Tode's patrons were mostly newsboys of his acquaintance, who came pretty regularly to his stand for breakfast, and generally for a midday meal, lunch or dinner as it might be. Where they took their supper he did not know, but he usually closed his place of business after one o'clock, and spent a couple of hours roaming about the streets doing any odd job that came in his way, if he happened to feel like it, or to be in need of money.
After his meeting with the bishop he often wandered up into the neighbourhood of St. Mark's with a vague hope that he might see again the man who seemed to his boyish imagination a very king among men. It had long been Tode's secret ambition to grow into a big, strong man himself--bigger and stronger than the common run of men. Now, whenever he thought about it, he said to himself, "Just like the bishop."
But he never met the bishop, and having found out that he did not preach regularly at St. Mark's, Tode never went there after the second time.
One afternoon in late September, the boy was lounging along with Tag at his heels in the neighbourhood of the church, when he heard a great rattling of wheels and clattering of hoofs, and around the corner came a pair of horses dragging a carriage that swung wildly from side to side, as the horses came tearing down the street. There was no one in the carriage, but the driver was puffing along a little way behind, yelling frantically, "Stop 'em! Stop 'em! Why don't ye stop the brutes!"
There were not many people on the street, and the few men within sight seemed not at all anxious to risk life or limb in an attempt to stop horses going at such a reckless pace.
Now Tode was only a little fellow not yet fourteen, but he was strong and lithe as a young Indian, and as to fear--he did not know what it was. As he saw the horses dashing toward him he leaped into the middle of the street and stood there, eyes alert and limbs ready, directly in their pathway. They swerved aside as they approached him, but with a quick upward spring he grabbed the bit of the one nearest him, and hung there with all his weight. This frightened and maddened the horse, and he plunged and reared and flung his head from side to side, until he succeeded in throwing the boy off. The delay however, slight as it was, had given the driver time to come up, and he speedily regained control of his team while a crowd quickly gathered.
Tode had been flung off sidewise, his head striking the curbstone, and there he lay motionless, while faithful Tag crouched beside him, now and then licking the boy's fingers, and whining pitifully as he looked from face to face, as if he would have said,
"Won'tsome of you help him? I can't."
The crowd pressed about the unconscious boy with a sort of morbid curiosity, one proposing one thing and one another until a policeman came along and promptly sent a summons for an ambulance; but before it appeared, a tall grey-haired man came up the street and stopped to see what was the matter. He was so tall that he could look over the heads of most of the men, and as he saw the white face of the boy lying there in the street, he hastily pushed aside the onlookers as if they had been men of straw, and stooping, lifted the boy in his strong arms.
"Stand back," he cried, his voice ringing out like a trumpet, "would you let the child die in the street?"
They fell back before him, a whisper passing from lip to lip. "It's the bishop!" they said, and some ran before him to open the gate and some to ring the bell of the great house before which the accident had occurred.
Mechanically the bishop thanked them, but he looked at none of them. His eyes were fixed upon the face that lay against his shoulder, the blood dripping slowly from a cut on one side of the head.
The servant who opened the door stared for an instant wonderingly, at his master with the child in his arms, and at the throng pressing curiously after them, but the next moment he recovered from his amazement and, admitting the bishop, politely but firmly shut out the eager throng that would have entered with him. A lank, rough-haired dog attempted to slink in at the bishop's heels, but the servant gave him a kick that made him draw back with a yelp of pain, and he took refuge under the steps where he remained all night, restless and miserable, his quick ears yet ever on the alert for a voice or a step that he knew.
As the door closed behind the bishop, he exclaimed,
"Call Mrs. Martin, Brown, and then send for the doctor. This boy was hurt at our very door."
Brown promptly obeyed both orders, and Mrs. Martin, the housekeeper, hastily prepared a room for the unexpected guest. The doctor soon responded to the summons, but all his efforts failed to restore the boy to consciousness that day. The bishop watched the child as anxiously as if it had been one of his own flesh and blood. He had neither wife nor child, but perhaps all the more for that, his great heart held love enough and to spare for every child that came in his way.
It was near the close of the following day when Tode's eyes slowly opened and he came back to consciousness, but his eyes wandered about the strange room and he still lay silent and motionless. The doctor and the bishop were both beside him at the moment and he glanced from one face to the other in a vague, doubtful fashion. He asked no question, however, and soon his eyes again closed wearily, but this time in sleep, healthful and refreshing, instead of the stupor that had preceded it, and the doctor turned away with an expression of satisfaction.
"He'll pull through now," he said in a low tone. "He's young and full of vitality--he'll soon be all right."
The bishop rubbed his hands with satisfaction. "That's well! That's well!" he exclaimed, heartily.
The doctor looked at him curiously. "Did you ever see the lad before you picked him up yesterday?" he asked.
"No, never," answered the bishop, who naturally had not recognised in Tode the boy whom he had taken into church that Sunday, weeks before.
The doctor shook his head as he drove off and muttered to himself,
"Whoever saw such a man! Who but our bishop would ever think of taking a little street urchin like that right into his home and treating him as if he were his own flesh and blood! Well, well, he himself gets taken in often no doubt in another fashion, but all the same the world would be the better if there were more like him!"
And if the doctor's pronouns were a little mixed he himself understood what he meant, and nobody else had anything to do with the matter.
