T
ODEbustled into the house half an hour earlier than usual. Before him he carried a great sheet of pasteboard.
"Where's Winny?" he asked, sitting down on the nearest chair, out of breath with his haste. "I've got an idea, and she must help me put it on here."
"Winny's gone to the store, deary, for some tea. Whatever brought you home so early? Isn't business brisk to-day?"
"It was until it came on to rain, and I had to put things under cover, and then I had my idea, and I thought I'd run right home and tend to it."
The door opened and Winny came in, tugging her big umbrella. Instinct, it could not have been education, prompted Tode to take the dripping thing from her and put it away.
"What on earth is that?" Winny said, pausing in the act of taking off her things to examine the pasteboard.
"That's my sign—leastways it will be when your wits and my wits are put together to make it. I got some colored chalk round the corner at the painters, and he showed me how to use 'em."
"Tode, you said you would remember not to use ''em' and 'leastways' any more."
"So I will one of these days. I keep remembering all the time. Say, won't that make a elegant sign? I never thought of a sign in my life till Pliny Hastings he came along to-day. Did you ever see Pliny Hastings?"
"No. Tode, Ido wishyou would begin to study grammar this very evening. You're enough to kill any body the way you talk."
"Oh bother the grammar, I'm telling you about Pliny Hastings. He came along, and says he, 'Halloo, Tode, here you are as large as life in business for yourself. You ought to have a sign,' says he. 'What's your establishment called?' And you may think I felt cheap as long as I lived at the Euclid house, to have no kind of a name for my place. I thought then I'd have a name and a sign before this time to-morrow. So when I went for my dinner I bought this pasteboard, and I been studying the thing out all this afternoon between the spellsof arithmetic, and I've got it all fixed now, and I've got another idea come of that I never see how one thing starts another. There's going to come a piece of pasteboard off this end, 'cause you see it's too long, and I'm going to have a circle out of that."
"A circle. What for?"
"Oh you'll see when we get to it. But now don't you want to know what my sign is?"
"I suppose I'll have to know if I'm to help you, whether I want to or not."
"Well, I had to study on that for quite a spell. You see I want a name for my house, and then my own name right under it, 'cause I like to see a man stand by his business, name and all; and then I want every body to know I stand up for temperance. I thought of 'Cold Water House,' but then you see itain'ta cold water house, cause coffee is my principal dish. Then I thought of 'Coffee House,' but there's a coffee house not more than two blocks away from my place, and they keep plenty of whisky there, andthatwouldn't do. And I thought andthought, and by and by it came to me. I wouldn't have no 'House' at all about it, 'cause after all is said and done it's just abox;and I concluded to have a out-and-out temperance sign. I'll print a great big NO, so big you can see it across the street, and then we'll make twogreat big black bottles, like they keep rum in, standing by the 'No.' And then, saysI, everybody will know where to findmeonthatquestion."
Even grave Winny laughed over this queer idea.
"I can't make bottles any more than I can fly away," she said at last "And neither can you."
"I shan't say that till I've tried it about a month,anyhow," Tode answered, positively. "I neverdidlike to give up a thing before I began it."
The white cap frill nodded violently over this sentiment
"That's the way to talk," said the little mother. "There's more giving up of good things before they're begun than there ever is afterward, I do believe."
Suchan evening as they had! Winny, in spite of her discouraging words, entered into the work with considerable heartiness; and the slate first, and afterward pieces of brown paper covered over with grotesque images of black bottles, looking most of them, it must be confessed, like anything else in the world. Finally the sympathetic mother came to the rescue. She mounted a high chair to reach the topmost shelf in her little den of a pantry, where werecongregated the few bottles that had ensued from a quarter of a century of housekeeping. One after another was taken down and anxiously examined, until at last, oh joyful discovery! the label of one showed the picture of an unmistakable bottle, over which a picture of the inventor of the bitters which it was supposed to contain was fondly leaning, as if it were his staff of life. The young artists greeted it with delight, and with it for a model produced such delightful results that by half-past eight the sign shone out in blue and black and red chalks.
"Now for my circle," said Tode, seizing upon the piece of pasteboard which had been cut off. A large plate from the pantry did duty in the absence of sufficient geometrical knowledge, and the circle was quickly produced. Then did Tode's skill at making figures shine forth. In the bright red chalks did he quickly produce a circle of the nine figures around his pasteboard circle.
"Now what is all that for, Ishouldlike to know?" Winny asked, looking on half interestedly, half contemptuously.
