CHAPTER XVI. — “HERE WAS HIS OPPORTUNITY.”
But the question which would keep forcing itself on Gracie Dennis was this: “If he really knows of nice books, full of 'the beautiful' and 'the ennobling,' that would enlighten the race, as he has often told me, why doesn't he mention some of them now? There is no minister here 'trammelled by long years of narrowing education.' How does he know but that these people are as 'advanced' in their ideas as he is himself?”
I do not mean that she was conscious of thinking these thoughts, but that they hovered on the edge, as it were, of her mind, making her feel ill at ease. Dr. Everett, on his part, seemed courteously bent on securing an expression of the professor's opinion about matters of which he either could not, or would not, talk. When at last the disturbed gentleman resolved to violate what Gracie was sure was a law of good breeding, and address her in French, what with her embarrassment lest others should understand, and her own marked ignorance of the language, she found great difficulty in making a free translation. “Upon my word, I wish you understood French, or some other tongue, so that we could escape from this boredom. Does the poor little prisoner have much of this to endure? Cannot we escape to the music-room, and talk things over?”
Gracie cast a frightened glance about her to see if there were others who understood better than herself this sentence, which, for aught she knew, might contain something startling. But Alfred was busily engaged in looking up the name of a book which he had vainly tried to recall, and Dr. Everett was apparently serenely oblivious to any language but his mother-tongue. Very soon after this Gracie managed to escape with her caller to the music alcove; thus much of the French she had understood, and at least Professor Ellis could play; which fact she resolved that the people in the front parlor should speedily understand. Ah, but he could play! and herein lay one of his strong fascinations for the music-loving girl. For a time the most ravishing strains rolled through the parlor hushing into rapt attention the group gathered there, who had just been reinforced by the coming of Mr. Roberts. By degrees the strains grew fainter and fainter, and at last ceased altogether, as the professor, still on the music-stool, bent over Gracie, seated in a low chair, and apparently found fluent speech at last.
Mrs. Roberts, meantime, was ill at ease. What would Dr. Dennis and Marion say, could they have a peep at this moment into her back parlor? Was she being faithful to her trust? Yet what was there she could do? She tried to sustain her part in the conversation, but her troubled gaze, constantly wandering elsewhere, betrayed her. Dr. Everett's keen eyes were upon her.
“Are you particularly interested in that man?” he asked, abruptly.
Mrs. Roberts smiled faintly.
“I am particularly interested in that girl,” she said.
“How do you like her present companionship?”
“Not at all,” she answered, quickly.
Whereupon Mr. Roberts began to question.
“May I know, doctor, whether you have any other reason than that of intuition for asking the question?”
“Possibly not,” said the doctor, guardedly. “It maybe a case of mistaken identity. Mrs. Roberts, would you like to have me investigate something that may be to his disadvantage?”
Mrs. Roberts had a prompt answer ready:—
“There are reasons why it is specially important that such an investigation should be made and reported to me. May I commission you?”
The doctor bowed; and the subject of Professor Ellis was immediately dropped.
During the following week certain innovations took place in Mrs. Roberts well-ordered household. At the end of the conservatory was a long, bright, and hitherto unfurnished room; it had been designed as a sort of second conservatory, whenever the beauties of that department should outgrow their present bounds, but meantime other plants had taken root and blossomed in the mistress' heart. Early in this week the unused room had been opened and cleaned; then began to arrive packages of various shapes and sizes; a roll of carpeting, and two young men from the carpet store; and there followed soon after the sound of hammering. Furniture-wagons halted before the door, leaving their burdens. Men and women flitted to and fro, busy and important.
It was Saturday night before Mr. Roberts and his young clerk were invited in to admire and criticise the new room. Mr. Roberts, at least, was prepared to appreciate its transformation.
The floor was covered with a heavy carpet in lovely shades of mossy green, and easy chairs and couches in tints that either matched or made delightful contrasts with the carpet abounded. The walls were hung with pictures and charts and maps. A study-table occupied the centre of the room—one of those charming tables, full of mysterious drawers and unexpected corners; paper and pens and inks in various colors were disposed about this table in delightful profusion.
Other tables, plenty of them, small and neat, each of a different shape or design, were stationed at intervals, in convenient proximity to comfortable chairs. Nothing could be further removed from one's idea of a school-room than was that long, beautiful parlor; yet when you thought of it, and took a second, deliberate survey, nothing that could have contributed to the enjoyment of pupils was missing. A small cabinet organ occupied an alcove, and music-books of various grades were strewn over it. Toward this spot Mrs. Roberts smiled significantly as her eye caught Alfred Ried's, and she said:—
“I have visions of sacred Sabbath evening half-hours, connected with this corner, one of these days; meantime, is this a pleasant room for our Monday evenings?”
