TODE'S REAL ESTATE.
By next evening business had fairly commenced. The first day's sales
were encouraging in the extreme, the more so that Tode had rescued two
boys from the vortex on his left, and persuaded them into taking a cup
of his excellent coffee instead of something stronger. Among the
accomplishments that he acquired at the Euclid House was the art of
making delicious coffee, an art which bid fair to do him good service
now. He set a very inviting looking table. A very coarse, but
delightfully clean white cloth, hid the roughness and imperfections of
the dry-goods box; and his stock of crockery, consisting of three cups
and saucers, three large plates, and three pie plates, purchased at the
auction rooms, were disposed of with all the skill which his native tact
and his apprenticeship at the Euclid House had taught him. After mature
deliberation he had bargained for and rolled back the barrel, made it
stationary with the help of a nail or two, and mounting it was ready for
customers. He had them, too--one especially, whose appearance filled him
with great satisfaction. With the incoming of the four o'clock train Mr.
Stephens appeared, stopped in surprise on seeing his new acquaintance,
asked numerous questions, and finally remarked that he had been gone all
day, and might as well take his lunch there and go directly to the
store. So Tode had the very great pleasure of seeing him drink two cups
of his coffee, eat three of his cakes, and lay down fifty cents in
payment thereof. Never was there a more satisfied boy than he, when at
dusk he packed his cakes into a basket procured for the purpose, covered
them carefully with the table-cloth, tucked the coffee-pot in at one
end, and marched whistling away toward home. He had been gone since
quite early in the morning, had procured his own breakfast and dinner,
according to previous arrangement, but was going home to tea.
It is doubtful if there will ever anything look nicer to Tode than did
that little clean room, and that little square table, with its bit of a
white patched table-cloth, and its three plates and three knives, and
its loaf of bread, and its very little lump of butter; a little black
teakettle puffed and steamed its welcome, and a very funny little old
brown ware teapot stood waiting on the hearth. There was that in this
poor homeless boy's nature that took this picture in, and he felt it to
his very heart. It was better a hundred times than the glitter and
grandeur of the Euclid House, for didn't he know perfectly well that the
little brown teapot on the hearth was waiting for _him_, and had
anything ever waited for _him_ before?
"Now we are all ready," chirped the old lady, cheerily, as Tode set down
his basket and took off his cap. "Come Winny," and straightway there
appeared from the little room of the kitchen a new character in this
story of Tode's life, one whom the boy had never heard of before, and at
whom he stared as startled as if she had suddenly blown up to them,
fairy-like, from out the wide mouth of the black teakettle.
"This is my Winny," explained she of the frill cap. "This is Jim's and
Rick's sister. Dear me! I don't believe I ever thought to tell you they
had a sister. She was to school when you was bobbing back and forth
yesterday and to-day, and she was to bed when you came home last night."
"Well she's here now," interrupted Winny. "Ready to be looked at, which
she's likely to be, I should think. Let's have tea."
Tode had been very uncertain as to whether he liked this new revelation
of the family; but one word in the mother's sentence smoothed his face,
and he sat down opposite the great gray eyes of the grave,
self-possessed looking Winny with a satisfied air.
"Now," said the mother, looking kindly on him, "I've always asked a
blessing myself at my table, because Jim and Rick they don't neither of
'em lean that way, but if you would do it I think it would be all right
and nice."
Tode looked bewildered a moment; then adopted the very wise and
straightforward course of saying:
"I don't know what 'asking a blessing' means."
"Don't you, now? Why it's to say a little prayer to God before you
eat--just to thank him, you know."
A little gleam of satisfaction shone in Tode's eyes.
"Do good people do that?" he asked.
"Why, yes--all the folks I ever lived with when I was a girl. Deacon
Small's family, and Esquire Edward's family, and all, used to."
"Every time they eat?"
"Every single time."
"That's _nice_," said Tode, heartily. Whereat the gray eyes opposite
looked wonderingly at him. "I like that. Now, what do they say?"
"Oh they just pray a little simple word--just to say thank you to the
Lord, you know."
"And do you want me to do it?"
"Well, I think it would be nice and proper like, if you felt like it."