"I'm just going to show you. You see, the lesson you gave me to-day is the addition table, and that addition table is a tough, ugly job, I can tell you. Well, I pelted away at it till dinner time, and I guess by that time I knew almost as much as I did before I begun it; and I went to Jones' after my dinner, and Mr. Jones he wanted me to take a note for him to a man at the bank, just around the corner from there, you know. Well I went, and the man I took the note to was busy counting money. He wouldn't look at me, but just counted away like lightning. I never see anything like it in my life, the way he did fly off them bills. It wasn't a quarter of a minute when he said to a man who stood waiting, 'Nine hundred and seventy-eight dollars, sir. All right.' Now just think of counting such a pile of money as that in about the time it would take me to count seventy-eight cents? Well, I come back, and I pitched into the addition table harder than ever, because, I thinks to myself, there's no telling but that I may have some money to count one of these days, and I guess I'll get ready to count it. But it was tough work. All at once, while I was looking at my pasteboard, and wondering what I should do with this end, it came to me. Now I'll explain. You see them nine figures around there? Well, thinks I, now there ain't but nine figures in this world, 'cause Pliny Hastings he told me that once, and I've noticed it lots of times since, that you may talk about just as many things as you're a mind to, and you'll just be using them same nine figures over and over again, with a nothing thrown in now and then, you know. Now, then, s'pose I begin at this one, and I say, 'one and two is three, and three is six, and four is ten.'"
"For pity's sake say 'are ten,'" interposed Winny.
"Why?"
"Because it's right. Go on."
"Well, now, I could remember just as quick again if you'd give a fellow a reason for it. Well, and four are ten, and so all around to the nine. Well, I say that, and say it, andsay it, till it goes itself, and then I begin at two, and say two and three is—no,arefive, and on round to the nine, only this time I take in the one at the other end. Understand? Well, after I've learned that I begin with the three, and go around to the two, and so on with them all; and then I mix them up and say them every which way, and after I've put them a few different ways, let's see you give me a line of figures that I can't add!"
"That is so," said Winny, at last, speaking slowly and admiringly. "It is a very good way indeed. Tode, I shouldn't wonder if you would know a great deal after awhile."
"Well now," answered Tode, gleefully, "I call this a pretty good evening's work, painted a sign and made a new arithmetic, enough sight easier than the other, so far as it goes; andyou've helped me, so now I'll help you, turn about is fair play. Bring out your grammar, and let's see what it looks like, and to-morrow I'll go into the second-hand bookstore and hunt one up. Then I'll pitch in and learn everything I come to."
He was true to his word, and thereafter grammar was added to the numerous studies to which he gave all his leisure time. Perhaps no motto could have been given Tode that would have helped him so much in this matter of study as did the one which he had overheard and adopted for his own: "Learn everything I possibly can about everything that can be learned." He was obeying its instructions to the very letter.
Sunday morning dawned brightly upon him. The first Sunday in his new business. The air was balmy with the breath of spring.
"Oh, oh," said Tode, drawing long breaths and inhaling the perfume of swelling buds and springing blades, "I just wish I could go to church to-day, I do. Wouldn't it be nice now to put on my clean shirt, and make myself look nice and spry, and step around there to Mr. Birge's church and hear another preach? I'd like that first-rate; but now there's no use in talking. 'Do everything exactly in its time,' that's one of my rules, and I'm bound to live up to them; and it's time now for me to go tomy business. I'll go to church this evening, I will. I ought to be glad that folks don't want coffee and cakes much of evening, instead of grumbling about having to give 'em some this morning."
Now it so happened, in the multiplicity of things which the new acquaintances had to talk over, that Sunday and church-going had not been discussed; and owing to the fact that Tode did not breakfast with the family, no knowledge of his intentions came to them, and no knowledge of that old command, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," came to him. True, he knew that stores and shops were closed quite generally on the Sabbath, but hotels were not, the Euclid House had never been, and Tode, without reasoning about it at all, had imbibed the idea that it was because they kept things to eat and drink. Now these were the very things which he kept, and people must eat and drink on Sundays as well as on any other days, so of course it was his duty to supply them.
So he put a clean white cloth on the dry-goods box in honor of this new bright day, arranged everything in the most tempting manner possible, and waited for customers. They came thick and fast. The Sabbath proved fair to be as busy a day at the dry-goods box as it used to be at the Euclid House. One disappointment Tode had. When he trudged down to the little house to have his great empty coffee-pot replenished, it was closed and locked.
