the desk next to johnny’s had been vacant for a long time, and he did not like this much, for he was a sociable boy, and although of course, no great amount of conversation was permitted during school hours, it is something to be able to make faces to a sympathetic desk-mate. there was not an absolute rule against talking in the school which johnny attended. the teacher had said, at the beginning of the term,—
“now, boys, i don’t forbid you to speak to each other during school hours, if you have anything really worth saying on your minds, and will speak so that you will not disturb your neighbors, but all long conversations can be saved till school is out, and i hope you will be honorable enough not to talk foolishly, or to take advantage of this permission. if i find it necessary, i shall resort to a rule, so you have the matter in your own hands.”
it had not been found necessary, so far, although the school was full, excepting that one vacant seat next to johnny’s.
“it may be a coincidence, you know, tiny,” said johnny, one day, when he had been lamenting his lonely lot to his sister, “but i don’t know—i have a kind of a sort of an idea that it isn’t.”
“what is a coincidence, anyhow, johnny?” inquired tiny, who was never above asking for information.
“it’s two things happening together, accidentally, that look as if they had been done on purpose,” explained johnny, with the little air of superior wisdom that he always wore when tiny asked him a question that he could answer. i am afraid he sometimes hunted up one or two long words, to be worked into his next conversation with tiny, purely for the purpose of explaining to her! it was so pleasant to see her large eyes raised admiringly to his face.
“but why shouldn’t it be a really and truly coincidence, johnny?” pursued tiny.
“oh well, because mr. lennox said one day that he thought harry conover and i might be shaken up together, and equally divided, to advantage, and harry’s the quietest boy i ever knew, so it’s pretty plain what he meant by that. and i’ve noticed how he does with the other boys; he finds out where their weak spots are, and then tries to brace them up there, but while he’s trying, he sort of keeps things out of their way that would be likely to make them slip up, and so i s’pose that is what he is doing to me. but it’s very stupid to be all alone, and i wish another boy would come—then he’d have to use that desk, for it’s the only one that’s left.”
two or three days after this talk with tiny, johnny rushed in from school in a state of great excitement, exclaiming, as he entered the room where his mother and sister were sitting,—
“the seat’s taken, mamma! and it wasn’t a coincidence, tiny! mr. lennox made a little sort of a speech to me, all by myself, after school; he knew this boy was coming, and he saved the seat on purpose for him, and i’m dreadfully afraid he’s a prig! he didn’t act the least bit like a new boy, he just studied and ciphered and wrote as if he’d been going there all his life! and whenever i spoke to him, he just looked at me—so!” and johnny’s round face assumed an expression of mild and reproachful surprise, which made tiny laugh, and even made his mother smile, though she shook her head at him at the same time, saying reprovingly,—
“johnny, johnny, you know i don’t like you to mimic people, dear!”
“i beg your pardon, mammy darling!” and johnny poked his rough head into his mother’s lap, “that sort of went off of itself! but indeed, i didn’t talk much to him, and it was about very useful things. he hadn’t any sponge, and i offered him mine, and he was hunting everywhere but in the right place for the danube river, and i just put my finger on the map, and said, ‘here it is,’ and he didn’t so much as say ‘thank you!’ and at recess i said, ‘do you love cookies, ned?’—his name is ned owen—and he said, with a sort of a sniff, ‘i don’t love anything to eat,’ so i thought i’d—i’d see him further before i’d give him one of your cookies, mamma!”
“now johnny leslie,” said his mother, smoothing his hair softly with her nice little cool hands, “you’ve taken a prejudice against that poor boy, and if you don’t stop yourself, you’ll be quarrelling with him before long! something i read the other day said that, when we find fault with people, and talk against them, there is always envy at the bottom of our dislike. i don’t think it is quite always so, but i do believe it very often is. while you are undressing to-night, i want you to sort yourself out, and put yourself just where you belong.”
johnny hung his head; he did not have to do a great deal of sorting to find the truth of what his mother had said.
there was a careful completeness about everything the new boy had done, which, to a head-over-heels person, was truly exasperating.
and as days passed on, this feeling grew and strengthened. there was a curious little stiffness and formality about all ned owen said and did, which johnny found very “trying,” and which made him overlook the boy’s really pleasant side; for he had a pleasant side, as every one has, only, unfortunately, we do not always take as much pains to find it as we do to find the unpleasant one.