Reverently Tode closed his eyes, and reverently and simply did he offer
his thanksgiving.
"O Lord, we thank you for this bread and butter and tea."
Then he commenced at once on the subject of his thoughts. Conversation
addressed to Winny.
"Do you go to school?"
"Yes."
"What kind of a place is school?"
"Nice enough place if you want to learn, stupid if you don't."
"Do you want to learn?"
"Some."
"Well, what do you learn?"
"Reading, spelling, writing, geography, arithmetic, and grammar."
"My! What are _all_ them things?"
"Don't you know what reading is?"
"Yes, I know them first three; but what's the long words?"
"Well, geography is about the earth."
"Earth? What do you mean, dirt?"
"Some--and some water, and some hills, and rivers, and cities, and
mountains."
"But you can see all them things."
"Well, it tells you more than you can see."
"And what's t'other?"
"Arithmetic is about figures. What are you asking me so many questions
for?--didn't you ever go to school?"
"Never did in all my life, not an hour. Now go on about the figures."
"Well, all about them--how to add and multiply, and subtract and divide,
and fractions."
"Never heard of one of 'em," said Tode, with a little sigh. "What be
they all for?"
"Why so you can buy things and sell them, and keep accounts, and
everything."
"Then I ought to know 'em, 'cause that's what I'm doing. Do you know
'em?"
"I'm studying arithmetic, and I'm as far as fractions."
"Will you show 'em to me?"
"Mother," said Winny, turning despairing eyes on the attentive old lady,
"he's such a funny boy. I don't know what to make of him."
"He wants to study and learn, deary, don't you see?"
"I think that's just as nice as can be," she added, turning to Tode.
"Winny, she's a great scholar, keeps to the head of her class all the
time, most, and she studies evenings, and you could get out your book,
and she would show you all about things, couldn't you, deary?"
"I don't care," said Winny, listlessly. "Yes, I might if he wants to
learn, and if he won't bother me too much."
Tode's cheeks were all aglow. He had awakened lately to the fact that
there was a great deal in this world that he didn't understand, that he
wanted to know about; and without a doubt but that this wise-eyed girl
knew it all, and that he should learn it all, and that he should learn
it from her in a little while. He went to work with alacrity.
Examination came first--that is, it came after the dishes were washed.
Then Tode displayed his reading powers, which really _were_ remarkable
when one considered that he could hardly tell himself how he happened to
learn, but which sank into insignificance by the side of Winny's
clear-toned, correct, careful reading. Tode listened in amazement and
delight.
"That sounds just like mine," he said at last, drawing in his breath as
she finished.
In return for which graceful compliment, which had the merit of being an
unconscious one, Winny condescended to compliment him on the manner in
which his letters, large and small, were gotten up.
"They ought to be nice," Tode explained, "the way I worked at 'em! It
took me a week off and on, to make that K crook in and out, and up and
down, as it ought to. Dora Hastings, she told me about 'em, and made the
patterns. You don't know Dora Hastings, do you?"
"No, I never heard of her; but these are not patterns, they are copies;
and there is no such word as ''em,' which you keep using so much. Our
teachers told us so to-day."
"What's the reason there isn't?"
"Well, because there _isn't_; it's '_them_' and not ''em' at all. And
you use a great many words that they wouldn't allow you to if you went
to school."
"Well then," said Tode, with unfailing good nature, "don't _you_ let me
say 'em then--no, I mean '_them_.' You're the school misses, and I'm
your school. Go on about the other things."
It was a busy evening. Arithmetic, except so much as had been required
to count his small income, proved to be a sealed book to Tode; but the
energy with which he began at the beginning, and tried to learn every
word in it, was quite soothing to the heart of the young teacher.
The little mother sat at the end of the table, and sewed industriously
on the clothes that she had washed and ironed during the day; but when a
queer little old clock in the corner struck nine, she bit off her thread
and fastened her needle on the yellow cushion, and interrupted the
students.
"Now, deary, let's put away our work. You've made a first-rate
beginning, but it's time now to read your piece of a chapter, and then
we'll have a word of prayer and get to our beds, so we can all be up
bright and early in the morning."
