that should remind him of his talk with old Aunty McFane, about masters! What did she say?

“My Master will help over all the hard places if you ask him.”

His mother prayed, Dick knew, but he had never really felt like it himself. God was so great; but then, he cared for the sparrows. He was so great? Why, that was the very reason he could help everybody. What was the text his mother had repeated only last Sabbath evening? “_I, the Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, I will help thee._”

The boys stared the next morning, and some of them, I am sorry to say, sneered a little, when Dick, after saying, “I am sorry, sir,” went resolutely to work upon his example again; but Mr. Blackman shook him heartily by the hand, remarking,—

“Only keep on in this way, Dick, my boy, and you’ll surely make a worthy man as well as a fine scholar.”

And Dick, with a bright smile on his face, thought, “‘My can,’ because God’s hand is ‘so big,’ and he does help folks when they ask him.”

IX.

BELL’S BARGAIN.

And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found _thee_: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.

Bell Forbush had told something very private to at least fifteen of the girls, nothing more or less than that her Cousin Mate, the dearest, prettiest cousin anybody ever had, was coming to stay at her house two whole months. She was grown up, and very stylish, so rich she didn’t know what to do with her money, and yet so good everybody loved her almost to death. For weeks after her arrival Bell regaled the girls with descriptions of Miss Marvin’s dresses and jewelry, the latter having a special fascination for Bell, particularly a necklace and cross, to possess which, she more than once hinted to Cousin Mate, would make her perfectly happy.

“My mother gave it to me just before she died,” her cousin had said very sadly, which ought to have made it sacred in Bell’s eyes. _She_ had a father, mother, and two big brothers, while poor Cousin Mate was an orphan, with no nearer relative than Bell’s mamma. She was very kind to the little girl, too, letting her wear her coral pin and bracelets to school, and opening the pretty ebony jewel-case whenever Bell wanted to feast her eyes on the pearls and rubies inside.

But oh, that necklace and cross! There was nothing quite like that. Bell tried it on over all her dresses, and lay awake nights fancying how she would look at church in it, and what Nettie Rand would say to see her wearing such an elegant thing.

About this time Jenny King had a birthday. It came on Saturday, and she made a tea-party for her friends. Bell’s new white piqué was just finished, and Cousin Mate had given her a wide blue sash to wear with it. If she could only have the necklace and cross!

Wasn’t it queer Cousin Mate should happen to go away the day before, to stay over the Sabbath? Had she taken the necklace with her? Bell crept up-stairs just at dusk to see. Didn’t Cousin Mate always let her look at it whenever she liked? and, yes, there was the tiny key left in the ebony casket. Suppose she should wear it, what harm would it do? Cousin Mate would never know it, and it was only borrowing, any way. To be sure, she ought to ask leave, but—

Bell kept thinking it over,—how beautiful the soft shimmer of gold would be in the lace at the neck of her dress, and how the lovely pearl cross would gleam out from among the blue ribbons.

The more she thought, the more it seemed she really must. It wasn’t so very wrong, and something might happen: Miss Marvin might think it was lost, and she could keep it for her very own. At break of day she stole into the spare room again, and slipped the chain into the pocket of her new dress, ready to put on when she reached Mrs. King’s.

“I—mother—mother was afraid I—might lose it—under my shawl,” she explained to that lady, who offered to clasp it for her, saying, It is something quite new, isn’t it, dear?——”

“Oh! it—it is Cousin Mate’s; she—she lent it to me,” stammered Bell.

“I didn’t believe it was yours,” said Nettie Rand, provokingly.

“It isn’t mine yet,” returned Bell, reddening, “but Cousin Mate has just as good as promised it to me.”

Ah, Bell! there is no addition like that Satan sets us to do.

But how heavy the little chain grew before night! or was it the sense of wrong-doing made the time drag so wearily to Bell, and made her so glad to wrap her shawl over the long-coveted possession and hurry home through the dusk? Who should meet her on the steps but Cousin Mate herself, returned unexpectedly, and ready, as she always was, to take off the little girl’s hat and give her a kiss.

“I—I—it’s cold,” said Bell, holding her shawl tightly together,—“and—and I want—something up-stairs.”

Straight to the spare chamber she hurried, and unpinned her shawl. _The necklace was gone._ She looked on the floor, on the stairs, shook her shawl and wrung her hands; but it was surely gone. It was there when she left Mrs. King’s. If she had only put it in her pocket! but she was afraid Nettie Rand would laugh. She couldn’t go back. Would anybody find it? Should she ever see it again?

She went slowly down to the parlor.

“It’s very strange,” mamma was saying, “Katy has been with us too long to doubt her honesty, but this new second-girl,—it must be. Of course the chain could not go off without hands. I took the poor girl out of pity, and she has seemed so anxious to please. Oh dear! there’s no knowing whom to trust.”

Bell slid into a chair, pale and trembling. So Cousin Mate had missed her chain, and thought the new girl had taken it. Her first feeling was one of relief. Then she wondered if they would send the poor girl to states-prison, and what the end of it would be.

“You are all tired out, aren’t you, dear? playing so hard,” remarked her mother, by and by. “You had better go straight to bed.”

Cousin Mate offered to go up with her as she often had of late. Bell talked as fast as she could, pulling off half her boot buttons in her haste. As she stood up to have her dress unfastened, something slid to the floor,—something bright and shining; and there it lay,—the necklace, telling its own story. Bell sank in a little tumbled heap beside it, covering her face with both hands.

“Oh, my little Bell! would you have sold yourself for that?” asked Cousin Mate, dropping down in turn beside her, and drawing the whole little heap into her lap. “Would you have sold yourself for that?” she repeated, uncovering the shame-stricken eyes with one hand, and holding up the necklace with the other.

“Sell myself!” echoed Bell, wonderingly.

“Yes; you know Satan is always trying to make bargains with us. Did you stop to think how much you paid him for this? First, that most precious of all gems—TRUTH, which you can wear forever in Heaven, while this, you know, moth and rust can corrupt, and thieves steal away from you. And then did you forget, Bell, that this sin, unrepented of, could shut you out of heaven? Would you give up that beautiful home for this poor little trinket, my darling? And didn’t you forget, too, that God was looking down upon you, so grieved and sorry? Wasn’t it a _very_ poor bargain, dear? Would you take the necklace for your very own at such a price?”

“No, no! I never want to see it again,” sobbed Bell. “Oh! what shall I do?”

“I will tell you what God said once to his disobedient people,” said Cousin Mate, softly: “‘_Ye have sold yourselves for nought_,’ ‘_Ye shall be redeemed without money_.’ You know _how_ He ‘redeemed’ them, Bell, and Who it is that ‘was wounded for _our_ transgressions.’”

X.

WALKING WITH GOD.

And Enoch walked with God and he _was_ not; for God took him.

Miss Cox, Sue’s Sabbath School teacher, was absent, and Miss Marvin, Bell’s cousin, heard the class. Bell was in it, and Nettie Rand, Jenny King, Sarah Ellis, Dick Vance, Robert Rand, Varney Lowe, and Will Carter,—five girls and four boys. The lesson was on Elijah, and the boys were exceedingly interested in speculations about the chariot of fire, its probable appearance, and did Miss Marvin think Enoch had a chariot too?

“It seems the writer of Enoch’s memoir thought that of very little importance; at least, he said nothing about it,” rejoined Miss Marvin, smiling. “But then he only used fifty-three words any way; and yet how much we seem to know about Enoch. Did you ever think of it?”

“Memoirs are awfully stupid; most always there’s three volumes,” said Varney Lowe.

“Paul wrote the second volume of Enoch’s,” said Miss Marvin. “You will find it in Hebrews, eleventh chapter, fifth verse. But there are only thirty-two words in that.”

“It doesn’t say much in Genesis,” said Jenny King, who had opened her Bible, “only how long he lived and that Methuselah was his son.”

“And that God took him,” added Sarah Ellis, who had opened her Bible too.

“One other and best thing of all, twice repeated,—don’t you see it?” asked Miss Marvin.

“Oh, yes; that ‘he walked with God’; but I never could understand really what it meant.”

“What is the first thing necessary when two people walk together?”

“To keep step,” answered Will Carter, who was captain of the “Young Rangers.”

“And to do that they must be agreed, mustn’t they? have one common impulse, do the same thing.”

“But we _can’t_ do what God does,” said Sarah Ellis, in a tone of surprise.

“Can’t we? What does God do?”

“Why, he makes everything and keeps making it beautiful, and takes care of everything and everybody.”

“And isn’t that what he wants us to do? to help beautify this world of his, just the little bit right around us, helping ourselves and others up into better things as fast and as far as we can? I think that was what Enoch did. What else is necessary for people to walk happily together?”

“They must like the same things,” said Dick, “or they won’t have anything to talk about.”

“Very true: Enoch must have loved what God loved, and so should we. God loves truth and holiness, everything pure and noble and good, and he hates sin. What next?”

“They must love each other,” suggested Sue.

“Yes, indeed; two will never walk together long unless they love one another. God loves everybody, and Enoch must have loved God or he couldn’t have walked with him. God said to those who refused to walk in his ways, ‘_All day long have I stretched forth my hand, but no man regardeth_.’ That reminds me of what I saw coming to church this morning. A gentleman was walking across the fields, with a dear little yellow-haired boy beside him, who tried his best to take as long steps as his father.”

“I most know it was Tod,” whispered Sue.

“You all know the stepping-stones across the marsh where the mud is so black,” continued Miss Marvin. “The stones are some ways apart, and the little fellow drew back doubtfully; but after a while, taking hold of his father’s hand, he began jumping from one to the other. Perhaps you remember a little stream of water trickles between the last two stones, and there he stopped again. His father smiled, and held out his other hand, and without waiting a second the boy seized hold of it and sprang across, straight into his father’s arms. I saw the gentleman hold him tightly, and give him half a dozen kisses before he set him down. He was so glad, you see, to have his little son trust him so entirely. Now, it seems to me that is the way Enoch ‘walked with God.’ Paul says ‘he pleased God,’ and I think it was because he trusted Him, just as that little boy did his father. God is our father, you know, strong and wise enough to lead us.”

Tinkle, tinkle went the superintendent’s bell.

“I wish you’d hear our class next Sabbath,” said Dick. “Miss Cox never tells us anything only what’s in the book.”

“There is more in the book than we can ever learn,” said Miss Marvin, pleasantly. “We want to help each other find out what it means and obey it. I’ll tell you what I will do. If you will all come to Bell’s next Saturday night we will study the lesson together,—as many as would like to, I mean.”

“May I come?” asked Maybee, who had stopped to wait for Sue.

“Yes, indeed, the more the better; and I’ve a pretty bit of poetry perhaps you will like to learn. Now, good-by.”

“Don’t you think—does it seem quite fair—you know it would be so much nicer to go up in a chariot than to be sick and die; and to think only just two! Shouldn’t you like it better?” asked Sarah Ellis, lingering till the others were all gone.

Miss Marvin glanced out at the open door, from which the elegant carriage belonging to the child’s uncle, Esquire Ellis, had just driven away, then back to the faded muslin dress and plain straw hat beside her. Sarah’s mother was a widow, and supported herself and daughter by doing fine sewing.

“We must remember this,” she said, slowly, looking down into the uplifted eyes: “if we really _trust_ God he will surely lead us by the very best way to himself; and when we are with him _up there_ it will make little difference _how_ he took us from _down here_.”

“I must send _her_ my ‘Brown-Haired Bess’ that I’ve promised Maybee,” said Miss Marvin to herself, as Sarah walked thoughtfully away. “I believe the ‘hidden life’ is beginning to show in that sweet, earnest face.”

XI.

BROWN-HAIRED BESS.

“They said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha.” 2 Kings 2:15.

Fan, handkerchief, and gloves in waiting lay; She turned them gently over,—brown-haired Bess, Stroked each one fondly, then looked up to say, “There’s lilies, mamma, in your drawer, I guess.”

Mamma smiled down upon the upturned face, And ’gainst the rosy cheek she softly laid A letter. “Oh! they made it in the place Where violets blossom,” said the little maid.

All out of sight and sound played noisy Fred; Came in, so happy, when the sun went down. “Out in the field you’ve been,” his mother said, “Among the clover and the grass, new-mown.”

“How could you tell? Oh! I know,” laughed the boy, “I’ve caught the sweet, and brought it all away; Just so, you said, I’d bring a pain or joy, As with the bad or good I chose to play.

“And in my lesson on the apostles bold, It said, ‘They’d been with Jesus.’ Did it mean They brought away the pleasant things he told, And showed to other men what they had seen?”

So brown-haired Bess, trying the livelong day, To be obedient, patient, loving, true, Serving the Master in her child-like way, Can show as plainly as the violets blue

The fragrance of a life “hid evermore With God, in Christ.” Lord, humbly we implore Thy Spirit on each little child may rest, And make them, one and all, forever blest!

XII.

MAYBEE’S STEPPING-STONES.

“But God _is_ the judge; he putteth down one, and setteth up another.”

A hard, driving, northeast storm. No hope of its breaking away at noon; no getting out with water-proof and rubbers, even; no Sabbath School,—“nothing but a great, long, dull, tiresome day,” Sue said, sitting down to breakfast with a face as cloudy as the sky.

“’Thout papa preaches, and mamma sings, and we make-believe meeting it,” rejoined Maybee, inclined to find a bright side.

Around the breakfast-table on Sabbath mornings, everybody at Mr. Sherman’s was expected to recite a text of Scripture, and that morning it happened papa and Maybee had chosen the same one: “_But God is the judge; he putteth down one, and setteth up another._”

“Suppose,” said papa, “we take that for a text, and write a sermon,—Sue, Maybee, and I; Sue, with her Concordance, shall look out in the Bible the sort of people God ‘putteth down’ and ‘setteth up’; and Maybee, with mamma’s help, shall find the names of some of them. Then, when I come back from morning service, we’ll put our heads together and make an application.”

What a short forenoon it seemed! Right after lunch they were to meet in the library. Maybee drew a big chair behind papa’s desk for a pulpit, and placed the chairs in rows for the pews. Then it occurred to her, with mamma for choir, there was nobody left for congregation, and she coaxed Bridget in from the kitchen, rather against that individual’s inclination.

First they sang the Sabbath School hymn, “Better than thrones”; then papa prayed a short prayer, so simple Maybee could understand every word, after which he gave out the text, and called upon Sue for her part of the sermon. Sue had it neatly written out, and read,—

GOD IS THE JUDGE.

Those that walk in pride he is Yet setteth he the poor on high able to abase. from affliction, and maketh _him_ families like a flock.

He casteth the wicked down to The Lord lifteth up the meek. the ground.

Thine heart was lifted up because Humble yourselves in the sight of thy beauty; thou hast of the Lord, and he shall lift corrupted thy wisdom by reason you up. of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground.

There are the workers of iniquity Because he hath set his love fallen: they are cast down, upon me, therefore will I and shall not be able to rise. deliver him. I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

For the arms of the wicked But the Lord upholdeth the shall be broken. righteous.

“Very well. Now, Maybee.”—

And Maybee counted off on her fingers, carefully using her right hand for the good men, “Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon”; and then with her left hand, “Pharaoh, Saul, Jeroboam,—and—and—I can’t think, but lots of little bits of kings what wouldn’t mind him.”

“Does the text mean God always promotes the good and puts down the wicked?” asked papa.

“Oh, it can’t,” returned Sue, “because there’s Esq. Ellis, ever so rich, and he never goes to church; and Say Ellis’s mother is real poor, and just as good as she can be. And you know Varney Lowe’s father has failed, and everybody calls him good.”

“They don’t live in the Bible,—that’s why,” said Maybee. “God put all my wicked folks right down, and let all the good ones have real nice times.”

“How was it with poor David when he was hiding away from Saul?”

“Oh, I see!” cried Sue. “It means He will, sometime; but”—and her face clouded again—“there’s Aunty McFane, just as patient and good; she’s always had dreadful times, and she’s so old she can’t live a great while longer.”

“God may not think best to ‘lift her up,’ till he takes her to himself,” observed mamma.

“Then we can’t tell anything about it, now, as they did in the Bible.”