"TAKE IT AWAY!"
Tode rang the bell at Mr. Hastings', and waited in some anxiety as to
whether he should get a glimpse of Miss Dora. He had some momentous
questions to ask her. Fortune, or, in other words, Providence, favored
him. While he waited for orders, Dora danced down the hall with a
message.
"Tode, papa says you are to come in the dining-room and wait; he wants
to send a note by you."
"All right," said Tode, following her into the brightly lighted room,
and plunging at once into his subject.
"Look here, what did you mean the other night about hearts, and things?"
"About what?"
"Why, don't you know? Down there to the meeting."
"Oh! Why I meant _that_; just what I said. That's the way they always
talk at a prayer-meeting about Jesus, and loving him, and all that."
"Was that a prayer-meeting where we was t'other night?"
"Why yes, of course. Tode, have you got the letters and figures all
made?"
"Do you go every time?"
"What, to prayer-meeting? What a funny idea. No, of course not. It
stormed, you know, and we had to go in somewhere. Wasn't it an awful
night?"
"Who is Jesus, anyhow?"
"Why, he is God. Tode, how queer you act. Why don't you ask Mr. Birge,
or somebody, if you want to know such things. Mamma says he is awful."
"Awful!"
"Yes, awful good, you know. He's the minister down there at that chapel.
Wasn't it a funny looking church? Ours don't look a bit like that. Tode,
where do you go to church?"
"My!" said Tode, with his old merry chuckle. "That's a queer one. _I_
don't go to church nowhere; never did."
"You ought to," answered Miss Dora, with a sudden assumption of dignity.
"It isn't nice not to go to church and to Sunday-school. _I_ go. Pliny
doesn't, because he has the headache so much. Shall I show you my
card?"
And she produced from her pocket a dainty bit of pasteboard, and held it
up.
"There, that's our verse. The whole school learn it for next Sunday.
Then we shall have a speech about it."
A sudden shiver ran through Tode's frame as he read the words printed on
that card:
"The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the
good."
He knew very little about that All-seeing Eye, but it came upon him like
a great shock, the picture of the eye of God reaching everywhere,
beholding the _evil_. He felt afraid, and alone, and desolate. He did
not know what was the matter with him, he had felt so strangely troubled
and unhappy since that evening of the meeting. Almost the tears came
into his eyes as he stood there beside Dora, looking down at that
terrible verse.
"Take it away," he said, suddenly, turning from the bit of pasteboard.
"I don't want his eyes looking at me."
"You can't help it," Dora answered, with great emphasis. "There are more
just such verses, 'Thou God seest me;' and oh, plenty of them. And he
certainly _does_ see you all the time, whether you want him to or not."
"Well stop!" said Tode, with a sudden gruffness that Dora had never seen
in him before. "I don't want to hear another bit about it, nor your
verse, nor anything--not a word. I wish you had let me alone. I don't
believe it, anyhow, nor I won't, nor I ain't a going to--so."
At that moment Mr. Hastings' note came, and miserable Tode went on his
way. _How_ miserable he was; the glimmering lamps along the gloomy
streets seemed to him eyes of fire burning into his thoughts; the very
walls of his darkened room, when he had reached that retreat, seemed to
glow on every side with great terrible, all-seeing eyes. Over and over
again was that fearful sentence repeated: "The eyes of the Lord are in
every place, beholding the evil." Just then he stopped. He had suddenly
grown so vile in his own eyes that it seemed to him that there was
nothing good left to behold; he tumbled and tossed on his narrow bed; he
covered himself, eyes, head, all, in the bed-clothes; but it was of no
use, that piercing Eye saw into the darkness and through all the
covering--and oh, Tode was afraid!
He was a brave, fearless boy; no darkness had ever before held any
terrors for him. I am not sure that he would not have whistled
contemptuously over a whole legion of supposed ghosts. He was entirely
familiar with, and quite indifferent to, that most frightful of all
human sights, a reeling, swearing drunkard; but this was quite another
matter, this great solemn eye of God, which he felt to-night for the
first time, looking steadily down upon him, never forgetting him for a
moment, never by any chance turning away and giving him time to go to
sleep. Tode didn't know why he felt this terrible new feeling; he didn't
know that the loving, pitying Savior had his tender eyes bent on him,
and was calling him, that God had used that powerful thrust from the
Spirit to wound his sinful heart; he knew nothing about it, save that he
was afraid, and desolate and very miserable. Suddenly he sprung up, a
little of his ordinary determination coming back to him.
"What's the use," he muttered, "of a fellow lying shivering here; if I
can't sleep, I might as well give it up first as last I'll go down to
the parlor, and whistle 'Yankee Doodle,' or something else until train
time."
But his hand trembled so in his attempt to strike a light, that he
failed again and again. Finally he was dressed, and went out into the
hall. Mr. Roberts opened his own door at that moment, and seeing the boy
gave him what he thought would be a happy message:
"Tode, you can sleep over to-night. Jim is on hand, and you may be ready
for the five o'clock train."
No excuse now for going down stairs, and the wretched boy crept back to
his room; _utterly_ wretched he felt, and he had no human friend to help
him, no human heart to comfort him. He wrapped a quilt about him and sat
down on the edge of his bed to calculate how long his bit of candle
would probably burn, and what he _should_ do when he was left once more
in that awful darkness. On his table lay a half-burnt lamp lighter. He
mechanically untwisted it, and twisted it up again, busy still with that
fearful sentence: "The eyes of the Lord are in _every_ place." The
lighter was made of a bit of printed paper, and Tode could read. The
letters caught his eye, and he bent forward to decipher them; and of all
precious words that can be found in our language, came these home to
that troubled youth: "Look unto me and be ye saved, all--" Just there
the paper was burned. No matter, be ye _saved_, that was what he wanted.