But Alfred could not answer her; his head was turned away, and there was a suspicious lump in his throat, that made him know better than to attempt speech. He was standing at that moment under one of the wall-texts that the gaslight illumined until it glowed, and the words stood out with startling clearness:—
“Let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober.”
His sister's text; one that, perhaps more than any other, was on her lips when she talked with him; one that hung at her coffin's head when he, a little boy, stood beside the coffin and looked down at her face, and looked up at that text, and took a mental photograph of both to live in his heart forever.
“This is your special chair,” Mrs. Roberts said, smiling up at him; and he understood her,—here was his opportunity to live out that text for his sister. Wouldn't he try!
“Well,” said Gracie, drawing a long breath, “as a study it is certainly a success. One can easily see, Flossy, why you were born with the ability to tell at a glance what colors harmonized, and just where things fitted in. I can't imagine anything prettier than this, and I cannot imagine what you are going to do with it.”
Whereupon they sat down to talk that important question over: what they were going to try to do. Sometimes I have wondered whether Ester, from her beautiful home, could look down on it all, and whether she smiled over the fact that her work was doing so much more than she had planned? She had roused in her little brother an ambition that had grown with his years, and that had helped to hold him away from many temptations: so much, doubtless, she had foreseen; but what a blessed thing it was that she had touched, in those long ago years, influences which had drawn her brother, in his young and perilous manhood, into intimate relations with such people as Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, so that they sat down familiarly to talk over mutual interests! But for Ester's words, spoken long ago, but for her strong desires transmitted to him, he might have sat with a very different circle, and talked over widely different schemes. On the edge of this circle Gracie Dennis hovered. She could not but be interested in their talk, for she was a Christian, and her father was a Christian, and she had, all her life breathed in the atmosphere of a Christian home.
At the same time she could but imagine some of their ideas wild ones, for she had never been associated with people who widely overstepped the conventional ways of doing things; and she had, of late, been much with Professor Ellis who had a sort of gentlemanly sneer for every phase of Christian work, and, so far as could be discovered, believed in nothing. He had not been outspoken, it is true, and herein lay one of the dangers. He was too skillful to be outspoken; but the subtle poison had been working, and although Gracie could not help being interested in those queer boys, she could not help thinking Flossy's whole scheme exceedingly visionary, and expected it to come to grief. The puzzling question was, why did Mr. Roberts, being a keen-sighted man, permit it all! Or was he so much in love with Flossy that he could not bear to thwart even her wildest flights? It was strange, too, to see a young man like Alfred Ried so absorbed; his sister must have had wonderful power over him, Gracie thought. She went back to his sister's influence, always, in trying to explain the matter, and never gave a thought to Christ's influence. Meantime she listened to the various plans proposed for the first Monday evening, and was sufficiently interested to gather her pretty face in a frown when the distant peal from the door-bell sounded through the house.
“What a pity to be interrupted by a caller!” she exclaimed. “This room is so much nicer than the parlor. Flossy, don't you hope it is some one to see Mr. Roberts on business?”
“No,” said Mrs. Roberts, shaking her head, with a smile, “I feel in special need of Mr. Roberts just now. Evan, I really think we must be excused to callers for this one evening; there are so many things to arrange.”
“Let us wait and see,” answered Mr. Roberts “perhaps the Lord sent the caller here to help us, or to be helped.”
At that moment came the card.
“Oh, it is Dr. Everett!” was Mrs. Roberts' exclamation. “Let us have him come directly here. Evan, please go and escort him. You were right,—the Lord has sent him to help us. I don't know how, I'm sure; but he is just the man to help everywhere.”
And the circle instantly widened itself to receive Dr. Everett.
It took almost no time to speak the commonplace of the occasion, and get back at once to the business of the hour. It was evident that Dr. Everett needed no lengthy explanations, and there was apparently nothing bewildering to his mind in the plan. True, it was new to him, but he seemed to spring at once to the centre of their thoughts. His eyes glowed for a moment, and he said with peculiar emphasis:—
“Ried, when the son of man cometh, he will surely find some faith on the earth!”
Then he gave himself to intensest listening and questioning, and presently followed his questions with suggestions which showed that unconventional ways of working were not altogether new to him.
As for Gracie, she had as much as she could do to listen intelligently; she almost caught her breath over the rapidity with which the talkers moved from one scheme to another. All the time there was a curious process of comparison between this man and Professor Ellis going on in her mind. Not that she wished to compare the two! She told herself that it was absurd to do so; none the less she did it. For instance, she reminded herself that she had mentally assented promptly to the suggestion of inviting the doctor to this room to talk this strange scheme over; she had recognized the fitness of the act. But suppose Professor Ellis should call, would it not be simply absurd to think of explaining to him the uses of this unique room? Who would for a moment think of suggesting his name as a helper?