The next morning Tode awoke again and this time to a full and lively consciousness of his surroundings. It was still early and the nurse was dozing in an easy-chair beside the bed. The boy looked at her curiously, then he raised himself on his elbow and gazed about him, but as he did so he became conscious of a dull throbbing pain in one side of his head and a sick faintness swept over him. It was his first experience of weakness, and it startled him into a faint groan as his head fell back on the pillow.
The sound awoke the nurse, who held a spoonful of medicine to his lips, saying,
"Lie still. The doctor says you must not talk at all until he comes."
"So," thought the boy. "I've got a doctor. Wonder where I am an' what ails me, anyhow."
But that strange weakness made it easy to obey orders and lie still while the nurse bathed his face and hands and freshened up the bed and the room. Then she brought him a bowl of chicken broth with which she fed him. It tasted delicious, and he swallowed it hungrily and wished there had been more. Then as he lay back on the pillows he remembered all that had happened--the horses running down the street, his attempt to stop them, and the awful blow on his head as it struck the curbstone.
"Wonder where I am? Tain't a hospital, anyhow," he thought. "My! But I feel nice an' clean an' so--so light, somehow! If only my head wasn't so sore!"
No wonder he felt "nice and clean and light somehow," when, for the first time in his life his body and garments as well as his bed, were as sweet and fresh as hands could make them. Tode never had minded dirt. Why should he, when he had been born in it and had grown up knowing nothing better? Yet, none the less, was this new experience most delightful to him--so delightful that he didn't care to talk. It was happiness enough for him, just then, to lie still and enjoy these new conditions, and so presently he floated off again into sleep--a sleep full of beautiful dreams from which the low murmur of voices aroused him, and he opened his eyes to see the nurse and the doctor looking down at him.
"Well, my boy," said the doctor, with his fingers on the wrist near him, "you look better. Feel better too, don't you?"
Tode gazed at him, wondering who he was and paying no attention to his question.
"Doctor," exclaimed the nurse, suddenly, "he hasn't spoken a single word. Do you suppose he can be deaf and dumb?"
The bishop entered the room just in time to catch the last words.
"Deaf and dumb!" he repeated, in a tone of dismay. "Dear me! If the poor child is deaf and dumb, I shall certainly keep him here until I can find a better home for him."
As his eyes rested on the bishop Tode started and uttered a little inarticulate cry of joy; then, as he understood what the bishop was saying, a singular expression passed over his face. The doctor, watching him closely could make nothing of it.
"He looks as if he knew you, bishop," the doctor said.
The bishop had taken the boy's rough little hand in his own large, kindly grasp.
"No, doctor," he answered, "I don't think I've ever seen him before yesterday, but we're friends all the same, aren't we, my lad?" and he smiled down into the grey eyes looking up to him so earnestly and happily.
Tode opened his lips to speak, then suddenly remembering, slightly shook his head while the colour mounted in his pale cheeks.
"He acts like a deaf mute, certainly," muttered the doctor, and stepping to the head of the bed he pulled out his watch and held it first to one and then the other of Tode's ears, but out of his sight.
Tode's ears were as sharp as a ferret's and his brain was as quick as his ears. He knew well enough what the doctor was doing but he made no sign. Were not the bishop's words ringing in his ears? "If the poor child is deaf and dumb I shall certainly keep him here until I can find a better home for him."
There were few things at which the boy would have hesitated to ensure his staying there. He understood now that he was in the house of the bishop--"my bishop" he called him in his thought.
So, naturally enough, it was taken for granted that the boy was deaf and dumb, for no one imagined the possibility of his pretending to be so. Tode thought it would be easy to keep up the deception, but at first he found it very hard. As his strength returned there were so many questions that he wanted to ask, but he fully believed that if it were known that he could hear and speak he would be sent away, and more and more as the days went by he longed to remain where he was.
As he grew stronger and able to sit up, books and games and pictures were provided for his amusement, yet still the hours sometimes dragged somewhat heavily, but it was better when he was well enough to walk about the house.
Mrs. Martin, the housekeeper, had first admired the boy's bravery, then pitied him for his suffering, and had ended by loving him, because she, too, had a big, kindly heart that was ready to love anybody who needed her love and service. So, it was with great satisfaction that she obeyed the bishop's orders, and bought for the boy a good, serviceable outfit as soon as he was able to walk about his room.
She combed out and trimmed his rough, thick hair, and then helped him dress himself in one of his new suits. As she tied his necktie for him she looked at him with the greatest satisfaction, saying to herself,
"Whoever would believe that it was the same boy? If only he could hear and speak now like other boys, I'd have nothing more to ask for him."
Then she stooped and kissed him. Tode wriggled uneasily under the unwonted caress, not quite certain whether or not he liked it--from a woman. The housekeeper took his hand and led him down the stairs to the bishop's study. It was a long room containing many books and easy-chairs and two large desks. At one of these the bishop sat writing, and over the other bent a short, dark-faced man who wore glasses.
"Come in, Mrs. Martin, come in," called the bishop, as he saw her standing at the open door. "And who is this?" he added, holding out his hand to the boy.
"You don't recognize him?" Mrs. Martin asked smiling down on Tode's smooth head.