He felt in his inmost soul that he needed to be saved, from himself, and
from some dreadful evil that seemed near at hand. Now how to do it? The
smoke-edged bit of paper said, "Look unto me." Who was that blessed
_Me_, and where was he, and how could Tode look to him?
Quick as lightning the boy's memory went back to that evening in the
chapel, and the wonderful story of one Jesus, and the gray-haired man
in the corner, who stood up and shut his eyes, and spoke to Jesus just
as if he had been in the room. Perhaps, oh, _perhaps_, the All-seeing
Eye belonged to him? No, that could not be, for that card said, "The
eyes of the Lord," and Tode knew that meant God, but you see he knew
nothing about that blessed Trinity, the three in One. Then he remembered
his question to Dora: "Who is Jesus, anyhow?" and her answer: "Why, he
is God." What if it should in some strange way all mean God? Couldn't he
try? Suppose he should stand up in the corner like that old man, and
shut his eyes and speak to Jesus? What harm could it do? A great
resolution came over him to try it at once. He went over to the corner
at the foot of his bed with the first touch of reverence in his face
that perhaps it had ever felt. He closed his eyes and said aloud: "O
Jesus, save me." Over and over again were the words repeated, solemnly
and slowly, and in wonderful earnestness: "O Jesus, save me." Gradually
something of the terror died out of his tones, and there came instead a
yearning, longing sound to his voice, while again and yet again came the
simple words: "O Jesus, save me."
After a little Tode came quietly out of his corner, deliberately blew
out his light and went to bed, not at all unmindful of the All-seeing
Eye; but someway it had ceased to burn. He felt very grave and solemn,
but not exactly afraid, and a new strange feeling of some loving
presence in his room possessed his heart, and the thought of that name
Jesus brought tears into his eyes, he didn't know why. He didn't know
that there was such a thing as being a Christian; he didn't know that he
had anything to do with Christ; he didn't know that he was in the least
different from the Tode who lay there but an hour before only. Yes, that
solemn Eye did not make him afraid now; and with an earnest repeatal of
his one prayer, which he did not know _was_ prayer, "O Jesus, save me,"
Tode went to sleep.
But I think that the recording angel up in heaven opened his book that
night and wrote a new name on its pages, and that the ever-listening
Savior said, "_I_ have called him by his name; he is mine."
In the gray glimmering dawn of the early morning Tode stood out on the
steps, and waited for the rush of travelers from the train. They came
rushing in, cold and cross, many of them unreasonable, too, as cold and
hungry travelers so often are; but on each and all the boy waited,
flying hither and thither, doing his utmost to help make them
comfortable; being apparently not one whit different from the bustling
important boy who flew about there every morning intent upon the same
duties, and yet he had that very morning fallen heir to a glorious
inheritance. True, he did not know it yet, but no matter for that, his
title was sure.
The days went round, and Sunday morning came. Now Sunday was a very busy
day at the hotel. Aside from the dreadful Sunday trains that came
tearing into town desecrating the day, the whole country seemed to
disgorge itself, and pleasure-seekers came in cliques of twos and fours
for a ride and a warm dinner on this gala day. Tode had wont to be busy
and blithe on these days, but on this eventful Sabbath morning it was
different. Gradually he was becoming aware that some strange new
feelings possessed his heart. He had continued the repeatal of the one
prayer, "O Jesus, save me;" going always to the corner at the foot of
his bed, and closing his eyes to repeat it. And now he was conscious of
the fact that he had little thrills of delight all over him when he said
these words, and a new, strange, sweet sense of protection and
friendship stole over him from some unknown source. Now a longing
possessed him to know something more about Jesus. He had heard of him at
only one place, that chapel. Naturally his thoughts turned toward it. He
knew it would be open on that day, and "Who knows," said ignorant Tode
to himself, "but they might happen to say something about him to-day."
In short, Tode, knowing nothing about "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep
it holy," never having so much as heard that there _was_ a fourth
commandment, wanted to go to church. And wanting this very much, knew at
the same time that it was an extremely doubtful case, utterly unlikely
that he should be allowed to go.
He brushed his hair before his bit of glass, and buttoned on his clean
collar, all the time in deep thought. A sudden resolution came to him,
that old man had said Jesus would give us everything we wanted or needed
or something like that.
"I'll try it," said Tode, aloud and positively. "'Tain't no harm if it
don't do no good, and 'tain't nobody's business, anyhow."
And with these strangely original thoughts on the subject of prayer, he
went into his corner, but once there the reverent look with which he
nowadays pronounced that sacred name spread over his face as he said, "O
Jesus, I want to go to that church, and I s'pose I can't." This was
everything Tode was conscious of wanting just at present, so this was
all he said, only repeating it again and again.
Then when he went down stairs he marched directly to headquarters, and
made known his desires.
"Mr. Roberts, I want this forenoon to myself. Can I have it?"
"You do," answered Mr. Roberts, eyeing him thoughtfully. "Well, as such
requests are rare from you, and as Jim's brother is here to help, I
think I may say yes."
"A queer, bright, capable boy," Mr. Roberts thought, looking after Tode
as he dashed off down town. "Going to make just the man for our
business. I must begin to promote him soon."
As for Tode he was in high glee.
"What brought that Jim's brother over to help to-day?" he asked himself.
"I'd like to know _that_ now. I believe I do, as sure as I'm alive, that
_he_ heard every word, and has been and fixed it all out. I most know he
has, 'cause things didn't ever happen around like this for me before."
The pronoun "he" did not refer to Jim's brother, and was spoken with
that touch of awe and reverence which had so lately come to Tode. And I
think that the words were recorded up in heaven, as having a meaning not
unlike the acknowledgment of those less ignorant disciples, "Lord, I
believe."