I do not know how to describe to you the appearance of that room on Monday evening when the boys were in it. I do not know whether the sight to you would have been pitiful or ludicrous. How can I tell—not knowing you? There was a dreadful incongruity between the soiled, ragged clothes and matted hair and unwashed hands and the exquisite purity which prevailed around them. Of course you could have seen that, but the all-important question, the answer to which would have stamped your place in the world's workshop, would have been, Do you see any further than that? and seeing further—which way? Do you see the possibilities, or the certainties of failure? Oh, no, I am wrong; it would take more than that to tell where you belong. Dr. Everett saw the possibilities and gloried in them. Gracie Dennis thought she saw the certainty of failure, and was sorry for it. But Professor Ellis would have seen the certainty of failure, and would have met it with a sneer, if he had not been too indifferent even for that. As for Mrs. Roberts, did she, or did she not, represent a different and higher type than any of the others? She thought not much about either success or failure, but pushed steadily forward the plan that she believed she had gotten on her knees, born of the Spirit. If it really were of God, nothing could make it fail; but if she mistook, and the plan was only hers, mere failure in that direction would signify nothing; she would have but to try again. Something of this she felt, but did not reason out, for she was no logician.
What the boys saw was a great, splendid room, the like of which they had never seen before, for they recognized, without being able to explain, the difference between it and the parlors, and felt freer in it. They all came, and they looked not one whit better than on the Monday evening before. Over this fact Gracie Dennis, with all her public scoffing, was, in private, a little disappointed. It is true she had not expected to see them again; but if they came, she thought it possible that they might have been tempted to appear with clean hands and faces. Possibly some were so tempted, and but for the difficulties in the way, might really have tried for this. But Gracie was not sufficiently enlightened to dream of difficulties in the way of simply washing one's face and hands.
During the Saturday evening conference it had been decided that Mr. Roberts must make acquaintance with his guests. It would never do to have them come familiarly to his house, and he not be able to recognize them on the streets. Several plans were suggested for introducing him skilfully to them, but he disapproved of them all.
“No,” he said, “I'll tell you what we'll do. I will introduce myself. You may receive them, Flossy, and then retire for a few minutes, and I'll let myself in by the conservatory passage, and make myself acquainted to the best of my abilities. In ten minutes, Flossy, I'll give you leave to return. As for the rest of you, don't dare to venture in until I have made good my claim as the head of the house. I am jealous of you, perhaps.”
To this plan Mrs. Roberts readily assented, but the young clerk looked doubtful. In common with the rest of his employees, he stood in wholesome awe of the keen-eyed, thorough business man, who seemed to know, as by a sort of instinct, when anything in any department of the great store was not moving according to rule. His knowledge of Mr. Roberts, outside of the store, was limited, and he expected to find the boys, if not frightened, so awed that they would resolve never to be caught inside that room again.
However, he of course only looked his fears. He was too much afraid of the great merchant to express them, and it had been understood, when they separated, that this plan was to be carried out.
CHAPTER XVII. — “I WONDER WHAT THEY'RE ALL AFTER!”
In the library waited Gracie and Mr. Ried, while Mrs. Roberts went merrily to see whether the boys or their host had proved the stronger.
“I don't believe this part of the programme will work,” Alfred said, confidently, the moment the door closed after Mrs. Roberts. “Those fellows will all be afraid of Mr. Roberts, and we shall lose what little hold we have on them.”
“They don't look to me as though it ever occurred to them to be afraid of anything,” Gracie said; but Alfred Ried, who had studied deeper into this problem of the different classes of society, was ready with his answer.
“Yes they are; they can be awed, and made to feel uncomfortable to the degree that they will resolve not to appear in that region again. One cannot judge from their behavior in Sabbath-school. Some way they recognize a mission school as being in a sense their property, and behave accordingly; but in a man's own house, surrounded by things of which they do not even know the name, he has them at a disadvantage, and can easily rouse within them the feeling that they are 'trapped.' Than which there is nothing those fellows dread so much, I believe.”
“But they were not afraid of Flossy last week, even surrounded by the elegances of her parlors and dining-room.”
“Ah!” he said, his eyes alight, “she has a wisdom born of God, I think, for managing these and all other concerns. She is unlike everybody else.”
Whereupon Gracie Dennis laughed; not a disagreeable laugh, but there came to her just then a sense of the strangeness of thinking that pretty Flossy Shipley, whom she had known all her life, and half-scorned from the heights of her childhood because she was a silly little thing, who could not do her problems in class, should have a wisdom unlike any others. Yet, almost immediately her laugh was stayed, because the change in Flossy was so great that she, too, recognized it as born of God. Sometimes it came with force to this proud young girl that if God could do so much for Flossy, what might he not be willing to do with those whom he had made intellectually her superior, if they were but ready to be led?