it seemed to most of the boys that ned did not mind the fun which was certainly “poked” at him in abundance, but johnny was very sure that he did. the pale, thin face would flush suddenly, the slender hands would be clinched, either in his pockets, or under cover of his desk. johnny generally managed to keep himself from joining in the fun, as it was considered by all but the victim, but he did this more to please his mother than because he allowed his conscience to tell him the truth.
boys are not always so funny and witty as they mean to be and think they are. there was nothing really amusing in calling ned “miss nancy,” and asking him what he put on his hands to whiten them, and yet these remarks, and others of the same lofty character, could raise a laugh at any time.
but deep under johnny’s contempt for ned, was the thorn of envy. before ned came, johnny had stood first in just one thing. twice a week the “scholar’s companion” class was required to write “sentences”; that is, each boy must choose a word out of the spelling and defining lesson, and work it into a neatly turned sentence of not less than six, or more than ten lines. johnny liked this; it seemed to him like playing a game, and he had stood at the head of the class for a long time, for it so happened that no other boy in the class shared his feeling about it. but now, ned went above him nearly every other time, and they changed places so regularly, that this too became a standing joke among the other boys.
johnny was walking home from school one day with such unnatural deliberation, that jim brady, whose stand he was passing without seeing where he was, called out with much pretended anxiety,—
“you’re not sunstruck, or anything, are you, johnny? i’ve heard that when folks are sunstruck, they don’t recognize their best friends!”
johnny laughed, but not very heartily.
“i beg your pardon, jim,” he said, “i didn’t see you, really and truly—i was thinking.”
“all right!” said jim, cordially, “it’s hard work, thinking is, and sort of takes a fellow’s mind up! i know how it is myself.”
while he was speaking, a little lame boy, ragged, dirty, and totally unattractive-looking, shuffled up, and waited to be noticed.
“well, taffy,” said jim, with a gentleness which johnny had only seen displayed to his mother and tiny, before, “did you sell them all
“i did, jimmy!” and the ugly, wizened little face was brightened with a smile, “every one i sold—and look here, will you?” and he held up a silver quarter.
“well done, you!” and jim patted him approvingly on the back. “now see here; here’s two tens and a five i’ll give you for it; you’ll give me one of the tens, to buy your papers for you in the morning, and the fifteen will get you a bed at mother rooney’s, and buy your supper and breakfast. you’d better peg right along, for it’s quite a walk from here. be along bright and early, and i’ll have the papers ready for you.”
the little fellow nodded, and limped away.
“who is he, anyhow?” asked johnny, when he was out of hearing.
“oh, i don’t know!” and jim looked embarrassed, for the first time in his life, so far as johnny’s knowledge of him went. “he’s a little beggar whose grandmother or something died last week, and the other people in the room kicked him out. you see, your mother had just been reading us that piece about neighbors—about that old fellow that picked up the one that was robbed, and gave him a ride, and paid for him at the tavern,and then she said it ought to be just the same way now—we ought to be looking out for chances to be neighborly, and it just happened—”
jim had grown quite red in the face, and now he stopped abruptly.
“i think that was jolly of you,” said johnny, warmly, “how near you did he live, before he was kicked out?”
“about two miles off, i should say, if i was to survey it,” and jim grinned, recovering his composure as he did so.
“i often wonder at you, johnny leslie,” he continued, “and think maybe you came out of a penny paper story, and were swapped off for another baby, when you were little!”
“what on earth do you mean?” asked johnny, impatiently. he was somewhat afraid of jim’s sharp eyes and tongue.
“oh, nothing much,” replied jim, “it’s just my little lively way, you know. but your mother don’t think neighbors need to live next door to each other; you ask her if she does!”
“oh!” said johnny, “why can’t you say what you mean right out, jim?”
“well, i might, possibly, i suppose,” and jim looked thoughtful, “but i’ve a general idea it wouldn’t always give satisfaction all round, and i’m the last man to hurt a fellow-critter’s feelings, as you ought to know by this time, johnny!”
“i must go home,” said johnny, suddenly, “goodbye, jim.”
