“How sweet, how heavenly is the sight
When those that love the Lord
In one another’s peace delight,
And thus fulfill his word!”
There was one part of Tom’s Sunday-school and evening-school work which
I think he never took into consideration when he was endeavoring to
calculate, as he was very fond of doing, the extent of its influence
and the number of people to whom it had been the means of doing good.
I say, I think he never discovered the amount of good it did to two
loving hearts at home--Miss Mason and Martha. After the commencement of
his evening-school, he had written every week, either to his sister or
his teacher, and when the modestly written accounts were read by those
for whom they were written, it did them a world of good.
“Brother Tom is doing so much, Miss Mason,” said Martha, one day, as
she stood by Miss Mason’s sitting-room fire, with Tom’s last letter in
her hand, “I feel as if I was not doing anything.”
“We must just sit still and be thankful, until our work comes, Martha,”
replied Miss Mason. “God will send it to us if we ask him. You had
part of yours when Tom was sick, and this that he is doing is only an
outgrowth from that.”
“This that Tom was doing” was a great deal. No one who saw him
bending over Mr. Sutherland’s books hour after hour, copying the
roughly-written accounts, would have imagined that his name was
spoken everywhere over the plantation with praise and love. A very
modest-looking colored boy he was, plain of face, with only those dark,
earnest eyes to make him beautiful. A grave mouth, not much given to
smiling, but which never wore any look of discontent or distrust. Hands
used to work, but grown tender of late when the work had been only
the long hours of writing. His feet were bare; there was no need of
shoes and stockings, and there was no inclination for them, for Tom’s
money went to buy what was needed at home; so they rested on the soft
carpet of the library and the carpetless floor of Aunt Margaret’s cabin
alike. To a stranger going into Mr. Sutherland’s house of a morning,
and watching the still figure at the desk in the library, the contrast
between the boy and his surroundings would have been striking. There
was nothing fine or stylish about Tom. His dress was very plain, whole
and neat, but coarse and ordinary. There was nothing elegant about him,
yet all things around him were so.
You remember I told you about the library. There was everything there
that money could buy and taste devise. Mr. Sutherland had taken this
room for himself and Tom, soon after the boy had commenced to spend his
time there, and they two were the only ones who occupied it. Not one
bit of the prettiness was lost upon Tom. The little education he had
received had fitted him, as education fits everybody, to admire and
appreciate all that is worthy of praise. Tom liked the velvet library
chairs better than the wooden ones at home; he preferred the hanging
scarlet curtains to none at all; and he even chose rather to see the
time by the French clock on the walnut bracket than by Aunt Margaret’s
ancient time-piece.
He never showed this outside. He only thought it to himself, and he
never felt out of place in the library. Nobody who knew him well
thought so either. He seemed a part of the library to Mr. Sutherland,
and in no way a contrast to any of the surroundings. The house-servants
had learned to have a wonderful respect for him. Occasionally he had
been obliged to ask of them some little service, and with considerable
timidity he had done so, but he was always served with the utmost
willingness and pleasure.
The first time he ever ventured this was one wet morning in August.
Mr. Sutherland always ordered a fire when there was a rain-storm,
even in the close, warm days of summer, and on this particular day he
was expected home about ten o’clock, and had ordered a fire to be in
readiness. The order, however, was forgotten, and when Tom came in to
his morning’s work it was cold and cheerless, and the heavy summer rain
was beating against the windows. Tom knew there would be trouble if
Mr. Sutherland came home and found it so, but, on the other hand, he
thought there might be more trouble if he were to go into the kitchen
and order a fire made. He thought of it several minutes, and then,
coming to the conclusion that it would better to stand the fire of Aunt
Dinah’s anger than Mr. Sutherland’s, he quietly betook himself across
the wide hall and appeared at the kitchen door.
“Laws! here’s Tom,” said Aunt Dinah, stopping her work to look at him.
“What brings you here?” she added.