The young man, who was studying her, watched the grave look deepen on her face, and wondered at its source. What a pretty face it was. Oh, much more than pretty; there was great strength in it and sweetness, too, of a certain sort, but he could not help comparing the sort with that in some other faces, and he wondered over the difference. This young lady was a Christian. Why should her Christian experience stamp her with such a different expression from that which others wore? He always finished this sort of sentence with a blank space first, as though he did not choose to have himself tell himself any names. Yet he spoke a name forcibly enough, still gazing earnestly at Gracie.
“Did you ever meet Miss Joy Saunders?”
Gracie turned toward him a laughing face.
“No, but we are very anxious to, Flossy and I. We have both been told that we ought to know her, and told so earnestly that we really think we ought. Who is she? Is she, too, unlike anybody else?”
“Very,” he said, promptly. “I know her very little; she is the daughter of our landlady; I meet her in the hall on rare occasions, and sometimes catch glimpses of her just vanishing from some room as I enter; but as for being acquainted with her, I suppose I am not. I think—though of that I am by no means sure—that she is engaged to Dr. Everett.
“Oh, then, of course he would think naturally that people ought to know her. What is she like?”
“Like nothing,” said Alfred, with great promptness. “Did you ever know a person named Joy?”
“No;—what a singular name.”
“Well, it fits. She is very far removed from mirth, and she is not what people call gay, and she is not outspoken apparently at any time, though, as I say, I do not know her; but there is something in her face that fits the name; I do not know what it is. Sometimes I think it is the shining of Christ's face reflected in her; but the puzzle is, why do not other faces have it? Faces which belong to him?”
“Perhaps there is a difference in the degree of belonging.”
Gracie spoke the words very gently, wondering meanwhile at the way in which this thought chimed in with hers about Flossy.
“Oh, there is. But why should there be? If I belong to Christ, I belong, don't I? There is no half-way service possible. Why do I not so look that others take knowledge of me that I have been with Jesus?”
“How do you know but they do?”
“Ah, I know. I know too well. They are more likely a great deal to take knowledge that I have been with Satan. I feel the frown all over my face a great deal of the time; and the world goes astray a great many times, when I suppose it is just myself that is wrong. But, Miss Dennis, I hunger for the shining of his face in me.”
“That must be the meaning of the beatitude which puzzled my childhood,” she answered trying to speak lightly, to hide feelings that were deeply moved: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”
“Thank you,” he said, smiling; “there is actually a promise! I had not thought of it. And yet”—the thoughtful frown gathering almost immediately—“do you suppose that a person who really hungered for a certain thing could be satisfied with anything else? I often have an hour of what at the moment seems to me like hunger for Him, but the hour passes, and I get filled—with business, or with plans, or possibly with annoyances, and feel nothing but a general irritation for everybody. Do you think there can be anything genuine about such desires, so easily turned aside?”
“Oh, I do not know,” said Gracie, hastily. “Why do you ask me such things? Did not I tell you I was not good? Ask those people who are unlike all others. Why don't you ask this Joy? She could tell you, I presume. I can tell you nothing, save that this is a very strange world, not half so nice as I once thought it, and I don't like to think about things.”
How different he was from other young men with whom she had spent fifteen minutes many a time in gay banter! This was, after all, the thought uppermost in her mind at the moment. Nice Christian men, of whom her father spoke well, and who, people said, were young men to be proud of. It seemed to her that she knew them by the dozens, yet with which one of them had she ever carried on such a conversation as this? With which one could she have attempted any thing of the kind, without leading him to suppose that she was taking leave of her senses?
She recalled some of the gay words that she had spoken with these others, and tried, hurriedly, to decide why it would sound to her perfectly absurd to talk with Alfred Ried in that way. However, she did not want to talk with him; he was too full of questionings. “And questions,” said poor Gracie, “are all that I can ask myself. I want somebody to talk with who is assured of the ground on which he stands, and can tell me why he stands there.”
There was not time for further talk—they were summoned to the new room. Bursts of laughter greeted their ears as they made their way eagerly across the hall, and Gracie took time to remark that the boys were certainly not awed into silence, before the opening door let them into the brightly-lighted scene. Every boy was laughing, not quietly, but immoderately, and the centre of attraction was evidently Mr. Roberts.
“I have been giving our friends an account of an old army experience,” he said, in explanation to Gracie, “and we have been enjoying a laugh together over the old memory. You are all acquainted with Miss Dennis, I think, young gentlemen?”