"Course," he said, nodding approvingly, "they've gone to church. I might a known they wouldn't wash and iron and go to school Sunday. I ought to remembered and took away my coffee. Well, never mind, I'll just run around to the Coffee House and get my dish filled, and that will make it all right."
So many customers came just at tea time that he found it impossible to go home to tea, but took a cup of his own coffee and a few of his cakes, and chuckled meantime over the fact that he was the only individual who could take his supper from that dry-goods box without paying for it.
It was just as the bells were ringing for evening service that he joyfully packed his nearly emptied dishes into the basket, shook the crumbs from his little table-cloth, folded it carefully, and rejoiced over the thought that he had done an excellent day's work, and could afford to go to church. The brown house was closed again, so he left his basket under a woodpile in the alley-way, and made all possible speed for Mr. Birge's church. Even then the opening services were nearly concluded, but he was in time for the Bible text, and that text Tode neverforgot in his life. The words were, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."
I can not describe to you the poor boy's bewildered astonishment as he listened and thought, and gradually began to take in something of the true meaning of those earnest words. Mr. Birge was very decided in his opinions, very plain in his utterances. Milk wagons, ice wagons, meat wagons, and the whole long catalogue of Sabbath-breaking wagons, to say nothing of row-boats and steamboats, and trains of cars, were dwelt upon with unsparing tongue—nay, he went farther than that, and expressed his unmistakable opinion of Sabbath-breaking ice-cream saloons and coffee saloons; then down to the little apple children, and candy children, and shoestring children, who haunt the Sabbath streets. Tode listened, and ran his fingers through his hair in perplexity.
"It must come insomewhere," he said to himself in some bewilderment. "I don't quite keep a coffee house, and I don't—why, yes I do, sell apples every now and then; and as to that, I suppose I keep a coffeebox. What if it ain't a house? I wonder now if it ain't right? I wonder if there's lots of things that look right before you think about them, that ain't right after you've turned 'em over a spell? And I wonder how a fellow is going to know?"
Then he gave his undivided attention to the sermon again; and went home after the service was concluded, with a very thoughtful face. Jim was there making a visit, but Tode only nodded to him, and went abruptly to the little shelf behind the stove in the corner, and took down the old Bible.
"Grandma, where are the commandments put?" he asked eagerly, addressing the old lady by the title which he had bestowed on her very early in their acquaintance.
"Why they're in Exodus, in the twentieth chapter."
"And where's Exodus?"
"Ho!" said Jim. "You know a heap, Tode, don't you?"
Tode turned on him a grave anxious face.
"Do you know about them? Well, just you come and find them for me, that's a good fellow. I'm in a powerful hurry."
Thus appealed to, Jim, nothing loth to display his wisdom, sauntered toward the table, and speedily found and patronizingly pointed out the commandments. Tode read eagerly until he came to those words, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Then he read slowly and carefully, "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shaltnot do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates."
Three times did Tode's astonished eyes go over this commandment in all its length and breadth; then he looked up and spoke with deliberate emphasis,
"This beats all creation! And the strangest part of it is that you didn't tell me anything about it, grandma."
"Whatever is the boy talking about?" said grandma, wheeling her rocker around to get a full view of his excited face; and then Tode gave a synopsis of the evening sermon, and the history of his amazement, culminating with this first reading of the fourth commandment.
"And so you've been at your business all day!" exclaimed the astonished old lady. "Why, for the land's sake, I thought you had gone off to some meeting away at the other end of the city."
"I never once knew the first thing about this in the Bible. How was I going to know it was a mean thing to do?" questioned Tode, with increasing excitement. "And it was the best day I've had, too, and that makes it all the meaner."
And his voice choked a little, and his head went suddenly down on his arm.
"Well, now, I wouldn't mind, deary," spoke the old lady in soothing tones, after a few moments of silence. "If you didn't know anything about it, of course you wasn't to blame. 'Tisn't as if you had learned it in Sunday-school, and all that, and I wouldn't mind about the business. Like enough you'll have more days just as brisk as Sunday."
"It isn't that," Tode answered, disconsolately, lifting his head. "It's all them Sundays that I've been and wasted, when I might have gone to meeting. Been righter to go than to stay away, it seems; and it's thinking about lots of other things that's wrong maybe, just like this, and a fellow not knowing it."
And as he spoke he listlessly turned over the leaves of the old Bible, until his eye was arrested by the words, "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel."