The bishop looked keenly at the boy, then he smiled contentedly and drew the little fellow to his side.
"Well, well!" he said, "the clothes we wear do make a great difference, don't they, Mrs. Martin? He's a fine looking lad. Gibson, this is the boy I was telling you about."
The little dark man turned and looked at Tode as the bishop spoke. It was not a friendly look, and Tode felt it.
"Ah," replied Mr. Gibson, slowly. "So this is the boy, is it? He was fortunate to fall into your hands;" and with a sharp, sidelong glance over his shoulder, Mr. Gibson turned again to his work.
The bishop drew a great armchair close to his table and gently pushed Tode into it. Then he brought a big book full of pictures and put it into the boy's hands.
"Let him stay here for a while, Mrs. Martin," he said. "I always work better when there is a child near me--if it's the right sort of a child," he added, with a smile.
Mrs. Martin went out, and Tode, with a long, happy breath, leaned back in the big chair and looked about him at the many books, at the dark head bent over the desk in the alcove, finally at the noble face of the bishop intent on his writing.
This was the beginning of many happy hours for Tode. Perhaps it was the weakness and languor resulting from his accident that made him willing to sit quietly a whole morning or afternoon in the study beside the bishop's table, when, before this, to sit still for half an hour would have been an almost unendurable penance to him; but there was another and a far stronger reason in the deep reverential love for the bishop, that day by day was growing and strengthening into a passion in his young heart. The boy's heart was like a garden-spot in which the rich, strong soil lay ready to receive any seed that might fall upon it. Better seed could not be than that which all unconsciously this man of God--the bishop--was sowing therein, as day after day he gave his Master's message to the sick and sinful and sorrowful souls that came to him for help and comfort.
It goes without saying that the bishop had small leisure, for many and heavy were the demands upon his time and thought, but nevertheless he kept two hours a day sacredly free from all other claims, that he might give them to any of God's poor or troubled ones who desired to see him, and believing that Tode could hear nothing that was said, he often kept the boy with him during these hours.
Strange and wonderful lessons were those that the little street boy learned from the consecrated lips of the good bishop--lessons of God's love to man, and of the loving service that man owes not only to his God, but to his brother man. Strange, sad lessons too, of sin and sorrow, and their far-reaching influence on human lives. Tode had not lived in the streets for nearly fourteen years without learning a great deal about the sin that is in the world, but never until now, had he understood and realised the evil of it and the cure for it. Many a time he longed to ask the bishop some of the questions that filled his mind, but that he dared not do.
Among these visitors there came one morning to the study a plainly dressed lady with a face that Tode liked at the first glance. As she talked with the bishop, the boy kept his eyes on the book open in his lap, but he heard all that was said--heard it at first with a startled surprise that changed into a sick feeling of shame and misery--for the story to which he listened was this:
The lady was a Mrs. Russell. The bishop had formerly been her pastor and she still came to him for help and counsel. She had been much interested in a boy of sixteen who had been in her class in the mission school, a boy who was entirely alone in the world. He had picked up a living in the streets, much as Tode himself had done, and finally had fallen into bad company and into trouble.
Mrs. Russell had interested herself in his behalf, and upon her promise to be responsible for him, he had been delivered over to her instead of being sent to a reform school. She went to a number of the smaller dry goods stores and secured promises of employment for the boy as parcel deliverer. To do this work he must have a tricycle, and the energetic little lady having found a secondhand one that could be had for thirty dollars, set herself to secure this sum from several of her friends. This she had done, and was on her way to buy the tricycle when she lost her pocketbook. The owner of the tricycle, being anxious to sell, and having another offer, would not hold it for her, but sold it to the other customer. The boy, bitterly disappointed, lost hope and heart, and that night left the place where Mrs. Russell had put him. Since then she had sought in vain for him, and now, unwilling to give him up, she had come to ask the bishop's help in the search.
To all this Tode listened with flushed cheeks and fast-beating heart, while before his mind flashed a picture of himself, wet, dirty and ragged, gliding under the feet of the horses on the muddy street, the missing pocketbook clutched tightly in his hand. Then a second picture rose before him, and he saw himself crowding the emptied book into that box on the chapel door of St. Mark's.
The bishop pulled open a drawer in his desk and took from it a pocketbook, broken and stained with mud. He handed it to Mrs. Russell, who looked at him in silent wonder as she saw her own name on the inside.
"Howdid it get into your hands?" she questioned, at last.
"You would never guess how," the bishop answered. "It was found in the pastor's box at St. Mark's, and the rector came to me to inquire if I knew any one of that name. I had not your present address, but have been intending to look you up as soon as I could find time."
"I cannot understand it," said Mrs. Russell, carefully examining each compartment of the book. "Why in the world should the thief have put the empty pocketbook there, of all places?"
"Of course he would want to get rid of it," the bishop replied, thoughtfully, "but that certainly was a strange place in which to put it."
"If the thief could know how the loss of that money drove that poor foolish boy back into sin and misery, he surely would wish he had never touched it--if he has any conscience left," said Mrs. Russell. "There is good stuff in that poor boy of mine, and I can't bear to give him up and leave him to go to ruin."
