it was sunday, and jim was walking home from church with the leslies. a gradual, but very great change had come over him since taffy’s death. he had grown nearly as cheerful as he was before it happened, and did not seem to be exactly unhappy, but only the day before, johnny had said to his mother,—
“i don’t think jim can be well, mamma; he let slip the best kind of a chance for taking me off, the way he’s so fond of doing, this morning, and when i come to think of it, he hasn’t said any of those things for a good while.”
mrs. leslie smiled at johnny’s conclusion; she did not think that was the reason, and she said,—
“he looks perfectly well, dear. he is growing fast, and so getting thinner, but i don’t see any signs of ill health about him.”
“there’s something about him,” said johnny, in puzzled tones, “i never knew him to miss a chance of saying one of his sharp things, till lately; in fact, i used to think he was watching out for them!”
johnny had not been mistaken in thinking so. somebody has said that if we look to the very root of our ill-will against anyone, we shall find that it is envy; and though this does not, perhaps, always hold good, it certainly does in many instances. ever since jim had known johnny, there had been in his heart an unacknowledged feeling of envy, of which he was himself only dimly aware. why should johnny have been given that safe, pleasant home, with a father and mother and sister of whom he could be both fond and proud, while he, jim, was left to fight for even his daily bread, with no ready-made home and friends, such as most people had? for even among the boys with whom he was chiefly thrown, many had some place which they called home, and somebody who cared, were it ever so little, whether they lived or died. he persuaded himself that it was because johnny was “foolish,” and “needed taking down” that he said disagreeable things to him, but, since taffy died, he had, as he expressed it to himself, been “sorting himself out, and didn’t think much of the stock.”
his face, this morning, wore a troubled look, which mrs. leslie was quick to notice, but she had learned that, in dealing with jim, she must use very much the same tactics that one uses in trying to tame some little wild creature of the woods—a sudden attack, or even approach, scared him off effectually; and although now he no longer ran, literally, as he had done at first, he would take refuge in silence, or an awkward changing of the subject.
she had stopped asking him to take meals with them, when she saw how it distressed him. he was painfully conscious of his want of training, and shrank from exposing it, and he was shrewd enough to know that there is no surer test of “manners” than behavior at the table.
but the evening visits, begun with the making of the gardens, and the reading and singing lessons, she had managed to have continued after the gardens were frostbitten, and the early nightfall made the evenings long. yet even about this she had been obliged to exercise a great deal of tact and care. jim had announced that the lessons were to end the moment there was no more work for him to do, and she knew that he meant what he said, so, after thinking a good deal, she appealed to mr. leslie for help.
“you don’t happen to want kindling-wood just now, perhaps?” he asked, after thinking a little.
“don’t i?” she replied. “why, we always want kindling-wood! i believe that fair kitchen-maid could burn ‘the full of the cellar,’ as she would put it, in a week, if she could get that much to burn.”
“oh, well then,” said mr. leslie, cheerfully, “it’s all right. i happen to know where i can get a wagon load of pine logs and stumps, in comparison with which a ram’s horn is a ruler! i should think half a stump, or one log, an evening might be considered a fair allowance, and you shall have them before the gardens are done for, to make sure. you can explain to your muscular scholar that, by having a few days’ allowance chopped at a time, the reckless maiden can be kept within bounds. but jim will have my sympathy when he comes to those stumps!”
“he will like it all the better for being so hard, i do believe,” replied mrs. leslie, and this proved to be true. when[171] jim had wrestled for half an hour with a stump which looked like a collection of buffaloes’ heads, he sat down to his lesson with calm satisfaction; no one could say that he had not earned it.
mrs. leslie had been very much pleased by his consent to share the sunday evening talk—for it could scarcely be called a lesson—without offering to do anything in return, and, although he had always been respectfully attentive, she had noticed a growing interest and earnestness, since taffy’s death, which made her feel very glad and hopeful.
she could not help thinking, to-day, as she glanced at jim, of the great change in his appearance. he had bought a cheap, but neat and well-fitting suit of dark clothes, and he still wore the little black necktie. this suit he kept strictly for sundays, except that he always brought the coat on his lesson evenings, and put it on when his chopping was done. he was very careful, now, to be clean and neat, even when he wore his old clothes.
extraordinary patches and darns had taken the place of rents and holes, about which, formerly, he had neither thought nor cared. his face had always been honest and cheerful, and a new gentleness made it, now, very pleasant to look at. and he was growing tall. he had always been somewhat taller than johnny, and now he overtopped him by a head, a fact which gave johnny no satisfaction whatever. mrs. leslie bade jim goodbye at the gate, with an allusion to their meeting in the evening, and he assured her that he was coming.
“something is troubling jim,” she said to the children, as they all went upstairs, “and i want very much, if i can do it without asking impertinent questions, to find out what it is. perhaps we could help him.”
“you could, mamma dear,” said johnny, “even if tiny and i couldn’t. jim’s queer; he doesn’t like to talk things out, the way i do—and i’ll tell you what, tiny, i think you and i had better leave jim alone with mamma a little while, when we’ve finished talking about our verses. he’d be much more apt to tell her if there were nobody else there.”
mrs. leslie kissed her boy very lovingly. he was growing in the grace of unselfishness and thoughtfulness for others, in a way that warmed her heart.
jim brought a great bunch of wild roses to mrs. leslie, when he came that evening, and she thanked him warmly.
“i did not think they had come yet,” she said, “and i never feel as if summer were really here to stay until the roses come. where did you find them, dear?”
jim’s heavy face brightened for a moment. he saw that mrs. leslie had called him “dear” without knowing it—just as naturally as she said it to johnny, and a wave of happy feeling went over his heart.
