“Trials must and will befall,
But with humble faith to see
Love inscribed upon them all,
This is happiness to me.”
Tom and Jimmy were quartered with an old colored woman called Aunt
Margaret, one of the family servants, who in her old age had been
furnished with a tiny brick house near the mansion, in which she had
lived some years by herself. The house contained three rooms, two on
the lower floor and one above stairs, and the master, who had dismissed
the agent upon their arrival, and superintended the settling of the
people himself, placed the two boys, Tom and Jimmy, in this upper
room. Tom was greatly pleased on account of the quiet which he thought
would result from their removal from the cabins or quarters of the rest
of the hands, and pictured to himself many happy hours of study in the
room up-stairs.
But he discovered his mistake very soon. Aunt Margaret was very fond of
company, and the cabin was the common resort of half the working-people
on the place, and study, to say nothing of quiet, was out of the
question.
It was on the second evening after his arrival, at the close of the
first day’s work in the field, that Tom took out his books. How sadly
and mournfully he had missed his school all day, no one knew but
himself; and now he took his books and slate with no small degree of
pleasure.
“What’s the chile gwine to do?” asked the old woman, peering at him
over her spectacles.
“Going to read and study a while by your candle, Aunt Margaret, if I
may,” he replied.
“Laws, chile! you may do as you likes, for all me,” she returned with a
shake of her head; “but it ’pears like there’ll be mighty little quiet
here to-night.”
Tom soon found it so, to his utter dismay. First, Jimmy came in with
one or two others, talking loud and making a confusion.
“Are you going to study with me to-night?” asked Tom as he came up to
the table and glanced at the books.
“No, I’m not _that_,” replied the boy; “it’s larks I’m after, and if
you wasn’t a stupid, you wouldn’t either.”
Tom was disappointed, and bent his head over his books silently,
and tried to work. But there was no study to be had there. The room
gradually filled with women and men, and attention to books was
impossible. He gave it up at last, but not before he had two or three
laughing remarks addressed to him. He closed his book and rested his
head wearily on his hand. He concluded he would go up-stairs. “I am not
used to such company as this,” he thought with a new feeling creeping
into his heart. “I will go away, and just show them all that I am made
of a different sort from them.”
Then he suddenly bethought him how wrongly he was acting in thus
putting himself above his fellows; so he immediately raised his head
and joined in the conversation.
It was no pleasure to him, but he stayed half an hour, and then, seeing
he could go without giving offence to any one, he gladly gathered up
his books and went off up-stairs. A candle was a luxury not to be
indulged in, but as Tom ascended the stairs he saw that the moonlight
was pouring in through the one window, so that the room was quite
light. He put his books away, and seating himself on the floor under
the window, which was very low, he leaned his head on his arm upon the
sill and began to think.
It was a long, sober thought. With quick understanding he saw very
soon what a battle the summer would be to him, and how hard it would
be for him to accomplish his aims. He was resolved upon one thing:
study he must and would, if every leisure minute of the noontide hour
was given up to it. Then, again, he must do some work for Jesus. The
summer must not yet pass without some deed accomplished whereby his
Master should be glorified. He realized that to this end he must make
himself familiar with the hands about the place--not only with those
who came from Huntsville, but also with the old family servants.
The dangers, the temptations accompanying such a course, if they
occurred to him at all, did not present themselves in their dangerous
form--the temptation that while leading others he might himself be led
away--that his faith might fail or his courage droop. The whole armor
of God was the only thing which could keep him from all the ills and
troubles thus presented. He did not know how much trial was before him,
but he _did_ know that he needed a stronger arm than his own to lead
him, and he looked above for strength and shelter.
The trial came first in a most unexpected direction. Jimmy, in all
good humor, reported that Tom “had got religion,” and to those to whom
he told it it was a very bad recommendation, and they held themselves
aloof; and not only that, but they would amuse themselves with sundry
jokes at his expense. Tom was astonished and wounded. He could not
imagine where they could have heard it, and it prevented, for a time,
the advancement he wished to make in their regard. He tried his best.
By every effort in his power he endeavored to gain friends among this
new company, and in a few instances he succeeded immediately; in
others not so well; and often it was impossible to have a talk with
those whose friendship he wished most to gain, on account of their
leisure-time being so much occupied with dances in the great barn.
The studying was scarcely better at first. It was very hard between
his bites of corn-bread in the noon-spell to give his attention to
looking out words in the dictionary, or mastering what seemed to him
such profound problems in arithmetic. There was an hour before supper
which was his own, and that was devoted, half to study and half to
Bible-reading. It was very hard work to stand firmly by his resolution,
and go after his books at the close of a warm, tiresome day, and study
so persistently just when the twilight was growing beautiful and the
people were all resting before their cabin doors. Sometimes he was
quite discouraged, and almost determined to give up.
One afternoon, when he had been perhaps two weeks on the plantation,
he was coming home from work just at sunset, with his jacket thrown
over his arm, warm and tired with his day’s labor, and rather dreading
than otherwise the hour of study which was before him, when suddenly,
as he passed near the mansion, the master stepped from the doorway and
accosted him. Tom stopped and waited for what he might have to say.
“Is your name Tom Alson?” he asked, feeling in his coat pocket and
drawing out a number of letters.
“Yes, sir,” he answered, his heart bounding with a hope he hardly dared
to own.
“Well, then, I’ve a letter for you,” he said, selecting one from a
number. He scanned it curiously for a few minutes, and then gave it to
the boy, adding, “Can you read writing?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Tom; “I can read writing, and write myself. I am
much obliged to you.”