Clearly there was no need for any one to introduce Mr. Roberts to the boys; apparently they knew him now better than they did any of the others. Yet as Gracie, after shaking hands with each of the guests, took a vacant seat by Nimble Dick, she was greeted with a confidential whisper:—
“That's a jolly chap as ever I saw; and I never heard anything to beat the yarn he told us, for cuteness. Who is he?”
“Why, he is Mr. Evan Roberts, the owner of this house.”
“My eyes!” said Dick, gazing about him in a startled way. “Look here; he ain't that Roberts from the big store on Fourth Street?”
“Yes, he is; he is one of the partners in that store.”
Then did Nimble Dick give a low whistle,—suddenly cut short, as the other boys looked at him,—and sat up straight in his chair, and for at least a minute was awed; or else was bewildered. If his mind could have been looked into for a moment something like this might have been seen there: “And here I am sittin' in one of his chairs, and been laughin' to kill over his funny story! If this ain't the greatest lark out! I wonder what they're all after, anyhow!”
Then the real business of the evening commenced.
I should like to describe that evening; but it is really worse to describe than the boys. It was designed to be one of those most difficult evenings, where every act and almost every word has been previously arranged, but arranged in such a manner as to appear like an impromptu effort, the result of merely the happenings of the hour.
For instance, Mrs. Roberts aimed at nothing less formidable than the teaching of these boys to read and write; and know as well as ever I know it, that to frankly own that she was ready and willing to give her time and patience in so teaching them would be to outwit herself. They did not belong to the class who can be beguiled into evening schools. There are such; Mark Calkins would have seized such an opportunity and rejoiced over it, but these were lower in the scale; they did not realize their need, and they had what they in ignorance called “independence”; they were not to be “trapped” by evening schools. Therefore it required diplomacy; and no people can be more diplomatic, on occasion, than certain most innocent-looking little women. Mrs. Roberts had studied her way step by step.
Therefore it was, that by the most natural passage possible, she led the way to a discussion of different styles of writing, bringing forth to aid her a certain old autograph album which had been to many places of note, among others Chautauqua, and had the names of distinguished persons, as well as of many who were not distinguished, except for Christian endurance in consenting to write in an autograph album. Good writers were talked about and selected, and poor writers were talked about, and it was said by some one, accidentally of course, that a good hand was really an accomplishment.
“It is more than that!” declared Mr. Roberts. “A man's business life often turns on it. I have myself had to turn away from several otherwise suitable helpers in our business because they really could not write a good, clear hand, that could be read without studying.”
“Are you a good writer, Miss Gracie?”
This remark, coming suddenly to Gracie from her host, almost embarrassed her, for you are not to suppose that the very words by which these themes should be introduced had been planned, and it had not occurred to Gracie that so personal a question might be asked her. But she rallied quickly.
“No, sir; I am sorry to say that I am not. I write what papa calls a mincing hand; all jumbled up together, you know, or running into each other, the letters are, and so difficult to read that papa said when I came away he hoped I would call on his friend, Dr. Stuart, every day, and write a letter on his type-writer.”
“What is that?” interrupted Nimble Dick, his face curious.
“What? A type-writer? Oh, it is a strange little machine used instead of the pen—at least, a very few people use it. It is quite new, I think, and must be very curious. I never saw one, but the writing looks just like print. Dr. Stuart, a pastor in the city, is my papa's friend, and writes to him on his, and papa reads the letter with great satisfaction, saying to me, 'There, daughter, that is something like! People who cannot write well enough for others to read should print.'”
“They are not so very uncommon, Miss Dennis,” explained Dr. Everett, who saw the eagerness on Nimble Dick's face. “It is a comparatively new invention, but is being caught up very promptly. I think nearly all the leading lawyers use them, and those who do not own them are getting their copying done at the rooms. They are very ingenious little instruments.”
“Did you say you never saw one?”
This question from Mr. Roberts to Gracie, and he added:—
“Mrs. Roberts, I believe you have never had other than the first glimpse I showed you in the Parker Building. I have an idea. Suppose I rent one of the little fellows to interest us? It would be pleasant to look into it and see how it works. Did none of you ever see one? Well, now, we'll try for that on next Monday evening. I'll have one sent up to-morrow, and, Miss Gracie, we'll appoint you showman for the following Monday; so it is to be hoped that you will employ your leisure in learning how to manage the creature, and perhaps send your father a readable letter at the same time.”
Now, as may readily be supposed, all this about machinery had not been arranged for beforehand, but was a side issue, born of the fact that the watchful servant of his Master saw an eager look in the eyes of the boy Dick directly there was anything said that suggested machinery. One of the great aims of these evenings was to study character, however developed.