The bishop looked at her with a grave smile as he answered:
"Mrs. Russell, I never yet knew you willing to give up one of your straying lambs. Like the Master Himself, your big heart always yearns over the wanderers from the fold. I wonder," he added, "if we couldn't get one or two newsboys to help in this search. Many of them are very keen, sharp little fellows, and they'd be as likely as anybody to know Jack, and to know his whereabouts if he is still in the city. Let me see--his name is Jack Finney, and he is about fifteen or sixteen now, isn't he?"
"Yes, nearly sixteen."
"Suppose you give me a description of him, Mrs. Russell. I ought to remember how he looks, but I see so many, you know," the bishop added, apologetically.
"Of course you cannot remember all the boys who were in our mission school," replied Mrs. Russell. "Jack is tall and large, for fifteen. His hair is sandy, his eyes blue, and, well--his mouthisrather large. Jack isn't a beauty, and he is rough and rude, and I'm afraid he often does things that he ought not to do, but only think what a hard time he has had in the world thus far."
"Yes," replied the bishop with a sigh, "hehashad a hard time, and it is not to be wondered at that he has gone wrong. Many a boy does that who has every help toward right living. Well now, Mrs. Russell, I'll see what I can do to help you in this matter. Your faith in the boy ought to go far toward keeping him straight if we can find him."
The bishop walked to the hall with his visitor. When he came back Tode sat with his eyes fastened on the open book in his lap, though he saw it not.
He did not look up with his usual bright smile when the bishop sat down beside him. That night he could not eat, and when he went to bed he could not sleep.
"Thief! Thief! You're a thief! You're a thief!"
Over and over and over again these words sounded in Tode's ears. He had known of course that he was a thief, but he had neverrealisedit until this day. As he had sat there and listened to Mrs. Russell's story, he seemed to see clearly how his soul had been soiled with sin as surely as his body had been with dirt, and even as now the thought of going back to his former surroundings sickened him, so the remembrance of the evil that he had known and done, now seemed horrible to him. It was as if he looked at himself and his past life through the pure eyes of the bishop--and he hated it all. Dimly he began to see that there was something that he must do, but what that something was, he could not as yet determine. He was not willing in fact to do what his newly awakened conscience told him that he ought to do.
In the morning he showed so plainly the effects of his wakeful night, and of his first moral battle, that the bishop was much concerned.
He had begun to teach the boy to write that he might communicate with him in that fashion, but as yet Tode had not progressed far enough to make communication with him easy, though he was beginning to read quite readily the bold, clear handwriting of the bishop.
This morning, the bishop, noting the boy's pale cheeks and heavy eyes, proposed a walk instead of the writing lesson. Tode was delighted to go, and the two set off together. Now the boy had an opportunity to see yet farther into the heart and life of this good, great man. They went on and on, away from the wide streets and handsome houses, into the tenement house district, and finally into an old building, where many families found shelter--such as it was. Up one flight after another of rickety stairs the bishop led the boy. At last he stopped and knocked at a door on a dark landing.
The door was opened by a woman whose eyes looked as if she had forgotten how to smile, but a light flashed into them at sight of her visitor. She hurriedly dusted a chair with her apron, and as the bishop took it he lifted to his knee one of the little ones clinging to the mother's skirts. There were four little children, but one lay, pale and motionless on a bed in one corner of the room.
"She is sick?" inquired the bishop, his voice full of sympathy, as he looked at the small, wan face.
The woman's eyes filled with tears.
"Yes," she answered, "I doubt I'm goin' to lose her, an' I feel I ought to be glad for her sake--but I can't." She bent over the little form and kissed the heavy eyelids.
"Tell me all about it, my daughter," the bishop said, and the woman poured out her story--the old story of a husband who provided for his family after a fashion, when he was sober, but left them to starve when the drink demon possessed him. He had been away now for three weeks, and there was no money for medicine for the sick child, or food for the others.
Before the story was told the bishop's hand was in his pocket and he held out some money to the woman, saying,
"Go out and buy what you need. It will be better for you to get it, than for me to. The breath of air will do you good, and I will see to the children until you come back."
She hesitated for a moment, then with a word of thanks, threw a shawl over her head and was gone.
The bishop gathered the three older children about him, one on each knee and the third held close to his side, and told them stories that held them spellbound until the sick baby began to stir and moan feebly. Then the bishop arose, and taking the little creature tenderly in his strong arms, walked back and forth in the small room until the moaning cry ceased and the child slept. He had just laid it again on the bed when the mother came back with her arms full of packages. The look of dull despair was gone from her worn face, and there was a gleam of hope in her eyes as she hastily prepared the medicine for the baby, while the bishop eagerly tore open one of the packages, and put bread into the hands of the other children.
"God bless you, sir,--an' He will!" the woman said, earnestly, as the bishop was departing with a promise to come soon again.
Tode, from his seat in a corner had looked on and listened to all, and now followed the bishop down to the street, and on until they came to a big building. The boy did not know then what place it was. Afterward he learned that it was the poorhouse.
Among the human driftwood gathered here there was one old man who had been a cobbler, working at his trade as long as he had strength to do so. The bishop had known him for a long time before he gave up his work, and now it was the one delight of the old man's life to have a visit from the bishop, and knowing this, the latter never failed to come several times each year. The old cobbler lived on the memory of these visits through the lonely weeks that followed them, looking forward to them as the only bright spots in his sorrowful life.