"That's exactly it," he told himself. "I've got to have a Bible. I'll get one little enough to go into my jacket pocket, and then, says I, we'll see if I can't find out about things. And after this I'm to shut up box and go to church, am I? Well, that's one good thing, anyhow."
Presently he and Jim climbed up to the little room over the kitchen. No sooner were they alone than Tode commenced on a subject that had puzzled him.
"I say, Jim, how comes it that you knew all about those things and never toldme?That's treating a fellow pretty mean, I think. I always shared the peanuts and things I got with you."
"See here," answered Jim, in open-eyed wonder; "what are you driving at?"
"Why,thingsthat you know and never told me. Here your mother has got a Bible, and you know verses in it, and know about heaven, and all, and you never told me a word."
Jim sat down on the foot of the bed and laughed, long and loud and merrily.
"I don't know, Tode, whether you're cracked, or what is the matter with you," he said at last, when he could speak, "but I never heard a fellow mixing up peanuts and heaven before."
Tode was someway not in a mood to be laughed at, so he gave vent somewhat loftily to a solemn truth.
"Oh well, if you're a mind to think that the peanuts is of the most consequence after all, why I don't know as I object."
And then the boy deliberately knelt down and began his evening prayer. He was too ignorant to know that there were boys who thought it unmanly to pray. It never occurred to him to omit his kneeling. As for Jim he felt himself in a very strange position. He kicked his heels against the bedpost for awhile, but presently hegrew ashamed of that, and contented himself with very noisily making ready for bed. Tode, when he rose, was in a softened mood, and as he blew out the light said:
"I wish you knew how to pray, Jim. I do, honestly, it's so nice."
"Praying and brandy bottles don't go together," answered his companion, shortly.
"No more they don't," said Tode, emphatically. "I had to quit that business myself."
If some of our respectable brandy-drinking, brandy-selling deaconscouldhave heard those two ignorant boys talk!
O
Nwent the brisk and busy days; the soft air of summer was upon them, and still the business at the dry-goods box flourished, and was taking on fresh importance with every passing day. The people were almost numberless who grew into the habit of stopping at the little box, to be waited on by the briskest and sharpest of boys to delicious coffee and cookies, or as the days grew warmer to a glass of iced lemonade, or a saucer of glowing strawberries. The matter was putting on the semblance of a partnership concern, for the old lady rivaled the bakery with her cookies, both as regarded taste and economy; and in due course of time Winny caught the infection, studied half a leaf of an old receipt-book which came wrapped around an ounce of alum, and finally took to compounding a mixture, whichbeing duly baked and carefully watched by the mother's practiced eye, developed into distracting little cream cakes, which met with most astonishing sales.
Meantime there were many spare half hours in the course of the long days, which were devoted to the puzzling grammar and arithmetic, and gradually light was beginning to dawn over not only the addition but the subtraction table; or, more properly speaking, the addition circle. Tode nightly chuckled over his invention as he started from a new figure and raced glibly around to the climax, thereby calling forth the unqualified approbation of Winny, not unmixed now and then with a certain curious air of admiration at his rapid strides around the mystic circle. In fact, things were progressing. Tode began to pride himself on making change correctly and rapidly; began to wonder, supposing he had a one hundred dollar bill to change, could he do it as rapidlyalmostas that man at the bank? Began to grow very ambitious, and in looking through his arithmetic in search of nouns and verbs, chanced to alight on the word "interest;" read about it, plied Winny with questions, some of which she could answer and some not, went for further information to the older brother who was at work at the livery stable. The result of all of which was thatour rising young street vagrant opened an account at the savings bank, and had money at interest! By the way, his trip to the livery stable revived his slumbering ambition in regard to horses, and thenceforth he spent his regular "nooning" in that vicinity, or mounted on one of the coach boxes with the "brother," who chanced to be one of the finest drivers on the list. Not a very commendable locality in which to spend his leisure, you think? That depends——. Tode's happened, fortunately, to be much the stronger mind of the two; and besides, you remember the guide which mounted guard in his jacket pocket. He found it in accordance not only with one of the famous rules, viz: "Learn everything thatisto be learned about everything that I possibly can," but also in accordance with his inclination to learn to drive; so learn he did, although his desire to become Mr. Hastings' coachman had merged itself into a desire to own a complete little coffee house like the one around the corner from him, with veritable shelves and drawers, and a till to lock his money in.