Tode closed his book promptly, and looked on with eager satisfaction
while Winny produced an old worn, much-used Bible--a whole Bible! and
composedly turned over its pages with the air of one who was quite
accustomed to handle the wonderful book.
"Where shall I read to-night, mother?" she asked.
"Well, deary, suppose you read what John says about the many mansions
that they're getting ready for us."
"John didn't say it, mother," answered Winny, gravely. "Jesus said it
himself."
"Yes, deary, but John heard him say it, and wrote it down for us."
So Tode listened, and heard for the first time in his life these blessed
words:
"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have
told. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I
am, there ye may be also."
Thus on, through the beautiful verses, until this:
"And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do."
"There, deary," said Winny's mother, "that will do. I want to stop there
and think about it. Whenever I get more than usual trouble in my heart
about Rick and Jim, I want to hear this chapter down to there,
'_Whatsoever_ ye shall ask,' and it gives me a lift, like, and then I
pray away."
Could you imagine how you should feel if you had learned to love the
Lord, and were as old as Tode was, and then should hear those words for
the first time?
The tears were following each other down his cheeks, and dropping on his
hand.
"Who does he mean?" he asked, eagerly. "Whose mansions be they that he's
getting ready?"
"Why, bless you, one of them is mine, and there'll be one ready for
everybody who loves _him_."
Tode's voice sank to a husky whisper.
"Do you think there's one getting ready for me?"
"There's no kind of doubt about it, not if you love the Lord Jesus. I
suppose as soon as ever you made up your mind to love him the Lord said,
'Now I must get a place ready for Tode, for he's decided that he wants
to come up here with me.'"
Wiser brains than Tode's would doubtless have smiled at the old lady's
original and perhaps untheological way of interpreting the truth; but he
drank it in, and drew nearer to the true meaning of it than perhaps he
would had it been learnedly explained.
"I never thought about it before in my life," he said, gravely. "And so
that's heaven? And there ain't any trouble there I heard Mr. Birge say
once in his preaching."
"Not a speck of trouble of any shape nor kind, nor nobody's wicked nor
cross, and no bottles there, Tode, not a bottle."
"How do you know?"
"'Cause it says so right out, sharp and plain. 'No drunkard shall
inherit the kingdom of heaven.' That's Bible words, and you and I know
that where there's bottles, and folks give them to their neighbors, why
there'll be drunkards."
Tode nodded his head in solemn assent. Yes, he knew that better perhaps
than his teacher. Then he asked:
"And what more about heaven?"
"Oh deary me! there's verses and verses about streets of gold, and
harps, and thrones, and singing. Oh my! _such_ singing as you never
dreamed about, and we to be the singers, you know; and I couldn't begin
to tell you about it all; and _you_ never heard any of them verses? Well
now, I _am_ beat. Well I always pick 'em all out and read 'em Sunday. I
like to make Sunday a kind of a holiday, you know, so I read 'em and
study 'em, and try to picture it all out; but then you see I can't,
because the Bible says that eyes haven't seen nor ears heard, and we
can't _begin_ to guess at the fine things prepared for us."
"Well now," broke in Tode, his lips hurrying to tell the thought that
had been filling his mind for some minutes, "why don't everybody go
there? I heard about that awful place where some folks go. Mr. Birge
told about it in some of his preaching. Now what's that for? Why don't
they all go to heaven?"
The little old lady heaved a deep sigh.
"Sure enough, why don't they?" she said at last. "And the curious part
of it is, that it's just because they _won't_. They don't have to pay
for it; they don't have to go away off after it; they don't have to die
for it, because they've got to die anyhow; and they know it's dreadful
to die all alone; and they know that every single thing that the Lord
Jesus wants of them is to love him, and give him a chance to help
them--and the long and short of it is, they _won't do it_."
"That's _awful_ silly," ejaculated Tode.