Having turned his company from the regular channel, Mr. Roberts made haste to put them skilfully back where they were before:—
“Still, it would be a pity to resort to machinery simply because one did not know how to write well. I would rather set to work to correct the error. I happen to know one of our number who can write a very enviable hand. Do you know, Ried, that the letter you wrote me was the first thing which attracted me to you? I remember I showed the note to one of our senior partners, who was particularly disturbed by poor writing, and he said: 'Engage him, Roberts, do! A young man who can write like that will be a relief.' Mrs. Roberts, I move you that we resolve ourselves at this moment into a writing-class, to be taught by Mr. Ried. My dear sir, will you take us in hand?”
Something of this kind had been planned—at least, it had been planned that Ried should be asked to do this thing; but he found the actual asking embarrassing, and struggled with it with flushing cheeks. Gracie came to his aid:—
“I don't know whether I'll take lessons or not. Who wants to expose one's ignorance? Will you teach? Must we each give a specimen of our present attainments?”
Instantly Ried divined the reason for the question.
“No,” he said, eagerly; “oh, no; I should begin with those horrors of your childhood, pothooks or something of that sort; lines and curves, you know. There are not many of them after all in our letters, and when once a person has conquered them it is easy to put them together.”
There was more talk, easy and social. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, the doctor, and Gracie seemed equally interested in the project, and questioned young Ried, until he assured them that he began to feel like a veritable professor. Apparently the boys were forgotten. This very fact put them at their ease, and they listened, interested and amused over the thought that these ladies and gentlemen wanted to go to school!
At first I do not think it occurred to one of them that he was included in the proposal to form an writing-class.
How was it done? I am not sure that any one of the eager group of workers could have told you afterward, so excited did they become over this first scheme. Nobody could remember just what words were said, nor who said them, nor whether the boys all looked equally startled when paper and pen were put into each hand. They remembered that some shook their heads emphatically, and that Nimble Dick spoke plainly: “No you don't! I can't write any more than a duck can, and I never expect to.” Mrs. Roberts knew that Dirk Colson's dark face turned a fierce red, and he snapped the offered pen half-way across the table with his indignant thumb and finger. But of these words and acts nobody apparently took any notice. The writing began, and the first marks given as copies were so simple, looked so easy to do, and the attempts of the ladies and gentlemen fell so far short of what the teacher desired, and were so unmercifully criticised by him, and the criticisms were so merrily received by the writers, that at last the whole thing took the form of a joke to Nimble Dick's mind, and he became possessed with a burning desire to try. One by one the boys stealthily followed his example; Alfred taking care to watch eagerly, to commend both Stephen Crowley and Gracie Dennis in the same breath for some true stroke, and criticise both Mrs. Roberts and Nimble Dick for not holding the pen aright.
The entire party became so interested that only Mrs. Roberts knew just when Dirk Colson stealthily filliped back his pen from the distance to which it had been rolled, and, sitting upright that he might attract the less notice, tried his hand on the curve which was giving even Dr. Everett trouble.
When the young teacher discovered it he made also another discovery, which he proclaimed:—
“Upon my word, I beg the pardon of each of you, but Colson here has made the only respectable R-curve there is in the company.”
Then if his sister Mart had seen the glow on Dirk's face, I am not sure that she would have known him. There was a momentary transformation.
As for Mrs. Roberts, she bowed low over the letter she was carefully forming, but it was to say in soft whisper heard by one ear alone:—
“Thank God!”
CHAPTER XVIII. — “YOURN'S THE WAY!”
You are not to suppose, because this first Monday evening (which, by the way, was concluded with sandwiches and coffee) was a success, pronounced so by all concerned, that therefore the ones which followed were all rose-color.
Fortunately, not one of the workers expected this, and so were brave and cheerful under drawbacks.
These were numerous and varied.
After the first novelty wore off, it took at times only the most trivial excuses to keep the boys away. Sometimes when they called their conduct was anything but encouraging. They lolled in the easy-chairs, smelling strongly of tobacco and other bar-room odors, refused insolently to apply themselves to any work at hand, audibly pronounced the whole thing “slow,” and in numberless ways severely tried the patience of both Alfred and Gracie.
For the others, they had counted the cost,—at least the gentlemen had,—and expected to move slowly, even to appear to go backward some of the time. As for Mrs. Roberts, I have told you that she worked in a peculiar manner, with the motto, “This one thing I do,” apparently ever before her.
Each evening was distinct in itself, with efforts to make and obstacles to overcome; and at its close she had a way of laying it aside, as something with which her part was done, not attempting even to calculate results; then she was ready to turn to a new day, and work steadily for that.
The winter was slipping away and Gracie Dennis lingered. She could hardly have told you why, yet there were many apparent reasons. Mrs. Roberts wanted her, rejoiced in her, and coaxed irresistibly as often as the thought of going home was mentioned. Then Gracie, laugh over the peculiar work going on as she might, was undeniably interested in those boys. She was working for them, therefore of course she was interested.
