A LITTLE LOGICIAN.
IT was Sunday afternoon—an August Sunday, bright and beautiful. "Very
warm," the city papers said, in the next day's report, but on Monteagle
a steady wind fluttered the branches of the many trees all day, and
the birds were singing merrily. Under the shadow of one of the great
old trees, Effie Hammond played about according to her own sweet will;
Dilly, on the grass near at hand, an open book in her lap, keeping
careful guard over the small feet of her charge, all unknown to them;
they thought they were free to go where they pleased, therefore their
owner was happy. Hart Hammond strolling about, uncertain what to do
with himself, presently came that way, stopped for a minute to tease
little Effie by tickling her nose with one of the long grasses, then
came and threw himself on the grass, not far from Dilly.
"What a tiresomely slow day this is! Seems to me there have been
twenty-seven hours since breakfast, each of them a hundred and eighty
minutes long."
Dilly smiled faintly. There was a thoughtful look on her face; in fact,
a slightly troubled look which gathered again, almost before the smile
had faded. "It has not seemed so very long to me," she answered gravely.
"Hasn't? What have you been about?" And he gave her face a searching
glance, and saw the shadow on it.
"I went to Sunday-school this morning, and since then I have taken
care of Effie, and helped Jeannette with the rooms, and done a great
many little things; none of them took much time, and yet all of them
together took all the time there was."
"Just so; and didn't give you a chance to see how slow it was going;
nor how stupid everything was; I'd give a dollar an hour if I had
something regular and sensible to do."
"Then I should think you would find it right away; there are ever so
many things that seem to want doing."
Hart laughed a little; a sort of superior air, as though he realized
that he was talking with a person who knew very little about the things
which belonged to his world.
"What are some of them?"
"Oh! I don't know; hundreds of things which would help other people,
and make the world a great deal nicer place than it is. Seems to me if
I were a man, I would do a great many nice things; but I don't know, I
might not. I don't do all I could now, being a little girl, and that is
a sign, I suppose, that I would not be any better if I were a man. Mr.
Hart, why do you suppose it is that people don't go right straight to
Jesus when they feel him drawing them, and begin work for him?"
Hart Hammond rolled over a little on the grass, changing his position
so that he could look full into Dilly's face, then said, with
astonished emphasis,—"What!"
"Why, you know the promise He made, that if He was lifted up, He would
'draw' everybody to Him, and of course He has kept His promise; and I
say, why doesn't everybody go to Him?"
She was in very intense earnest. There was no mistaking the gravity,
which was almost solemnity, on her face; she went after Effie, just
then, brought her from a particularly dusty spot, and established her
on the grass with a new flower, then came back to her seat, and her
open book. Hart, glancing at it, saw it was the Bible.
"What put that into your head?" he asked carelessly, meaning the Bible
verse.
"It has been in my head all day; it was the Sunday-school lesson, you
know, for to-day."
"I'm sure I did not know it. What could they make out of such a lesson
as that for little chicks?"
"They made wonderful things out of it, Mr. Hart; I went to the
children's building where all the very wee-est ones were; I wanted to
see what would be done with them all, they were so little and cunning.
I didn't know people taught such very little dots from the Bible, but
they did; a real lesson. First there was an arch for the promise;
then there was a picture of the world, with the cross on it up in one
corner, and rays of light reaching from it all over the world; then
the teacher marked off one tiny spot for Monteagle, and made dots for
the little folks in her class, and told them the light from the cross
was shining right on them to-day; that Jesus was drawing them to come
to him; and then she said how very, very sad it was that some of them
would not come."
"And they understood what she was talking about as well, I suppose,
as though she had addressed them in Greek," replied skeptical Hart,
smiling.
"Oh! They understood. I don't make it plain to you, I suppose, because
I don't know how; but that teacher knew. She made it just as plain to
those little bits of children what it was to go to Jesus, as I should
make plain to Effie what I wanted if I should ask her to run to mamma
in her room at the hotel. That was what astonished me so much. I always
thought," said Dilly, looking down at her Bible, her cheeks growing
a rosy pink, "that being a Christian was something which belonged to
older people—to men and women; and that girls so young as I needn't
think about such things; but that teacher talked to those little bits
of children as though they were hurting the Lord Jesus every day, when
they refused to think about him or try to please him; and, after all,
it seems sensible, for Effie, baby as she is, makes your mother look
very much troubled when she puts on that determined little look and
stands perfectly still, after she has called her to come. Why shouldn't
Jesus care?"