You think it a wonder that Tode never fell back into his old wretched street vagrant rum-cellar life. Well, I don't know. What was there to fall back to? I can't think it so charming a thing to be kicked around like a football, tobe half the time nearly frozen, and all the time nearly starved, that people should tumble lovingly back into the gutter from which they have once emerged, unless indeed one resigns his will to the keeping of that demon who peoples the most of our gutters, which thing, you remember, Tode did not do. Besides, be it also remembered that the loving Lord had called this boy, and made ready a mansion in the Eternal City for him, and is it so strange a thing that the Lord can keep hisown?
It chanced one day that two coffee drinkers at his stand lingered and talked freely about a certain lecture that was to be delivered before the——. Tode didn't catch what society, and didn't care; but he did learn the fact that Mr. Birge was to be the speaker. Now there had come into this boy's heart a strong love for Mr. Birge; he had never spoken to him in his life, but for all that Tode knew him well, nodded complacently to himself whenever he chanced to meet Mr. Birge on the street, and always pointed him out as his minister. Very speedily was his resolution taken to attend this lecture. He didn't know the subject, and indeed that was a matter of very slight moment to him. Whatever was the subject he felt sure of its being a fine one, since Mr. Birge had chosen it. Well he went, and as the lecture was delivered beforeone of the benevolent societies of the city, the subject was the broad and strong one, "Christian Giving." Tode came home with some new and startling ideas. He burst into the little kitchen where the mother sat placidly knitting her stockings, and the daughter sat knitting her brows over her arithmetic lesson, and pronounced his important query:
"Winny, what's tenths?"
"What's what?"
"Tenths. In counting money, you know, or anything. How much is tenths?"
"Oh, you haven't got to that yet; it is away over in the arithmetic."
"But, I tell you, I'vegotto get at it right away—it's necessary. I don't want it in the arithmetic; I want to do it."
Which was and alwayswouldbe the marked difference between this boy's and girl's education. She learned a thing because it was in the book; he learned a thing in order to use it.
"What do you want of tenths, anyhow? Why can't you wait until you get there?"
"'Cause things that they ought to be helping to do can't wait till I've got there. I need to use one of them right away. Come, tell me about them."
"Well," said Winny, "where's your slate? Here are six-tenths, made so—6/10."
Tode looked with eager yet bewildered eyes. What had that figure six on top of that figure ten, to do with Mr. Birge's earnest appeal to all who called themselves by the name of Christian to make one-tenth of their money holy to the Lord?
"What's one-tenth then?" he said at last, hoping that this was something which would look less puzzling.
"Why,thisis one tenth." And Winny made a very graceful one, and a neat ten, and drew a prim bewildering little line between them.
"That is the way to write it. Ten-tenths make a whole, and one-tenth is written just as I've shown you."
"But, Winny," said Tode, in desperation, "never mind writing it. I don't carehowthey write it; tell me how theydoit."
"How todoit! I don't know what you mean. Ten-tenths make a whole, I tell you, and one-tenth is just one-tenth of it, and that's all there is about it."
"The whole of what, Winny?"
"The whole of anything. It takes ten-tenths to make a whole one."
Poor puzzled Tode! What strange language was this that Winny talked? Suppose he hadn't a whole one after all, since it took ten-tenths to make it, and he couldn't even find out whatoneof them was. Suppose he should never have a whole one in his life, ought he not then to give anything to help on all those grand doings which Mr. Birge told about?
"I don't understand a bit about it," he said at last, in a despairing tone.
"Well, I knew you wouldn't," Winny answered, touches of triumph and complaisance sounding in her voice. "You musn't expect to understand such hard things until you get to them."
And now the dear old mother, who had never studied fractions out of a book in her life, came suddenly to the rescue.
"Have you been reading about the tenths in your Bible, deary?" she asked, with winning sympathy.
"No, I didn't know they were there till to-night, but I've been hearing about them, how the folks always used to give one-tenth, and Mr. Birge made it out that we ought to now, but I don't know what it is."
The old lady dived down into her work-basket and produced a little blue bag full of buttons, of all shapes and sizes.
"Let's you and me see if we can't study it out," she said, encouragingly. "You just count out ten of the nicest looking of them white buttons, and lay them along in a row."
Tode swiftly and silently did as directed, and waited for light to dawn on this dark subject. The old lady bent with thoughtful face over the table, and looked fixedly at the innocent buttons before she commenced.