“goodbye to you,” responded jim, affably, “i’ll be along as usual, if you’ve no previous engagement.”
“all right—but look here, jim,” and johnny wheeled abruptly round again, “why do you buy that little taffy’s papers for him?”
“you’d better go home, johnny—you might be late for your tea, my dear boy!”
“now, jim brady, you tell me!”
“because the big boys hustle him, and he can’t fight his way through because he’s lame. now get out!”
johnny obeyed, but he was thinking harder than ever, now. and a sort of refrain was running through his mind—a sentence from the story jim had recalled to him: “and who is my neighbor?”
“do you know, johnny,” said tiny, a few days after johnny had met jim, and heard about taffy, “i don’t believe you mean to—but you are growing rather cross. perhaps you don’t feel very well?”
johnny burst out laughing; tiny’s manner, as she said this, was so very funny. it was what her brother called her “school-marm air.”
“that’s much better!” said tiny, nodding her head with a satisfied look, “i was ’most afraid you’d forget how to laugh, it’s so easy to forget things.”
“now tiny!” said johnny, with the fretful sound in his voice which had struck her as a sign that he didn’t feel well, “you say a thing like that, and you think you’re smart, but it isn’t easy to forget things at all, some things, i mean. i do believe folks forget all they want to remember, and remember all they want to forget!”
“i don’t know of anything i want to forget,” remarked tiny, “and i should not think you would either. is it a bad dream?”
“no,” replied johnny, “i don’t suppose it is, though sometimes it kind of seems to me as if it might be, and i’m a little in hopes i’ll wake up and find it is, after all!”
“but i do not wish to forget my bad dreams,” said tiny, “for after they’re over, they are very interesting to remember, like that one about walking on the ceiling, you know, like a fly. it was dreadful, while it lasted, but it pleases me to think of it now. aren’t you going to tell me what it is that you ’most hope is a dream?”
“i don’t know,” said johnny, doubtfully, “you are a very nice little girl, tiny, for a girl, but you can’t be expected to know about things that happen to boys. though to be sure, this sort of thing might happen to girls, i suppose, if they went to school. you know that new boy i told you about?”
tiny nodded.
“well, he isn’t having much of a good time. the other fellows plague him. but i don’t see that’s it’s any of my business, now; do you?”
“i’m afraid—” began tiny, and then stopped short.
“out with it!” said johnny, impatiently, “you’re afraid—what?”
“i’m afraid that’s what the priest and the levite said,” finished tiny, slowly.
“what do you?—oh yes, i suppose you mean about the good samaritan, and, ‘now which of these was neighbor?’ is that what you’re driving at?”
tiny nodded again, even more earnestly than before.
“now that’s very queer,” said johnny, musingly, “but jim said almost exactly the same thing. he’s picked up a little lame fellow—no relation to him at all, and no more his concern than anybody’s else—and he’s keeping the boys off him, and behaving as if he was the little chap’s grandmother, and i do believe it is all because of things mamma has said to him. he doesn’t know about ned owen; what he said was because i happened to catch him grandmothering this little taffy, as he calls him, but it was just exactly as if he had known all about everything. it’s very well for him; he isn’t all mixed up with the other bootblacks, the way i am with the boys at school, and he can do as he pleases, but don’t you see, tiny, what a mess i should get myself into, right away, if i began to take up for that boy against all the others?”
tiny replied with what johnny considered needless emphasis,—
“i don’t see it at all, johnny leslie, and what’s more, i don’t believe you do either! the boys at school would only laugh at you, if the worst came to the worst, and i’m pretty sure, from things jim has told mamma, that the kind of boys he knows would just as lief kick him, or knock him down, if they were big enough, as to look at him! and if you’d stand up for that poor little boy, i think some more of them would, too. don’t you remember, papa said boys were a good deal like sheep; that if one went over the fence, the whole flock would come after him; sometimes, i wish i could do something for that boy! i don’t see how you can bear to let them all make fun of him, and never say a word, when it made you so mad, that time, when those two dreadful boys tried to hang my kitten. it seems to me it’s exactly the same thing!”
tiny’s face was quite red by the time she had finished this long speech, and johnny’s, though for a very different reason, was red too. he had been angry with tiny, at first, but before she stopped speaking, his anger had turned against himself. she was a little frightened at her own daring in “speaking up” to johnny in this way, but she soon saw that her fright was needless.