"You'll pray with me before ye go?" he pleaded on this day when his visitor arose to leave.
"Surely," was the quick reply, and the bishop, falling on his knees, drew Tode down beside him, and the old cobbler, the child and the man of God, bowed their heads together.
A great wonder fell upon Tode first, as he listened to that prayer, and then his heart seemed to melt within him. When he rose from his knees, he had learned Who and What God is, and what it is to pray, and though he could not understand how it was, or why--he knew that henceforth his own life must be wholly different. Something in him was changed and he was full of a strange happiness as he walked homeward beside his friend.
But all in a moment his new joy departed, banished by the remembrance of that pocketbook.
"I found it. I picked it up," he argued to himself, but then arose before him the memory of other things that he had stolen--of many an evil thing that he had done, and gloried in the doing. Now the remembrance of these things made him wretched.
The bishop was to deliver an address that evening, and Tode was alone, for he did not feel like going to the housekeeper's room.
He was free to go where he chose about the house, so he wandered from room to room, and finally to the study. It was dark there, but he felt his way to his seat beside the bishop's desk, and sitting there in the dark the boy faced his past and his future; faced, too, a duty that lay before him--a duty so hard that it seemed to him he never could perform it, yet he knew he must. It was to tell the bishop how he had been deceiving him all these weeks.
Tears were strangers to Tode's eyes, but they flowed down his cheeks as he sat there in the dark and thought of the happy days he had spent there, and that now he must go away from it all--away from the bishop--back to the wretched and miserable life which was all he had known before.
"Oh, howcanI tell him! How can I tell him!" he sobbed aloud, with his head on the desk.
The next moment a strong, wiry hand seized his right ear with a grip that made him wince, while a voice with a thrill of evil satisfaction in it, exclaimed in a low, guarded tone,
"So! I've caught you, you young cheat. I've suspected for some time that you were pulling the wool over the bishop's eyes, but you were so plaguy cunning that I couldn't nab you before. You're a fine specimen, aren't you? What do you think the bishop will say to all this?"
Tode had recognised the voice of Mr. Gibson, the secretary. He knew that the secretary had a way of going about as soft-footed as a cat. He tried to jerk his ear free, but at that Mr. Gibson gave it such a tweak that Tode could hardly keep from crying out with the pain. He did keep from it, however, and the next moment the secretary let him go, and, striking a match, lit the gas, and then softly closed the door.
"Now," he said, coming back to the desk, "what have you to say for yourself?"
"Nothing--to you," replied Tode, looking full into the dark face and cruel eyes of the man. "I'll tell the bishop myself what there is to tell."
"Oh, you will, will you?" answered the man, with a sneer. "I reckon before you get through with your telling you'll wish you'd never been born. The bishop's the gentlest of men--until he finds that some one has been trying to deceive him. And you--you whom he picked up out of the street, you whom he has treated as if you were his own son--I tell you, boy, you'll think you've been struck by lightning when the bishop orders you out of his sight. He never forgives deceit like yours."
Tode's face paled and his lips trembled as he listened, but he would not give way before his tormentor.
His silence angered the secretary yet more. "Why don't you speak?" he exclaimed, sharply.
"I'll speak to the bishop--not to you," replied the boy, steadily.
His defiant tone and undaunted look made the secretary furious. He sprang toward the boy, but Tode was on the watch now, and slipped out of his chair and round to the other side of the desk, where he stopped and again faced his enemy, for he knew now that this man was his enemy, though he could not guess the reason of his enmity. The secretary took a step forward, but at that Tode sped across the room out of the door, and up to his own room, the door of which he locked.
Then he sat down and thought over what had happened, and the more he thought of it the more certain he felt that what the secretary had said was true.
A long, long time the boy sat there, thinking sad and bitter thoughts. At last, with a heavy sigh, he lifted his head and looked about the bright, pretty room, as if he would fix it all in his mind so that he never could forget it, and as he looked at the soft, rich carpet, the little white bed with its fresh, clean linen, the wide, roomy washstand and bureau, he seemed at the same time to see the bare, dirty, cheerless little closet-like room to which he must return, and his heart ached again.
At last he started up, searched in his pockets for a piece of paper and a pencil, and began to write. His paper was a much-crumpled piece that he had found that morning in the wastebasket, and as yet his writing and spelling were poor enough, but he knew what he wanted to express, and this is what he wrote:
DEAR BISHOP:I hav ben mene and bad i am not def and dum but i acted like i was caus I thot you wood not kepe me if yu knu I am sory now so i am going away but i am going to kepe strate and not bee bad any more ever. I thank you and i lov you deer.TODE BRYAN.
DEAR BISHOP:
I hav ben mene and bad i am not def and dum but i acted like i was caus I thot you wood not kepe me if yu knu I am sory now so i am going away but i am going to kepe strate and not bee bad any more ever. I thank you and i lov you deer.
TODE BRYAN.
It took the boy a long time to write this and there were many smudges and erasures where he had rubbed out and rewritten words. He looked at it with dissatisfied eyes when it was done, mentally contrasting it with the neat, beautifully written letters he had so often seen on the bishop's desk.
"Can't help it. I can't do no better," he said to himself, with a sigh. Then he stood for several minutes holding the paper thoughtfully in his hand.