"Now suppose," she said, impressively, "that every single one of them buttons was a five dollar bill."
"My!" said Tode, chuckling, in spite of himself, at the magnitude of the conception, but growing deeply interested as his teacher proceeded.
"And suppose the money wasallyours. Well, now, it's in ten piles,ain'tit? Well, suppose you take one of them piles away, and make up your mind to give it all to the Lord. Now, deary, I've studied over this a good deal to see what I ought to give, and it's my opinion that if you did that you'd be giving your tenth. Now, Winny, haven't we got at it—ain't that so?"
"Of course," said Winny, leaving her book and coming around to attend to the buttons. "Isn't that exactly what I said? One, two, three, four. You have got ten-tenths here to make the whole, and one of them is one-tenth."
"Humph!" said Tode, "You might have said it, but it didn't sound like it one mite, and don't yet. I don't see as there's any ten-tenthsthere at all; there's tenbuttons, leastways five dollar bills."
"That's because you are not far enough advanced to understand," answered Winny, going loftily back to her seat.
"But see here," said Tode. "Suppose I had a lot of money, say—well, a hundred dollars, all in ones and twos, you know—thenhow could I manage?"
"Make ten piles of it, deary, don't you see? Put just as much in one pile as another, and then you'd have it."
Tode gave the subject a moment's earnest thought; then he gave a quick clear whistle.
"Yes, I see—all I've got to do is to keep my money in exactly ten piles; no matter how much I get never make another, but pile it on to them ten, serve each one alike, and then just understand that one of 'em ain't mine at all, but belongs to the Lord, and that's all."
"That's all," said the little old lady, with trembling eagerness. "And don't it look reasonable, like?"
"I should think it did," Tode answered, in a tone which said he had settled a very puzzling question for all time.
When he went to his room that evening he took out from the mass in his pocket a crumpled bit of paper, and looked at some writing onit. It read: "Genesis xxviii. 22." Mr. Birge had spoken of that verse, and Tode had marked it down. Now he carefully sought out the verse and carefully read it over several times; then he got down on his knees and prayed it aloud: "And ofallthat thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee."
It was later in the season, quite midsummer, when the Rev. Mr. Birge, rushing eagerly down town past Tode's place of business, suddenly came to a halt. The place was unique and inviting enough, graceful awning floating out over the box, covered with its white cloth, fresh fruits on tins of ice, fresh cakes covered with snowy napkins, dainty bouquets of flowers, gleaming here and there, iced lemonade waiting to be poured into sparkling glasses—everything faultlessly pure and clean; but it was none of these things that halted Mr. Birge, nor yet the "No Bottles" which still spoke eloquently of the owner's principles, but the name—TODE MALL! The Rev. Mr. Birge had heard that singular combination of names but once in his life, and then under circumstances he had never forgotten. He stood irresolute a moment, then turned back and came under the little awning. Tode's face glowed with pleasure as he flung aside his grammar and came briskly forward to wait on his distinguished guest.
"I'll take a glass of lemonade, if you please," began Mr. Birge, preparing to feel his way cautiously into the heart of this bright eyed boy, and find if he was indeed the one whose mother had prayed for him but once in her life, and that on her dying bed.
"Yes, sir," answered Tode, promptly, giving the glasses little gleeful chinks as he singled out the clearest.
"I see you keep a temperance establishment. I'm glad of that. I didn't expect to find a place in this quarter of the city where a temperance man could get anyrefreshment."
"Yes, sir, that's why I came down here to do business, 'cause there was nothing but rum all around here, and I thought it was time they had the other side of the story; and thingsareimproving some. The man that kept the saloon right next to me drank himself to death, and broke down, and the man that moved in is going to keep Yankee notions instead of whisky."
By a few skillfully put questions Mr. Birge satisfied himself that the brisk young person who talked about "doing business" and his small acquaintance of the Albany cellar were one and the same; and by this time, drink as slowly as he could, the lemonade was exhausted. So, bound to be a valuable customer, he tried again.
"What nice things do you keep hidden under that dainty napkin? Cakes, eh? Suppose I take one. Do they go well with lemonade?"
"First-rate, sir." And Tode's face was radiant with pleasure as he saw not only one but three of Winny's delicious cream cakes disappear.