“I don't see how you can go this week?” would young Ried say to her, with a perplexed air; “you know we have that matter all planned for next Monday evening. How can we carry out the scheme if you are not there to do your part?”
Then would Gracie laugh and demur and admit, to herself only, that it was very pleasant to be needed—as she certainly was—for one night more; and so the nights passed.
Her work was to be “Professor of Elocution,” as Mr. Roberts gaily called her when the workers were alone together. It had been discovered that she could read both prose and poetry with effect. So a reading-class was organized, and they chose for the first evening, not one of Bryant's or Whittier's gems, nor selections from Milton or Shakespeare, which would have suited part of the company, nor yet the “Easy Readings” in some standard spelling-book, which would have fitted the capacity of the others, but with great care and much discussion, one of Will Carleton's descriptive poems, full of homely, yet tender language, full of pathos and of humor, was unanimously selected.
The first evening reading had been commenced with nuts and apples. There are those who can see no connection between this and the intellectual; happily for the characters with whom she had to deal, Mrs. Roberts was not one of them. While the others were still enjoying the refreshments she took the book and read. This was her quiet little sacrifice. It was not pleasant to her to become a public reader. It required courage to get through with one verse, with Dr. Everett sitting opposite, and Gracie Dennis on a low seat at her side, and her husband listening intently. Mrs. Roberts was not a good reader, and was aware of it. She pronounced the words correctly, it is true; but when you had said that, you had said all that there was to offer in praise of her effort. She had some exasperating faults. But she bravely read the two verses, and some of the boys listened, and one of them laughed; he had caught a gleam of the fun in the poem. This, of course, was Nimble Dick.
Then Alfred Ried made the same effort on the same verses; his performance was very little better, and he, too, knew it. He could write, but he was by no means a public reader; this was his offering to the general good. If those fellows, by reason of his mistakes, could be induced to climb, he was willing to offer his pride on the altar. No matter by what petty trials they were caught so that they were really caught.
Then followed Gracie Dennis, and her own father, acceptable preacher though he was, might with credit to himself have taken lessons of her. She was certainly, for one so young and so unprofessional, a magnificent reader. So indeed was Marion Wilbur, and she had enjoyed teaching Gracie.
The poem blossomed in her hand. The crunching of nuts and apples entirely ceased. The boys sat erect and listened and laughed and flushed and swallowed suspiciously over some of the homely pathos. They had never heard anything like that before, and they evidently appreciated it. She read through to the end.
Then were unloosed the tongues! They exclaimed in delight:—
“What an accomplishment it is!” said Mr. Roberts; “and how few possess it. Doctor, how many really fine readers have you heard in your life?”
“About three,” said the doctor, laconically.
“Well,” said Mrs. Roberts, “let us all be exceptions. Gracie, teach us how. I will try again.”
And she did, on the first verse of the poem; with better success than before; but how sharp the contrast between her reading and Gracie's, she knew! It was not easy for her to read.
I don't know, possibly I am mistaken, but it seems to me that I have known people ready for large sacrifices, who yet would shrink painfully from these little ones.
In discussing the programme for the evening, the question had been, when each had done his part, How were they to influence the boys to join? Could they join? Was it probable that they knew enough about reading to attempt to speak the words of the poem? With reference to this obstacle a poem had been chosen full of simple, homely words, such as are in common use; especially was the first verse free from what Mr. Roberts called “shoals.” Having heard the verse read several times, it was hoped that some one of the seven might have courage to attempt it, but Gracie did not believe that such would be the case.
“I don't see how we can ask them, and do it naturally,” said Dr. Everett. “It is such an unheard-of thing, you know; and I am afraid, do our best, it will present itself to them as a patronage, and that will be fatal. The people who are low enough to need patronage are the very ones who won't endure it.”
Whereupon various ways of managing the matter were discussed and discarded; suddenly Mrs. Roberts turned to her young lieutenant, who had been silent for some time, and said:—
“What are you thinking of, Mr. Ried? Do you see a way out?”
“No,” he said; “I have neither knowledge nor skill in such matters, but my thoughts just then were far away; I was thinking how curiously, certain apparently trivial instances of one's childhood will stand out with almost startling prominence.”
“What sent you off in that direction?” questioned Dr. Everett. “There must have been an association of ideas.”
“Oh, there was; I was thinking how vividly I remembered a discussion between my mother and my sister, younger than Ester, in regard to some matter which perplexed them; and when they could come to no satisfactory conclusion they appealed to my sister Ester, who was resting as usual on her lounge. I can seem to hear her voice as she said: 'We haven't to do anything about it until to-morrow; perhaps to-morrow will have a light of its own for our direction.”