“tiny,” he said, solemnly, after a rather long pause, “you can’t expect me to wish i was a girl, you know, they do have such flat times, but i will say i think its easier for them to be good than it is for boys,—in some ways, anyhow,—and i think i must be the beginning of a snob! you didn’t even look foolish the day mamma took jim with us to see the pictures, and we met pretty much everybody we knew, and my face felt red all the time. i’m really very much obliged to you for shaking me up. i shall talk it all out with mamma, now, and see if i can’t settle myself. to think how much better a fellow jim is than i am, when i’ve had mamma and papa and you, and he don’t even know whether he had any mother at all!” and johnny gave utterance to his feelings in something between a howl and a groan. to his great consternation, tiny burst into a passion of crying, hugging him, and trying to talk as she sobbed. when he at last made out what she was saying, it was something like this,—
“i thought you were going to be mean and horrid—and you’re such a dear boy—and i couldn’t bear to have you like that—and i love you so—oh, johnny!”
johnny may live to be a very old man; i hope he will, for good men are greatly needed, but no matter how long he lives, he will never forget the feelings that surged through his heart when he found how bitter it was to his little sister to be disappointed in him. he hugged her with all his might, and in a very choked voice he told her that he hoped she’d never have to be ashamed of him again—that she shouldn’t if he could possibly help it.
and after the talk with his mother that night, he hunted up the “silken sleeve,” which he had worn until it was threadbare, and then put away so carefully that he had a hard time to find it. it was too shabby to be put on his hat again, but somehow he liked it better than a newer one, and he stuffed it into his jacket, when he dressed the next morning, about where he supposed his heart to be. he reached the schoolhouse a few minutes before the bell rang, and found everybody but ned owen laughing and talking. he was sitting at his desk with a book, on which his eyes were intently fixed, held before him, but his cheeks were flushed, and his lips pressed tightly together.
johnny did not hear anything but a confusion of voices, but he could easily guess what the talk had been about. he walked straight to his desk, and, laying his hand with apparent carelessness on ned’s shoulder, he glanced down at the open history, saying, in his friendliest manner, which was very friendly,—
“it’s pretty stiff to-day, isn’t it? i wish i could reel off the dates the way you do, but every one i learn seems to drive out the one that went in before it!”
the flush on ned’s face deepened, and he looked up with an expression of utter astonishment, which made johnny tingle with shame from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. and johnny thought afterward how, if the case had been reversed, he would have shaken off the tardy hand and given a rude answer to the long-delayed civility.
ned replied, very quietly,—
“it is a little hard to-day, but not half so hard as—some other things!”
and just then the laughing and talking suddenly stopped, for mr. lennox opened the door, but johnny had already heard a subdued whistle from one quarter and a mocking “since when?” from another, and, what, was worse, he was sure ned had heard them too.
to some boys it would have been nothing but a relief to find that, as tiny had suggested, ned’s persecutors were very much like sheep, and, with but few exceptions, followed johnny’s lead before long, and made themselves so friendly that only a very vindictive person could have stood upon his dignity, and refused to respond. ned was not vindictive, but he was shy and reserved; he had been hurt to the quick by the causeless cruelty of his schoolmates, and it was many days before he was “hail fellow well met” with them, although he tried hard not only to forgive, but to do what is much more difficult—forget.
as for johnny, when he saw how, after a trifling hesitation, a few meaningless jeers and taunts, the tide turned, and ned was taken into favor, his heart was full of remorse. it seemed to him that he had never before so clearly understood the meaning of the words, “inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me.”
some one has likened our life to a journey; we keep on, but we can never go back, and, as “we shall pass this way but once,” shall we not keep a bright lookout for the chances to help, to comfort, to encourage? how many loads we might lighten, how many rough places we might make smooth for tired feet! not a day passes without giving us opportunities. think how beautiful life might be made, and, then,—think what most of us make of it! travellers will wander fearlessly through dark and winding ways with a torch to light their path, and a slender thread as a clue to lead them back to sunlight and safety. the light of the world waits to “lighten our darkness, that we sleep not in death.” if we “hold fast that which is good,” we have the clue.