Then Mr. Birge took out his pocket-book. It was no part of his intention just then and there to betray any previous knowledge of the boy's history; the little scene in that life drama which he had helped enact was too solemn and sacred, too fraught with what might be made into tender memories, to be given by a stranger into the hands of a rough and probably hardened boy; he could keep it to tell gently to this poor fellow in the quiet of some softly-lighted room, when he should have gained an influence over him for good, for he was a fisher of boys as well as men, this good man; and he told himself that the Lord had thrown this self-same boy into his path again, to give him a chance to do the work which a few hours' delay had robbed him of years ago; and Mr. Birge knew very well that opportunities to do the work which had been let slip, nine years before, came rarely to any man. And he was glad, and he was going to be very wary and wise, therefore he drew forth his pocket-book.
"Now what am I to pay you for this excellent lunch?"
"Nothing, sir." And Tode's cheeks fairly blazed with joy.
"Nothing!" answered the astonished customer.
"Yes, sir,nothing. I don't charge my minister anything for lunch. Like to have you come every day, sir."
"Your minister!"
"Yes, sir. Didn't you know you was my minister?" chuckled Tode. "Bless me,Iknow it, I tellyou—known it this long time."
And then ensued a lively conversation, question and answer following each other in quick succession; and Mr. Birge went through a great many phases of feeling in a brief space of time. First came a great throb of joy. The boy is safe the mother's prayer is answered—good measure, pressed down, running over—not only a temperance boy to the very core, but a Christian; then a quick little thrill of pain—oh, his work was done, but his duty had been left undone; the Lord had gathered in this stray waif, buthewas not the servant. Then, first great astonishment, and afterward humble,veryhumble thanksgiving. So then he was the servant after all; the Lord had called him in to help, and the work was begun on that stormy night, thatnight over which he had grumbled, and had doubting, questioning thoughts. Oh, there were a great many lessons to learn during that long conversation, and the minister smiled presently to himself over the memory of how he took it for granted that because the little yellow-haired boy had run away from his intended care nine years before, he had therefore run away from God; smiled to remember how carefully he was going to approach this rough, hardened boy. "Oh well," he said to himself, as he turned from the shade of the awning, compelled by the press of customers to defer further conversation, "I shall learn after a time that although the Lord is gracious and forbearing, and kindly gives me the work to do here and there for him, he can when he chooses get along entirely without the help of John Birge."
Nevertheless he did not yet make known the fact of his early acquaintance with Tode—not so much now that he wanted to keep it to help in melting the boy's heart, as that he had come to realize that Tode's mother was already his one tender memory, and that everything about that death-bed scene, if remembered at all, must be fraught with pain; so he still kept the story until some quiet time when they should be in a pleasant room alone. But this meeting was agreat thing for Tode. From that day forth Mr. Birge realized fully that he was the boy's minister. He began at once to work carefully for him. Thursday evening Tode learned to close business at an early hour, and betake himself to the Young People's Meeting. He was toled into the Sabbath-school—more than that, he coaxed Winny in, a feat which her mother had never succeeded in performing.
It was some time in September that a new duty and a new privilege dawned upon him, that of publicly uniting himself with the people of God. Tode never forgot the solemn joy which thrilled his soul at that time, when it was made known to him that this privilege was actually his. There came a wondrously beautiful October Saturday, and Tode stood by the window in Mr. Birge's study. It was just at the close of a long conversation. On the morrow the boy was to stand up in the church and take the solemn vows upon him, and his face was grave yet glad.
"By the way," said Mr. Birge, "yours is a very singular name. Fortunate that it is, or I never would have found you again; but it must be a contraction of something."
"Why yes," answered Tode, hesitatingly. He didn't know what contraction meant. "My name was once, when I was averylittle youngster,Theodore;but I never knew myself in that way."
"Theodore! A grand name—it belonged to a brother of mine once before he was called to receive 'the new name.' I like it; and Theodore the name goes down on my record. How do you spell the other? Are you sure that's all right?"
"M-a—" began our friend, then stopped to laugh. "Why no—I'll be bound that ain't my name, either. It's Mallery, that's what it is; no Mall about it."
Mr. Birge turned and surveyed his caller leisurely, with a quiet smile on his face.
"It seems to me, Master Theodore Mallery, that you are sailing under false colors," he said at last. "What have you to do with Tode Mall?"
Tode laughed.
"Well they nicknamed me so, and I suppose it stuck, and it seems like me; but my name truly is Theodore S. Mallery."
"Then of course I shall write it so." And after he had written it Mr. Birge came over and took the boy's hand.