"You are getting into very deep theological waters, my small woman,
I am afraid," said Hart, trying to look wise and, at the same time,
unconcerned. "What is 'going to Jesus?' That is a kind of 'cant'
expression which one hears a good deal of in Sunday-school; but how
many of those children, do you suppose, know what it means? Effie,
there, understands perfectly well when mamma calls her, that she ought
to go, but this is a very different matter."
"They understood," said Dilly, confidently. "She asked all who knew
what it was to go to Jesus, to raise their hands, and ever so many
little bits of children raised theirs; then she questioned some of the
youngest; one boy said it was to 'want to please him.' Another said it
was to 'do just as you thought he would do if he were here.' Another
said it was to 'turn right square around and leave all your bads behind
you,' and a little bit of a girl said 'it was to love him so much that
you wouldn't do anything to make him feel bad, for the world.' Oh!
'They' knew.
"Then she got them to tell of ways in which they had been called,
or 'drawn,' to Jesus, and it was just wonderful to hear the little
things. Some told what their fathers had said, and some spoke of their
teachers, and mothers, and two boys said their little sister had asked
them to 'turn over a new leaf,' and one little girl said her mamma had
asked her to meet her in Heaven. My mother asked me to be sure to do
that." Dilly's voice had dropped lower and lower, and with this last
sentence it trembled and her eyes filled with tears.
"Well," said Hart, kindly, wanting to comfort her, "you mean to, I
suppose."
"I don't know; I haven't thought much about it, only when I was sick,
and then I was too miserable to think of anything, much, but myself.
Oh! I meant to, some day, but that teacher told those 'little' boys
and girls that they were not one of them too young to begin, and that
to-day was the only time they were sure of."
"I think it is very unwise to try to scare little folks in that way,"
said Hart, looking wise and reproving.
"Oh! They were not scared. She did not say it in that way, only she
made it plain to them that it was true; and of course it is; because,
when you stop to think about it, how can anybody be sure of being here
to-morrow; and even if one were sure, what is the use in waiting?"
There really seemed to be but one sensible answer to make to this; Hart
thought it over for some seconds, and at last said, with a good-natured
laugh, "All right; what do you wait for, then?"
"That is just it!" Dilly did not laugh, but kept her troubled look.
"Why don't I say right away that I am going, from this minute, to
belong to Jesus, and serve him the best I know how? Why doesn't
everybody say it, Mr. Hart?"
"Well," said Hart, rolling himself over again, and settling it in his
own mind that he would leave this part of the ground in a very few
minutes, "the theory is, you know, that old Satan himself is at the
bottom of all our wickednesses, this among the number."
"Do you suppose he is trying to manage me?" Dilly's tone was
awe-stricken. "Do you really think it is Satan telling me that I don't
understand enough about things to settle them; that, at least, I would
better wait till I get home and see what father says?"
"Haven't a doubt but that the old fellow is interested in you, if all
that is said of him is true."
"I hate to be managed by him!" said Dilly, intense scorn in her voice,
and much emphasis laid on the pronoun him.
Hart was exceedingly amused. Dilly seemed to him to be the very oddest
little girl in the world.
"On the whole, then," he said, rising, "perhaps, you would do well to
give him the slip."
"Why, of course; everybody would, but it is so queer that we don't! Did
you see the picture this morning, Mr. Hart?"
"Picture?" said Hart, sitting down again. "I saw nothing this morning,
but the bed. What picture was there?"
"Why, that same man made a picture on the blackboard in the tabernacle;
in the big Sunday-school, you know, after the other was over. He made
the lesson all out in a picture, and a story. The story was about a
desert where nothing grew, and it was very warm and very dreary; and
one day an angel planted a seed, and a tree grew up, a lovely tree—the
only beautiful thing in that desert world. And pilgrims came that way
and rested under its shade; and it grew and grew; and these pilgrims
told others about it, and more came, and at last great crowds of
people were helped by that tree; and it grew on and on, and spread its
branches everywhere, and its leaves cured sick people. And while he
talked he made the tree larger and larger, and its branches reached
out, and then suddenly, he made a cross out of it; reaching its arms
out to save everybody! It was a beautiful story, Mr. Hart. I can't tell
it as he did, but it just put the whole lesson into a picture; and it
made me think again how strange it was that some people would not be
cured. When I was sick, I 'wanted' to be cured so much; and when your
mother came to say she would take me with her up here, and that it
would cure me, I just cried for joy; and father cried, he was so glad.
Suppose I had said I wasn't old enough to come?"
"You are quite a little logician," said Hart. And then he took himself
up from the grass again, pinched Effie's cheek, pulled one of her curls
and sauntered off, leaving Dilly to wonder what that last sentence
meant.