“Aunt Dinah,” he replied, “I’m sorry to trouble you, but there is no
fire in the library, and Mr. Sutherland ordered one before he went away
this morning. If you will be kind enough to give me the wood, I’ll
make one, for I think Mr. Sutherland will be better pleased to find a
cheerful room when he comes back.”
“Tom, you just turn round and go back to your writing,” said Aunt
Dinah, indignantly. “I’m sorry as ever I can be that there’s no fire,
but I’ll have one there in five minutes. I don’t know what these
niggers means by disobeyin’ my orders. Here, you Jack!” she called
out, catching sight of the youngest of her flock, “why didn’t you make
the library fire? Here’s Tom got no fire to write by, and he your
Sunday-school teacher, too. Ain’t you ’shamed of yourself.”
“Oh, Aunt Dinah, I don’t care for myself,” Tom replied. “Give me the
wood and I’ll make it.”
“What do you ’spose Master Sutherland do to this chile if she let you
make the fire? Go ’long with you and set your pen to scratchin’, and
in five minutes there be a blaze goin’ up that chimney fit to take the
roof off.”
So Tom obeyed, and in less than the time she mentioned a little boy was
kneeling in front of the grate, softly laying in the pieces of wood,
and Tom heard Aunt Dinah tell him, as a last word as she opened the
library door to admit him,
“Now, you Jack, whatever you do, don’t ’sturb Tom’s writin’.”
One morning, some time later than this, Tom was occupied over his
morning’s work, writing away very busily, when he heard the door open
softly and then close again. He was sitting with his back to it, so he
did not look around, but went on with his task. Presently, however,
lifting his head and hand together to move some papers, he found
standing by his side, with motionless eyes fixed upon his face, Lillie
Sutherland.
“Good-morning, Miss Lillie,” said Tom, respectfully. “I did not know
you were there, or I would have spoken before.”
“Papa said,” returned the child, “that I might come in and see you if I
could be very still and not speak to you until you were ready.”
“Well, I am ready now,” replied Tom; “only first let me get you a
chair.” So he rose and with a gentle courtesy placed a low-seated
rocking-chair near his table and asked her to be seated.
She watched him bring it, and then seated herself with the utmost
satisfaction.
“I came,” she said with an important air, which sat very curiously on
her little figure, “to ask you if I might come to your Sunday-school.”
Tom was very much surprised. “I am afraid your father would not like
it, Miss Lillie,” he said, gently.
“But papa said I might, and mamma said she did not care,” urged Lillie.
“I am sure I’ll be glad to see you, Miss Lillie, but are you sure you
would like it? There is no one there but the people from the quarters.”
“Yes, I know, but you talk about Jesus, don’t you?”
“Oh yes!” replied Tom, the little smile hovering about his lips which
always came at any loving mention of his Saviour’s name.
“Well, then, that’s just what I want to come for. I never hear anything
about Jesus at home. And besides, he is there with you.”
“Yes,” replied Tom, earnestly--“yes indeed, Miss Lillie. I was very
wrong to forget that. I shall be very glad to see you.”
“Thank you, Tom; then I will come, but I want something more. Jake says
the children learn verses to say--hymns or Bible verses. Won’t you
teach me one? I know a good many old ones, but I want something quite
new for the first Sunday.”
Tom’s eyes fell for a moment, and a curious look flashed from them
into the roses on the carpet. It was of gladness that he knew just
what she wanted and could give it to her--of sorrow that more about
him did not know, and a mingling of both joy and sorrow that she, the
daughter of the house, should be obliged to come to him, a laborer on
the plantation, for the knowledge of Jesus.
But when his words came, they showed none of his thought, except a
realization of who it was to whom he was speaking:
“I think, Miss Lillie, I can give you a very pretty little verse I
learned a few days ago. Will you stay a few minutes longer and learn
it?”
“Yes indeed,” she replied, “I will stay.”
So line by line, in the same simple way he had given the Bible verses
to the children on Sunday, he taught her the four lines he had
selected. She learned them very soon and then rose to go. Tom rose too,
and opened the door for her.
“If you please, Miss Lillie,” he said as he dismissed her, “send one of
the children down to the cabin with a chair on Sunday. We all bring our
own seats.”
Tom did not forget his new scholar between that morning and the
following Sunday afternoon. He thought of her many times, and was very
glad that she was coming; nevertheless it was with a mingled feeling
of pleasure and embarrassment that he saw the little green velvet
chair standing close to his own when he came into the cabin on Sunday
afternoon. The people were evidently very curious about it, and divided
their glances between Tom’s face and the pretty seat. The greater part
of them thought it was for him, but he took his own chair, and left
them still in doubt. Tom waited for Lillie a little beyond his time,
so that when the child appeared at length in the doorway there were a
number of eyes watching her.
She brought herself in her little embroidered dress down through the
midst of them, and seated herself in the chair, and the two fitted each
other so exactly as to leave no doubt as to the person for whom it had
been placed there.
Then Tom commenced his school in his usual way, without the least
want of composure, although he felt his position not a little. He had
perfect attention. Lillie’s dress attracted two or three pair of bright
eyes, but no more; the teacher’s words were too good to be lost.
There were a number of verses given this afternoon, but each one was
rewarded with a word of praise from Tom. He had learned his position.
Outside he might be, and was, one of them, but here he was undoubtedly
their teacher, and no one ever attempted to gainsay his authority
inside his Sunday-school room.
[Illustration: The Log-Cabin Sunday School.
_Freed-Boy in Alabama._ Page 116.]
“Would you like to say your verse, Miss Lillie?” he said at length,
turning to her as the others finished.
“Certainly I should,” she replied. “I learned it perfectly.”
So she rose and stood beside her chair, with one hand resting on its
carved back, and recited with an earnestness caught in part from the
way which Tom had given her the words--
“He prayeth best who loveth best,
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
There was a low laugh of admiration went all around the room when she
finished, and Tom with a pleased smile said,
“That was very nicely done.”
Then, with the usual prayer for help and guidance, he dismissed them,
and then offered to take Miss Lillie’s chair up to the house for her.
“No,” she replied, carelessly, “let it stand; I will send Jack for it.”
So he did as she requested, and took his way toward the quarters. Miss
Lillie, however, kept up with him, talking and asking questions about
the Sunday-school. Tom, however, seemed absent-minded, and finally
stopped short in the path.
“Miss Lillie, I wish you would let me go back after that chair,” he
said.
“Why, Tom, I don’t care if you want to,” she replied, in a surprised
tone, “but Jack can come just as well.”
Tom would not listen, but ran to the school-room, took the chair, and
came back to where Lillie was standing, bearing it on his shoulder.
So they walked up through the quarters beside all the cabin doors, at
which the people were gathered and watching; on up to the house, on the
piazza of which Tom put down his burden, and touching his cap bade Miss
Lillie “good-afternoon,” and walked away.
He knew exactly what he had done, and why he had done it. When he
had found that Miss Lillie intended coming up with him through the
quarters, he knew that among the people, even those that loved Tom
best, there would arise a jealousy that Miss Lillie should notice
one more than another. The beginning of this he had seen before, and
for fear his influence with them might be lessened in the slightest
degree, he did the very thing which set it all at rest immediately. And
so, as they stood at their doors and watched the two go by, it seemed
just as it should be to them. Tom, as Lillie’s servant, bore her chair.
It satisfied them entirely, and Tom gained rather than lost in their
opinion.
Now, do my young readers understand what I am talking about. Tom felt
not one whit above his fellow-servants, but for fear they should think
he did, and so the religion he was trying to spread should be hindered,
he wished to carry Miss Lillie’s chair. And let me tell you it was an
honor to him, for it was what St. Paul meant when he said: “Let not
your good be evil spoken of.”