"It is a pleasant idea," he said. "Let us take the new name, a picture of the new life which begins to-morrow, when you say before the world, as for me I will serve the Lord. Be very careful of the new name, dear brother; don't stain it with any shadow of evil."
Tode walked home slowly and thoughtfully in the gathering twilight, strange new thoughts stirring in his heart. He felt older and graver and wiser. He went round by his business stand; he took his knife from his pocket and carefully pried out the tacks which held his pasteboard sign; then he held it up in the waning light, and looked earnestly at the letters, his face working with new thoughts. But the only outward expression which he gave to these thoughts was to say as he rolled up the pasteboard:
"I must have a new sign. Good-by, Tode Mall, I'm done with you forever. After this I'm Theodore S. Mallery."
T
HEREwas a little bit of a white house, cunning and cozy, nestled in among the larger ones, on a quiet, pleasant street of the city. It was a warm June day, and the side door was open, which gave one a peep into a dainty little dining-room. There was a bright carpet on the floor, a green-covered table between the windows, with books and papers scattered about on it in the way which betokens use and familiarity instead of show. The round table was set for three, and ever and anon a dear little old woman bustled in from the bit of a kitchen and added another touch to the arrangements for dinner. A young miss of perhaps sixteen was curled in a corner of the lounge, working rapidly and a little nervously with slate, and pencil, and brain. The side gate clicked, and a young man came with quick decided tread up the flower-bordered walk. The student raised her eyes and found her voice:
"Oh, Theodore! for pity's sake see what is the matter with this example? I've worked it over so many times that the figures all dance together, and don't seem to mean anything."
"What is it? Algebra?" And the young man laid his cap on the table, tossed the curls back from his forehead, and sat down beside her.
"Yes, it's algebra, and I'm thoroughly bewildered. Do you believe I everwillknow much about it, Theodore?"
"Why, certainly you will. You're a good scholar now, if you wouldn't get into such a flurry, and try to add and multiply and divide all at once. See here, you've used the wrong terms twice, and that is the sum and substance of your entire trouble."
Winny looked a little perplexed and a little annoyed, and then laughed.
"Have patience with your bundle of stupidity, Theodore," she said, half deprecatingly. "I may do you credit yet some day, improbable as it looks."
And then the dear old lady, who had been trotting back and forth at intervals, now ushered in a teapot and called them to dinner; and they three sat down, and heads were reverently bowed while the young man reverently said: "Our Father, we return thee thanks for these,and all the unnumbered blessings of this day. May we use the strength which thou dost give us to thine honor and thy praise." And the old lady softly said, "Amen."
I do not know that you have ever heard the dear old lady's name, but it was McPherson—Mrs. McPherson. Of course you remember Winny, and the young man was the person who used to be familiarly known by the name of Tode Mall, but it was long since it had occurred even to him that he was ever other than Theodore Mallery, the enterprising young proprietor of that favorite refreshment-room down by the depot; for the dry-goods box had disappeared, so also had the cellar rum-hole. There was a neat building down there, the name, "Temperance House," gleamed in large letters from the glass of both windows, and "Theodore S. Mallery" shone over the door. Within all was as neat and complete as care and skill and grace could make it; and that it was a favorite resort could be seen by standing for a few moments to watch the comers and goers at almost any hour in the day.
Theodore came down the street with his peculiar rapid tread, glanced in to see if his brisk little assistant was in attendance, then went across the street and around the corner to a grocery near at hand.
"Mr. Parks," he said, speaking as one in the habit of being full of business and in haste, "can you cash this note for me? Good afternoon, Mr. Stephens," to that gentleman, who stood in a waiting attitude.
"Yes," said Mr. Parks, promptly, "if you will count this roll of bills for me. I'm one of those folks that I've read about who 'count for confusion,' I guess. Anyhow, these come different every time."
"With pleasure, sir," answered Theodore, seizing upon the bills with alacrity, and fluttering them through his fingers with the rapidity of thought. "Ninety-eight—seventy-three," he announced after a few seconds of flutter and rustle.
"Are you sure?"
"Quite." And again he ran over the notes, and announced the same result.
"Thank you," said Mr. Parks, with a relieved air. And as Theodore gathered up his bills and vanished, the old gentleman looking after him said:
"That's a smart chap, Mr. Stephens. I don't know his match anywhere around this city. True as steel every time, and just as sharp as steel any day."
"Yes," answered Mr. Stephens, quietly. "I have heard of the young man before, and know something of his character."
Two hours afterward Theodore was reading a letter. It commenced: