tiny and johnny were planting their gardens, and jim brady was helping them. johnny had happened to mention to jim that he liked a garden very well, after the things were up, but that he did hate digging; and jim, after thinking hard for a minute, had said,——
“see here! if you’ll teach me some of the things you’re learning at school, of evenings, after my day’s work is done, i’ll dig your garden for you, and do it better than you can, for i’m a good sight stronger than you are, and i’ll help you keep it clean all summer, too. is it a bargain?”
johnny hesitated. he did not like jim’s tone. it was quite true that jim was the stronger of the two, but johnny thought it showed bad taste to mention it in that defiant sort of manner. and he did not see any particular fun in teaching jim, especially on summer evenings. but it would be a great thing to have such good help with his garden as he knew jim would give, so he swallowed his pride, and said, as graciously as he could,—
“all right. you come up after tea this evening, and we’ll begin. we have tea at six, and i’ll hurry through mine, and then, when it’s too dark to work any more, we can come into the playroom and have the lesson.”
you will remember that it was this jim brady who had given johnny his first, and—there is reason to believe—his last cigar, and so led him, though quite unintentionally, into his first act of deceit to his mother. and the remembrance of this act was a very sorrowful one, for although johnny, as you know, had both confessed and repented, and had been freely forgiven, the shameful act remained, never to be undone. do you ever think of that, when you are tempted to do some mean, wicked thing?
mrs. leslie had called on jim, at his bootblacking stand, soon after this occurrence, and had a long talk with him, and the next time the boys met, jim had said, severely,—
“if i had an angel for a mother, johnny leslie, i’d be shot before i’d behave anyhow but on the square to her, and now i’ll put you on your honor—if you find you’re learning anything she wouldn’t like, from me, you’ve only to let me know, and i’ll cut you dead!”
this was a rather mixed statement, but johnny understood it, and felt himself blushing. it seemed to him that jim had somehow got things backward, but his recent downfall had humbled him, in more ways than one, so instead of replying, as he was greatly tempted to, that if anybody did any cutting, he would be the person to do it, he merely said, rather shortly,—
“very well, i guess i know a little more about my mother than you do, so you attend to your mother-minding, and i’ll attend to mine!”
“glad to hear it,” said jim, easily, “but my mother’s what the dictionary-talkers call a traydition; i never saw her, so i’d[91] find it a little impossible to mind her, don’t you see? but i’ll tell you one thing—if your mother ever cares enough about me to give me a little extra minding to do for her, i’ll see what i’m equal to in that line, perhaps!”
johnny had reported this speech to mrs. leslie, and she had begun to work on the suggestion. jim had already set his mark to a promise not to smoke until he was twenty-one, and, although he did not know it, mrs. leslie was trying to find him a situation where he would have a certain, if small, salary, and be less exposed to temptation than he now was. she was very glad when she heard of the bargain which johnny had made, and she presented the new scholar with a slate and spelling book, at once. she also gave the schoolmaster a little advice.
“you must remember, johnny,” she said, “that jim has had no chance to learn anything, compared with your chances, and you mustn’t look superior, whatever you do. whenever you feel very grand, just imagine how it would be if papa should write to you in greek, and talk to you in french and latin, and then call you a little stupid because you could not understand him.”
tiny looked rather mournful when she heard of the new arrangement, but she brightened up, presently.
“is he a very big boy indeed, johnny?” she asked.
“why, no,” said johnny, considering, “at least, he’s not much bigger than i am, tiny. he’s only about half a head taller, but he’s a good deal thicker.”
“what did you say you’d teach him?” pursued tiny.
“oh, all the things i’m learning at school, i s’pose!” replied johnny, “we didn’t settle about that, exactly, for i don’t know yet how much he knows—he can’t write, but maybe he can read a little—i hope so, for it must be awfully stupid work to teach people their letters. but why do you want to know, tiny?”
“i have a reason,” said tiny, nodding her head wisely. “you needn’t think you know all of everything, johnny leslie!”
“i never said i did!” retorted johnny, warmly; then he looked at tiny, and began to laugh, she was so little, and was trying so hard to look wise and elderly.
“you may laugh if you like,” she said, serenely, “i don’t mind. but if you don’t know what you are going to teach him, perhaps you know what you’re not. are you going to teach him to sing?”
johnny accepted tiny’s gracious permission, and laughed a good deal, but at last he answered,—
“no, tiny, i’m not going to teach him to sing. i am quite sure about that. mamma says i can sing straight ahead first rate, but she never knew me to turn a tune yet. i wish i could sing the way you do,” he added, regretfully, “i’m so full of sing sometimes that i don’t know what to do, but i can’t make it come out.”
they were sitting on the back porch, pasting their scrap-books, and mrs. leslie was sewing at the window.
“never mind, johnny,” she said, consolingly, “you’ll not ‘die with all your music in you’ while you do so much shouting.”
“very well, then,” said tiny, with a look of great satisfaction, “when jim comes, i shall tell him that if he will dig my garden for me, i will teach him to sing.”
mrs. leslie expected to hear johnny first laugh, and then try to dissuade tiny from carrying out her plan, but to her surprise, he did neither. he said,—
“i shouldn’t wonder if he’d do it, tiny; he’s all the time whistling, and he whistles just like a blackbird, so very likely he’ll be glad to learn to sing, too.”
when jim came that evening, tiny and johnny were both in the garden, and as tiny had not yet met jim, johnny introduced them thus,—
“tiny, this is jim. jim, this is my sister tiny, and she wants to be in our bargain, too. go ahead, tiny.”
and so encouraged, tiny went ahead.
“i have a garden, too,” she said, “but johnny knows more of everything than i do, except singing, and i thought perhaps you’d like to learn to sing, and if you would, i’ll teach you that, and then, if you think it is worth it, will you just do the hard digging for me? i can do the rest myself, watching you and johnny.”
a very gentle look came over jim’s bold face, as he answered,—
“if you’ll teach me how to sing, miss tiny, it will be worth as much to me as all johnny can teach me of other things, and i’ll be proud and happy to take charge of your garden.”
“oh, thank you very much!” said tiny, warmly. “what a nice, kind boy you are! do you mind if i watch you while you dig?”
“not a bit!” said jim, cheerfully, “i’m not bashful. but you’d better sit down.”
“wait a minute, and i’ll bring you your camp-chair, tiny,” said johnny, and he raced to the porch for tiny’s small chair, while jim pulled off the coat which he had put on as a mark of respect to mrs. leslie, whom he hoped to see before the evening was over, and went valiantly to work with the spade.
“what nice big spadefuls you make!” tiny said, after watching him a while. “when i dig, it ’most all slides off while i am picking up the spade.”
“that’s because you are not quite so strong as i am,” said jim, smiling, and turning over an extra large spadeful by way of proving his statement.
the two little gardens were thoroughly dug by the time that it was too dark to work any more, and johnny had hoed and raked tiny’s smooth, while jim was digging his. then they went into the playroom, and mrs. leslie brought them a lamp to light up the lesson.
“we will have a little singing first,” she said, opening the organ. “tiny and i will sing the evening hymn, and you must listen, jim, and try to catch the tune.”
jim listened, and by the time they reached the doxology, he had joined them, and went through the tune without a mistake, seeming even to know the words. his voice was a very sweet tenor, and tiny exclaimed delightedly,—
“it will be just as easy as anything to teach him to sing, mamma!”
“i’d have come in sooner,” said jim, looking very much pleased, “but that last verse was the only one i knew. i went to sunday-school a few times when i was a little boy, and that verse came back to me as soon as you began to sing it.”
then johnny and his pupil sat down by the table, and mrs. leslie took tiny’s hand and went to the parlor, thinking that the two boys would manage their undertaking better without an audience.
johnny felt very much embarrassed, but he plunged in boldly, as the best way of overcoming his feelings.
“i’ll do you the way they did me, the first day i went to school,” he began, and taking his first reader, he opened it, and handed it to jim, saying,—
“just read a little, will you?”
jim burst out laughing.
“it’s heathen greek to me,” he said. “i don’t know more than half the letters. why, if i’d known how to read, i could have picked up the rest somehow, and that’s why i asked you to teach me.”
johnny was about to whistle, but he suddenly recollected his mother’s warning.
“all right,” he said, composedly; “we’ll begin with the letters, and i’ll teach you the way mamma teaches tiny—it’s easier than the way they do in school. wait a minute, and i’ll borrow her card, the letters are so much larger than they are in the spelling-book.”
he came back with a large card, covered with letters in bright colors, and pointing to a, asked,
“now, what does that look like to you?”
“it looks something like the tents those soldiers put up when they camped near here,” said jim, after looking at it for a moment.
“very well; that’s a. now, when you say ‘a tent,’ there you have it, all right.”
“that’s easy enough to remember,” said jim, “i thought it would be harder.”
“i’ll tell you what this second fellow looks like, to me,” said johnny, delighted with jim’s quickness, “it always makes me think of a bumble-bee, and its name’s b.”
“that’s queer,” answered jim, “it does look like a big, fat bee, sure enough. i guess i can remember that, too.”
it was not easy to find likenesses like these for all the letters, but when johnny could not think of anything in the way of a likeness, he told jim of something strange or funny that the letter “stood for,” and felt quite sure, when the alphabet had been “gone through,” that every letter was firmly impressed upon jim’s memory.
“do you want to begin to learn to write now, or wait till you’ve learned to read?” inquired johnny, when the reading-lesson was finished.
[97]
“i don’t know,” said jim, “what’s the first thing you do when you learn to write, anyhow?”
“you make ‘strokes’ first, like that—” and johnny made a few rapidly on the slate—“to sort of get your hand in, and then, when you can make them pretty well, you go on to ‘pot-hooks and trammels’—like these”—and he illustrated on the slate again—“and when you can make them pretty well, then you begin to make letters.”
“well, then, i might as well begin right off,” said jim, “i don’t have to know how to read before i can make ‘strokes,’ that’s plain, and if it takes so long just to get your hand in, the sooner i start, the better!”
“yes, i think so too,” said johnny, encouragingly, “for of course, you needn’t know how to read, to make ‘strokes’ or ‘pot-hooks and trammels’ either, and you see you’ll be all ready, this way, to make the letters, by the time you can read printing—maybe before. here, i’ll rule your slate, but i’ll ask mamma to set you the copy. i can’t make as good strokes—or anything else for that matter—as she can, and papa says a copy, any kind of a copy, ought to be perfect.”
mrs. leslie willingly set the copy, and guided jim’s hand over the first row. nothing in her look or manner suggested to jim that her soft white fingers felt any objection to taking hold of his grimy ones, but from that time he always asked johnny for soap and water, when the gardening was done, and came to his lessons with hands as clean as vigorous scrubbing could make them.
when he had covered both sides of his new slate with “strokes,” which johnny assured him were quite as good as the first ones he had made, they both decided that the lesson had been long enough for that time, and parted with cordial good-nights.
“i didn’t know it was so easy to teach people, mamma!” said johnny, exultingly, as soon as his pupil was out of hearing, “why, it’s no trouble at all!”
mrs. leslie smiled.
“jim seems to be a bright boy,” she said, “but you must remember that his mind is like your garden; things must be planted in it, and you must wait a while for them to come up. i don’t wish to discourage you, dear, but learning is a new business to him, as teaching is to you, and i think this would be a good text for both of you to start with—‘let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.’”