“away out in the country, down a lane,” he said, “but i don’t know just where. i walked further than i’ve ever gone yet, this afternoon, straight out into the fields. i meant to go to church, but i felt full of walk, somehow, and as if my legs wouldn’t keep still, and i got to thinking, as i went along, and first thing i knew, i was about half a mile beyond the church! so i just kept right on, and i don’t see what folks live in cities for, anyhow—even little cities like this. i was under a big tree, lying on the grass, for an hour or so, and—”
jim stopped suddenly, for want of words that exactly suited him.
mrs. leslie thanked him again for the roses, and tiny ran to fill the “very prettiest” vase with water. and then they settled down to their talk about the sunday-school lesson which they had all recited that morning. it was the story of nicodemus; his “coming by night” to the saviour, and hearing about the “new birth unto righteousness.”
for these sunday evening talks, they always sat in the library, and, unless the evening was quite too warm, a little wood fire sparkled on the hearth, and no other light disputed its right to make the room cheerful. tiny and johnny had become skilful in building these little fires, in a way to make them give light, rather than warmth, so to-night, although the windows were open to the soft summer-twilight air, three or four pine-knots blazed upon the hearth, and sent dancing shadows about the room. mrs. leslie had noticed that, in this close companionship and half light, the reserve and restraint which sometimes tied jim’s tongue seemed taken away.
the cause of the trouble which showed so plainly in his face came out by degrees, as the lesson was discussed.
“i felt somehow, when taffy died,” he said, “as if i’d been walking the other way, and i’ve been trying to turn ’round, and travel towards where i hope he is. and i don’t mean, either, that i’ve been trying just by myself; i’ve been asking, you know, for help, and it seemed to me i got it, whenever i asked in dead earnest. and then, when i was going over the lesson for to-day, it seemed to mean that people who got religion got it all of a sudden, and didn’t want to do, or say, or think any of the bad things they’d been full of, any more, and down i went, right there, for no matter how i try, and ask, and mean, to keep straight, i don’t do it; in fact, it’s seemed to me lately, that the more i try the more i don’t, and—and—if it wasn’t for taffy, and all of you, mrs. leslie, i’d just give the whole thing up, and try to forget it, and be comfortable! it’s too much to ask of anybody, if it’s that way!”
he spoke with increasing warmth, and in a curiously injured tone, almost as if he thought he had been deceived.
mrs. leslie laid her hand gently on his, saying,—
“dear jim, god never asks impossibilities. the new birth is the giving ourselves wholly to him, the full surrender, keeping back nothing from his service. the other part, the making into his likeness, is always the work of a lifetime. and he knows that; he knows all we have to contend with. don’t you remember—‘he knoweth whereof we are made, he remembereth that we are but dust’—so, while we must not make excuses for ourselves, beforehand, we may be very sure that, after every unwilling fall, he will help us up again, and freely forgive us.”
“but there’s something else”—and jim’s face still looked cloudy—“i don’t see how it is, anyhow, that after we say we’ll be his, and try to do what we think he would like, he lets us fall. couldn’t he keep us up, and keep us going, in spite of ourselves?”
“my dear,” said mrs. leslie, very solemnly, “that is the question which has puzzled and staggered god’s people for ages, or rather, the people who are only partly his. and there is no answer for it. all we know is just this, that there are two great powers abroad in the world, the power of god, and that of the devil; that if we choose god’s service and protection, he will join his mighty will to our weak ones, and that then we can be ‘more than conquerors,’ but that if we let go this stronghold, we are at the mercy of every sinful impulse and wicked desire. with his help, we may attain to strength, and victory, and peace, and if we do not, it is simply because we refuse this ‘ever-present help.’ and when we turn away from him, when we withhold our allegiance, we never know how many others will be turned away by our example, nor how terribly we may be hindering the coming of god’s kingdom. questioning and doubting are worse than useless; we are told that we shall ‘know hereafter,’ and where we place our love we may well place our trust. now, i wish you to do something for me. i wish you to notice how those who are really, with heart and soul, following the master are held above the things which other people count troubles and trials. there are too many who are only half-heartedly following, and how can these expect more than half a blessing? and one more thing; you have not yet confessed your allegiance. if you wished to be a soldier in your country’s army, what would be the very first thing for you to do?”
“go to headquarters, and say so, and have my name put down,” said jim, slowly and reluctantly.
“yes. and that is the first thing, now. own to the world that you are his, that you mean, with his help, to ‘fight manfully under his banner,’ and then he will ‘surely fulfil’ his part of the contract. will you do this, dear?”
there was a breathless pause. tiny’s hand stole into jim’s on one side, johnny’s on the other; mrs. leslie’s motherly hand was pressed lightly on his head. with a sudden burst of tears, he said, brokenly,—
“i will! i will! i knew i ought to, but the devil’s been putting me off with all this—this—” he stopped as suddenly as he had begun.
mrs. leslie rose and knelt, and the others knelt with her. briefly and fervently she prayed for a blessing upon jim’s resolve, and that he might be “strengthened with all might” to carry it out.
“nothing is so dreadful as the want of love and faith,” she said, presently, “and against this you must fight and pray. times will come to you, as they come to all of us, dear, when it must be just a sheer holding on to that which you have proved; but never, never listen to those who would take away your stronghold, and who offer less than nothing in exchange.”
mrs. leslie’s good-night kiss when he rose to go—the first kiss he could remember having received—seemed to him like a seal upon all that she had said. he felt brave, and strong, and free; the fears which had held him down were gone, and when, on the following sunday afternoon, he took the vows of allegiance to the great captain of our salvation, there was a ring of glad triumph in his strong young voice, as if, at the beginning of the battle, he saw the victor’s crown.