"I know," he exclaimed at last, and ran softly down to the study. It was dark again there and he knew that Mr. Gibson had gone.
Going to the desk, he found the Bible which the bishop always kept there. As Tode lifted it the leaves fell apart at one of the bishop's best-loved chapters, and there the boy laid his letter and closed the book. He hesitated a moment, and then kneeling down beside the desk, he laid his face on the cover of the Bible and whispered solemnly,
"Iwillkeep straight--I will."
It was nearly nine o'clock when Tode returned to what had been his room; what would be so no longer. He undressed slowly, and as he took off each garment he looked at it and touched it lingeringly before he laid it aside.
"I b'lieve he'd want me to keep these clothes," he thought, "but I don't know. Maybe he wouldn't when he finds out how I've been cheatin' him. Mrs. Martin's burnt up my old ones, an' I've got to have some to wear, but I'll only take what I must have."
So, with a sigh, he laid aside his white shirt with its glossy collar and cuffs, his pretty necktie and handkerchief. He hesitated over the shoes and stockings, but finally with a shake of the head, those, too, were laid aside, leaving nothing but one under garment and his jacket, trousers and cap.
Then he put out the gas and crept into bed. A little later he heard Mrs. Martin go up to her room, stopping for a moment to glance into his and see that he was in bed. Later still, he heard the bishop come in and go to his room, and soon after the lights were out and all the house was still.
Tode lay with wide open eyes until the big hall clock struck twelve. Then he arose, slipped on his few garments and turned to leave the room, but suddenly went back and took up a little Testament.
"He told me to keep it always an' read a bit in it ev'ry day," the boy thought, as with the little book in his hand he crept silently down the stairs. They creaked under the light tread of his bare feet as they never had creaked in the daytime. He crossed the wide hall, unfastened the door, and passed out into the night.
A chill seemed to strike to Tode's heart as he stood on the stone steps and looked up to the windows of the room where the bishop was sleeping, and his eyes were wet as he passed slowly and sorrowfully out of the gate and turned down the street. Suddenly there was a swift rush, a quick, joyful bark, and there was Tag, dancing about him, jumping up to lick his fingers, and altogether almost out of his wits with joy.
Tode sat down on the curbstone and hugged his rough, faithful friend, and if he whispered into the dog's ear some of the grief that made the hour such a bitter one--Tag was true and trusty: he never told it. Neither did he tell how, night after night, he had watched beside the big house into which he had seen his master carried, nor how many times he had been driven away in the morning by the servants. But Tag's troubles were over now. He had found his master.
[Illustration: Adrift Again.]
"Well, ol' fellow, we can't stay here all night. We must go on," Tode said at last, and the two walked on together to the house where the boy had slept before his accident. The outer door was ajar as usual, and Tode and the dog went up the stairs together.
Tode tried the door of his room. It was locked on the inside.
"They've let somebody else have it," he said to himself. "Well, Tag, we'll have to find some other place. Come on!"
Once the boy would not have minded sleeping on a grating, or a doorstep, but now it seemed hard and dreary enough to him. He shivered with the cold and shrank from going to any of his old haunts where he would be likely to find some of his acquaintances, homeless street Arabs, like himself. Finally he found an empty packing box in an alley, and into this he crept, glad to put his bare feet against Tag's warm body. But it was a dreary night to him, and weary as he was, he slept but little. As he lay there looking up at the stars, he thought much of the new life that he was to live henceforth. He knew very well that it would be no easy thing for him to live such a life, but obstacles in his way never deterred Tode from doing, or at least attempting to do, what he had made up his mind to. He thought much, too, of the bishop, and these thoughts gave him such a heartache that he would almost have banished them had he been able to do so--almost, but not quite, for even with the heartache it was a joy to him to recall every look of that noble face--every tone of that voice that seemed to thrill his heart even in the remembrance.
Then came thoughts of Nan and Little Brother, and these brought comfort to Tode's sorrowful heart. He had not forgotten Little Brother during the past weeks. There had never been a day when he had not thought of the child with a longing desire to see him, though even for his sake he could hardly have brought himself to lose a day with the bishop. Now, however, that he had shut himself out forever from what seemed to him the Paradise of the bishop's home, his thoughts turned again lovingly toward the little one, and he could hardly wait for morning, so eager was he to go to him.
Fortunately for his impatience, he knew that the Hunts and Nan would be early astir, and at the first possible moment he went in search of them. He ran up the stairs with Tag at his heels, and almost trembling with eagerness, knocked at the Hunts' door. Mrs. Hunt herself opened it, and stared at the boy for a moment before she realised who it was.
"For the land's sake, if it isn't Tode! Where in the world have you been all this time?" she cried, holding the door open for him to enter, while the children gazed wonderingly at him. "I've been sick--got hurt," replied Tode, his eyes searching eagerly about the room. "I don't see Nan or Little Brother," he added, uneasily.
"They don't live here no more," piped up little Ned.
Tode turned a startled glance upon Mrs. Hunt.
"Don't live here!" he stammered. "Where do they live?"
"Not far off; just cross the entry," replied Mrs. Hunt, quickly. "Nan's taken a room herself."
"Oh!" cried Tode, in a tone of relief, "I'll go'n see her;" and waiting for no further words, he went.
"Well," exclaimed Mrs. Hunt, "he might 'a' told us how he got hurt an' all, 'fore he rushed off, I should think."
"Jus' like that Tode Bryan. He don't know nothin'!" remarked Dick, scornfully.
His mother gave him a searching glance. "There's worse boys than Tode Bryan, I'm afraid," she said.
"There ye go agin, always a flingin' at me," retorted Dick, rudely. "How's a feller to git on in the world when his own mother's always down on him?"
"You know I'm not down on you, Dick," replied his mother, tearfully.
"You're always a hintin' nowdays, anyhow," muttered Dick, as he reached over and helped himself to the biggest sausage in the dish.
Mrs. Hunt sighed but made no answer, and the breakfast was eaten mostly in silence.
Meantime, Tode running across the entry, had knocked on the door with fingers fairly trembling with eagerness and excitement. Nan opening it, gave a glad cry at sight of him, but the boy, with a nod, pushed by her, and snatched up Little Brother who was lying on the bed.
The baby stared at him for an instant and then as Tode hugged him more roughly than he realised, the little lips trembled and the baby began to sob. That almost broke Tode's heart. He put the child down, crying out bitterly,
"Oh Little Brother,youain't goin' to turn against me, sure?"
As he spoke he held out his hands wistfully, and the baby, now getting a good look at him, recognised his favorite, and with his old smile held out his arms to the boy, who caught him up again but more gently this time, and sat down with him on his knee.
It was some minutes before Tode paid any attention to Nan's questions, so absorbed was he with the child, but at length he turned to her and told her where he had been and what had happened to him. She listened to his story with an eager interest that pleased him.
"Wasn't it strange," she said, when he paused, "wasn't it strange, and lovely too, that you should have been taken into the bishop's house--and kept there all this time? Did you like him just as much in his home as in the church, Tode?"
"He's--he's"--began Tode with shining eyes, then as the bishop's face rose before him, he choked and was silent for a moment. "I don't b'lieve there's any other man like him inthisworld," he said, finally.
Nan looked at him thoughtfully, at his face that seemed to have been changed and refined by his sickness and his new associations, at the neat clothes he wore, then at his bare feet.
"I shouldn't think, if he's so good, that he would have let you come away--so," she said, slowly.
Tode flushed as he tried to hide his feet under his chair.
"'Twasn't his fault," he answered, quickly. He too was silent for a moment, then suddenly he sat upright with a look of stern resolve in his grey eyes, as he added, "Nan, I'll tell you all there is about it, 'cause things are goin' to be diff'runt after this. I'm goin' to live straight every way, I am; I've--promised."
Then he told her frankly the whole story; how he had deceived the bishop, pretending to be deaf and dumb; how Mr. Gibson had come upon him in the study, and what he had said, and how, finally, he himself had come away in the night.
Nan listened to it all with the keenest interest.
"And you had to sleep out of doors," she said; "I'm so sorry, but, if the bishop is so good, why didn't you stay and tell him all about it, Tode? Don't you think that that would have been better than coming away so without thanking him for all he had done--or anything?"
Tode shook his head emphatically. "You don't know him, Nan," he replied. "He's good, oh better than anybody else in the world, I b'lieve, but don't you see, just 'causehe'sso good, he hates cheatin' an' lyin', justhates'em; an', oh Icouldn'ttell him I'd been cheatin' him all this time, an' he so good to me."
"I know, 'twould have been awful hard to tell him, Tode, but seems to me 'twould have been best," the girl insisted.
"Icouldn't, Nan," Tode repeated, sadly, then impatiently thrusting aside his sorrow and remorse, he added,
"Come now, I want to know what you've been doin' while I've been gone. I used to think an' think 'bout you'n him," glancing at the baby, "an' wonder what you'd be doin'."
"Oh, we've got on all right," answered Nan, "I was worried enough when you didn't come, 'specially when one of the Hunt boys went down and found that your stand had not been opened. I was sure something had happened to you, 'cause I knew you never would stay away from us so, unless something was the matter."
"Right you are!" put in Tode, emphatically.
Nan went on, "I was sure there was something wrong, too, when Tag came here the next day. Poor fellow, I was so sorry for him. One of his legs was all swollen and he limped dreadfully, and hungry--why, Tode, he acted as if he were starving. But just as soon as I had fed him he went off again, and didn't come back till the next morning, and he's done that way ever since."
Tag had kept his bright eyes fastened on Nan's face while she talked, and he gave a little contented whine as Tode stooped and patted his head.
"But tell me what you've ben doin', Nan. How'd you get money enough to hire this room an' fix it up so dandy?" Tode inquired, looking about admiringly.
While Nan talked she had been passing busily from table to stove, and now she said, "Breakfast is ready, Tode. Bring your chair up here and give me Little Brother."
Tode reluctantly gave up the baby, and took his seat opposite Nan at the little table.
"You've got things fine," he remarked, glancing at the clean towel that served for a tablecloth, and the neat white dishes and well-cooked food. He was hungry enough to do full justice to Nan's cooking, and the girl watched him with much satisfaction, eating little herself, but feeding the baby, as she went on with her story.
"When you didn't come back, I knew I must find some way to sell my cookies and gingerbread and so I made some fresh and went to every family in this house and asked 'em if they would buy their bread and all of me instead of at the bakeshops. I told 'em I'd sell at the same price as the shops and give them better things. Some wouldn't, but most of them had sense enough to see that it would be a good thing for them, and after they'd tried it once or twice they were ready enough to keep on. Now I supply this house and the next one. It keeps me cooking all day, but I don't mind that. I'm only too glad that I can earn our living--Little Brother's and mine. Of course, I couldn't be cooking all day on Mrs. Hunt's stove, and besides they have no room to spare and we crowded 'em, and so, as soon as I got money enough, I hired this room. I'm paying for the furniture as fast as I can. It was all secondhand, of course."
Tode looked admiringly at the girl, as she ceased speaking.
"You've got a head," he remarked. "But now about cooking for my stand. Will you have time to do that too?"
"Yes indeed," replied Nan, promptly. "I'll find time somehow."
Tode hesitated, moved uneasily in his chair and finally said, "'Spect you'll have to trust me for the first lot, Nan. I ain't got no money, ye know."
"Why, Tode, have you forgotten that ten dollars you asked me to keep for you?"
"No--'course I ain't forgot it, but I thought maybe you'd had to use it. Twould 'a' been all right if you had, you know."
"Oh no, I didn't have to use that. Here it is," and Nan brought it out from some hidden pocket about her dress.
"Then I'm all right," exclaimed the boy, in a tone of satisfaction. "I've got to get some clothes first an' then I'll be ready for business."
"What's the matter with those clothes?" questioned Nan.
"Oh, I've got to send these back to the bishop." Tode's face was grave as he spoke.
"But--I don't see why. He won't want em," Nan remonstrated.
"It's this way, Nan." Tode spoke very earnestly. "If I'd been what he thought I was, I know I could have kept all he gave me, but, you see, if he'd known I was cheatin' an' lyin' to him all the time he wouldn't 'a' given me a single thing, so don't ye see, I ain't no business to keep 'em, an' I ain't goin' to keep 'em a minute longer'n I have to."
Nan shook her head, for Tode's reasoning had not convinced her, but seeing how strong was his feeling in the matter she said no more, and in a few minutes the boy went out, his face radiant with satisfaction, because Little Brother cried after him.
He invested half his ten dollars in some second-hand clothes, including shoes and stockings. They were not very satisfactory after the garments he had been wearing of late, but he said to himself, "They'll have to do till I can get better ones an' sometime I'm agoin' to have some shirts an' have 'em washed every week, too."
Tode's trade, that day, was not very heavy, for it was not yet known among his regular customers that he had reopened his stand, but he took care to advertise the fact through those whom he met and he did not fear but that his business would soon be prospering again.
That afternoon he succeeded in securing a tiny room in the house with Nan. It was a dismal little closet, lighted only from the hall, but it was the best he could do, and Tode considered himself fortunate to have his dark corner to himself, even though a broken chair and a canvas cot without bedding of any sort were all the furniture he could put into it then. Nan shook her head doubtfully when he showed her the room.
"Dark and dirty," she said, with a sniff of disgust, as the boy threw open the door. "You must get somebody to scrub it for you, Tode, and then whitewash the walls. That will make it sweeter and lighter."
"So it will," responded the boy, promptly, "but I'll have to do the scrubbin' an' white-washin' both, myself."
Nan looked at him doubtfully. "I wonder if you'd get it clean," she said. "Scrubbing's hard work."
"You'll see. What'll I scrub it with--a broom?"
"You ought to have a scrub-brush, but I haven't any. You'll have to do it with an old broom and a cloth. I can let you have the broom and I guess we can get a cloth of Mrs. Hunt. You going to do it now?" she added, as Tode began to pull off his coat.
"Right now," he answered. "You see, Nan, I've got loads of things to do, an' I can't be wastin' time."
"What things?" questioned Nan, curiously.
"Oh--I'll tell you about them after awhile," replied the boy. "The broom in your room?"
"Yes, I'll bring it to you," and Nan hurried off.
She came back with an old pail full of hot water, a piece of soap, a broom and a cloth, and then she proceeded to show Tode how to clean the woodwork and floor, thoroughly, with special attention to the dark corners which looked, indeed, as if they had never been visited by a broom. Nan was a thorough little housewife, and she longed to do the whole work herself, but Tode would not allow that, so she could only stand and look on, wondering inwardly how a boy could handle a broom so awkwardly. But if he was slow and awkward about it, Tode was in earnest, and he looked with much satisfaction at the result of his labor when it was completed.
"You'll have to wash the floor again after you've whitewashed the walls," Nan said, "but it needed two scrubbings, anyhow."
Tode looked at it ruefully. "Oh, did it?" he said. "I think one such scrubbing as that ought to last it a year."
Nan laughed. "If you'll carry out my bread and things to-morrow, I'll do your whitewashing for you," she said.
But Tode shook his head. "I'll carry out your stuff all right," he answered, "but I ain't a-goin' to have a girl doin' my work for me."
He bought the lime and paid also for the use of a pail and brush, and the next day he put a white coat on his walls, and when this was done, he was much better satisfied with his quarters. Nan offered to lend him her shawl in place of a blanket, but he guessed that she needed it herself and refused her offer.