“Not at all,” answered Mr. Sutherland, carelessly. “Do you know who
wrote that direction?”
Tom looked at the letter which his fingers held so lovingly, and
replied with a very bright face,
“Yes, sir--my teacher.”
“Is she white?” inquired the master.
“Oh yes, sir! She is a Northern lady.”
“Well, go off and enjoy your letter,” said Mr. Sutherland, dismissing
him, and turning away pleased with the eager look of welcome the boy
had given the letter.
And Tom, glad to be so dismissed, ran off to his seat under the trees,
leaving his books to take care of themselves while he read the precious
letter--the first one he had ever received in his life.
There were two, he found, when he opened the envelope. One with all the
dainty prettiness of French paper and stamped “M,” in the delicate
handwriting of Miss Mason, and the other in the round, school-girl hand
of Martha. Ah! how every word of those two letters went to Tom’s heart!
Martha’s was full of home news, every item well expressed, because her
heart was in this the first letter written to her brother Tom. It was
penned in good spirits, for her mother had been able to obtain a few
days’ work.
“I am looking for a place for myself,” she wrote, “and hope to get one,
but I have not seen any opportunity as yet, and sometimes I almost wish
I had gone with you.”
“I am glad she didn’t,” thought Tom.
“Our Sunday-school has been so pleasant lately,” she continued, “I only
wish you could be here. Mr. Allen gave us some beautiful illuminated
texts last Sunday. I had been thinking about you all the afternoon,
and had been wishing you could have heard Mr. Allen’s talk, and I am
afraid I was feeling a little wrong and disappointed that you could not
be with us, when Mr. Allen laid upon my desk my little text. I did not
wish any more, Tom; I just believed what it said, and kept still. Now
I am going to send it to you, and if you have--as I have no doubt you
often do, good as you are--any longings for home that grow too strong,
then here is my text;” and Tom read in red and gold letters on a bit of
card which fell from the letter:
“Trust in the Lord, and wait patiently for him.”
Tom’s eyes were blinded for several minutes, so that he could scarcely
see to read Miss Mason’s kind note. It told him just what he wanted
most to know--all the school news; how Martha was getting on, what new
songs they were learning, and how his own class was prospering. “And
knowing that you had your books with you,” she added, “and thinking you
might have time for study, I have marked on a slip of paper all that
your class has learned, and a few directions which will help you to
study for yourself.
“And now,” she concluded, “I do not know that you need counsel, but let
me just remind you that you are a soldier of Jesus Christ, and that it
is a part of a soldier’s duty to see that his comrades are saved from
danger; so, my dear boy, try and bring back to God some who are still
outside the fold. We all have work to do for Jesus, you know.”
Tom’s heart rested. He did not see how he could be sorrowful with these
two bits of cheer coming to him when he felt so weary and heartsick.
He was not so any more--that night, at any rate--and the letters were
shown to many admiring eyes. Jimmy opened his very wide.
“Had a letter from Miss Mason?” exclaimed he. “My sakes! let’s read;”
but Tom could not do that.
“I’d rather not, Jimmy,” said he, looking at Jimmy’s fingers and
thinking of the delicate paper, “but I’ll tell you all she said.”
He told so much about school and the work she had sent him that Jimmy’s
slumbering ambition was aroused.
“I declare, Tom,” said he, “I haven’t studied a bit since I came; have
you?”
“Yes,” replied Tom, “a good deal.”
“Are you up with your class?”
“Yes,” returned Tom.
“Oh dear! and I promised to study with you. I’ll begin this very night.”
And he did, and added thereby for a short time much to Tom’s happiness.
For a while he gave his evenings pretty steadily, but at noon he was
inexorable.
“No, sir,” he said--“noon is for rest.”
The next day Tom was very busy shelling corn for the planting. He had
stationed himself on the doorstep of the barn, and as he shelled and
the kernels fell from the cob, he thought of his two letters; and
suddenly thinking of some task Miss Mason assigned him, and not being
able distinctly to recall it, he took out her letter and laid it open
near him, and tried to puzzle out the meaning of an example she had
given him, continuing his work while he did so. As he was still thus
engaged, the noon-bell struck, and throwing down his ear of corn, he
drew a pencil and paper out of his pocket and proceeded carefully to
write out the problem. So busy was he that he did not perceive that any
one had come up until his master’s voice spoke.
“What are you busy about, Tom?” he asked.
He looked up suddenly, and then rose out of respect to his master. “I
was copying out an example my teacher sent me,” he said.
“Is that your writing? Let me see it.” He reached for the paper on
which Tom had been working, and eyed it narrowly.
“Would you like to see my teacher’s letter, sir?” he asked.
“Yes, I should,” he replied; so Tom produced it, and it was read very
attentively. “How long did you go to school?” he asked, as he finished
it and laid it back into Tom’s hand.
“Two years, sir.”
“And can you do all those examples your teacher has given you?”
“I think so, sir. I am trying them now.”
“Is this the way you always pass your noon-time rest?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Tom.
“The world has turned about,” said the master, with a curious, puzzled
look, and then he turned about himself. But he had not gone three steps
before he came back again.
“Say, my boy,” he said, “come up to the house after supper to-night.
Tell Aunt Dinah, the cook, that master said you were to come to the
library. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Tom; “I will come, sir.”
So the master went away, and Tom returned to his task, so intent and
interested that it never entered into his mind to conjecture why he was
wanted in the evening at the mansion.
[Illustration]