“Thank you!” Mrs. Roberts said, her eyes lighting with an appreciative smile; “we have not to do anything about this until Monday night, and perhaps Monday night will see us wise.”
I don't know how many thought of this little conversation when Monday evening came, but certainly Alfred Ried and Mrs. Roberts did, for she glanced at him and smiled significantly when Dr. Everett, having apparently forgotten that anything beyond their own pleasure was in contemplation, challenged Gracie to a discussion as to the emphasis on a certain word in the second line; he had never heard it so read, and he called for an analysis that would sustain the reading, and received it, and was not yet prepared to yield the point, but read the verse as he had imagined it should be read, and then Gracie, at Mr. Roberts' call, repeated it with her rendering, and I am not sure but all parties concerned actually forgot their final object in the interest of the discussion until they were suddenly called to it by an interrupting voice:—
“Your'n's the way,” it said, with an emphatic nod of a shock of matted hair, “your'n's the way.”
It was Dirk Colson. He had forgotten for the moment that anybody was listening to him, save the two readers. He was looking directly at Gracie, and the nods were evidently intended for her.
“Of course it is!” she said, eagerly, her face flushing with a triumph that had nothing to do with the right emphasis; “you read it, won't you, and show these people that we are right?”
Afterward Mrs. Roberts confessed that she involuntarily placed her hand on her heart with a dim idea of hushing its beating lest others would hear, so important to her did the moment seem. Dr. Everett looked dismayed. The least hopeful one of the seven seemed Dirk. None of them knew of his dangerous talent for imitation. None of them believed that he would make any attempt at reading, but thought he would shrink into deeper sullenness. All of them were mistaken. He reached for the book, glanced for a moment over the lines, and then read the verse, with so complete an imitation of Gracie Dennis, and yet with a voice and manner that so fitted the homely words and the homely scene described that the effect was actually better than when Gracie read.
Instinctively the cultured portion of his audience greeted the effort with a clapping of hands. The blood, meantime, rolled in dark waves over Dirk's face. He had been cheered before. None of his present applauders could imagine what a set had often clapped their hands over his successful imitations; but Dirk, who liked applause as well as other human beings do, had never, in his wildest stretches of imagination, placed himself before such people as listened now and received their approval.
Great was the excitement and satisfaction. The six companions, far from feeling any emotion of jealousy, seemed greatly elated, believing that one of their number had made a “hit,” and increased their importance.
No one else could be found to attempt the verse. Nimble Dick shook his head good-naturedly, and declared that he would rather “undertake to run an engine to Californy” than try it; and the others were of like mind. Then came Gracie to the front again:—
“I'll tell you what you must all do. I have been experimenting with that type-writer, Mr. Roberts, all the week. You know it will manifold, with the use of carbon paper, and it chances that when I was seized with a desire to try its powers in that direction I choose this very verse to copy; so I have fifteen good copies in print. You must each take a copy and make this verse a study until next Monday; then I shall challenge you all to sustain me in my reading.”
This proposition was hailed with such satisfaction by the older members that it immediately became popular, and each boy received his copy mechanically and gazed at it curiously: but Dirk Colson's thoughts were turned in a new channel.
“Look here!” he said, detaining Gracie by an imperious inclination of his head, as she handed him the copy; “how did you make these? didn't you print them fifteen times? I didn't understand what you said.”
“Why no!” said Gracie, “the machine will manifold. I'll show you; come over to the end window; it stands there waiting to be displayed, and it is a little wonder.”
Then they crowded around the type-writer, and Gracie, really proud of the skill she had acquired in a week's time, showed off the little wonder to great advantage.
The fact that the type-writer was new to most of the others, that they were decidedly ignorant as to its working, increased the comfort of the hour by doing away with the embarrassing feeling that any one of them was playing a part. Dr. Everett was no more familiar with the type-writer than was Dirk Colson, and was just as eager to know about it.
Also everybody, apparently, felt an equally strong desire to write his name on the marvellous little creature, and each in turn sat down before it and moved his awkward hands with nearly equal slowness over the keys, picking out the magic letters.
It was this episode that made the workers during their next conference branch out in new lines.
“We need something,” said Dr. Everett, walking up and down the floor in puzzled thought, “we need something that shall be a genuine common interest, of which we are all, or all but one, equally ignorant—something that we can take hold of with zest, on as low a platform as the most ignorant of those seen. I was convinced of that when I saw the abandon with which we all went into the type-writer business, with a naturalness and equality that, in the matter of reading and writing, it is impossible for us to feel. If the machine were complicated, so that it would take us each three months or so to master it, that would do. What can we take up that will place us on a level?”