"Silly! Why, there ain't anything else in all this big world that
anywhere near comes up to it for silliness. Why, don't you think," and
here her voice took a lower and more solemn tone, and the wide cap frill
trembled with earnestness. "_Don't_ you think, there's men and women who
believe that every word in that Bible over there is true, and they know
there's such a verse as that we just heard, 'Whatsoever ye shall ask in
my name that _will_ I do;' and there's tired folks who know the Bible
says, 'Come unto me all ye that are weary, and I _will_ give you rest;'
and there's folks full of trouble who know it says, 'Cast thy burden on
the Lord, and he _will_ sustain thee;' and there's folks chasing up and
down the world after a good time who know it says, 'In thy presence is
fullness of joy,' and 'At thy right hand there are pleasures for
evermore;' and there's folks working night and day to be rich who know
it says, 'I am the true riches,' and, 'The silver and the gold are his,'
and just as true as you live they won't kneel down and _ask_ him for
any of these things! Now _ain't_ that curious?"
"I should think he'd get kind of out of patience with them all," Tode
answered, earnestly, "and say, 'Let 'em go, then, if they're determined
to.'"
The old lady shook her head emphatically.
"No, he loves them you see. Do you suppose if my Winny and my boys
should go wrong, and not mind a word I say, I could give 'em up and say,
'Let them go then?' No indeed! I'd stick to 'em till the very last
minute, and I'd coax 'em, and pray over 'em day and night--and _my
love_, why it's _just_ nothing by the side of his. Why he says himself
that his love is greater than the love of a woman; so you see he sticks
to 'em all, and wants every one of them."
Tode resolved this thought in his mind for a little, then gave vent to
his new idea.
"Then I should think folks ought to be coaxing 'em, folks that love
_him_, I mean. If he loves all the people and wants them, and is trying
to get them, why then I should think all his folks ought to be trying,
too."
"That's it!" said the old lady, eagerly. "That's it exactly. He tells us
so in the Bible time and time again. 'Let him that heareth say come.'
Now you and me have heard, and according to that it's our business to
go right to work, and say 'come' the very first time we get a chance.
But, deary me! I do believe in my heart that's half the trouble, folks
won't do it; his own folks, too, that have heard, and have got one of
the mansions waiting for 'em. He's given them all work to do helping to
fill the others, and half the time they let it go, and tend to their own
work, and leave him to do the coaxing all alone."
"Mother," interrupted Winny, impatiently drumming on the corner of the
Bible, "I thought you said it was bedtime. I could have learned two
grammar lessons in this time."
The mother gave a gentle little sigh.
"Well, deary, so it is," she said. "We'll just have a word of prayer,
and then we'll go."
Tode in his little room took his favorite position, a seat on the side
of the bed, and lost himself in thought. Great strides the boy had taken
in knowledge since tea time. Wonderful truths had been revealed to him.
Some faint idea of the wickedness of this world began to dawn upon him.
All his life hitherto had been spent in the depths, and it would seem
that if he were acquainted with anything it must be with wickedness, yet
a new revelation of it had come to him. "Ye _will_ not come unto me,
that ye might have life." He did not know that there was such a verse
in the Bible; but now he knew the fact, and it gave this boy, who had
come out of a cellar rum-hole, and had mingled during his entire life
with just such people as swarm around cellar rum-holes, a more distinct
idea of the total depravity of this world than he had ever dreamed of
before. It gave him a solemn old feeling. He felt less like whistling
and more like going very eagerly to work than he ever had before.
"There's work to do," he said to himself. "He's got a mansion ready for
me it seems. I won't ever want other folk's nice homes any more as long
as I live, 'cause it seems I've got a grander one after all than they
can even think of; but then there's other mansions, and he wants people
to come and fill them, and he let's us help." Then his voice took a more
joyful ring, like that of a strong brave boy ready for work. "There's
work to do, plenty of it, and I'll help--I'll help fill _some_ of them."
"The poor homeless boy," said the warm-hearted little mother down
stairs. "Deary me, my heart does just go out to him. And to think that
he owns one of them mansions, and never knew it! Well, now, he shan't
ever want for a home feeling on this earth if I can help it. I do
believe he's one of the Lord's own, and we must feel honored, Winny
dear, because we're called to help him. Don't you think he's a good
warm-hearted boy, deary?"
"Oh yes," Winny said, indifferently. "But, mother, he does use such
shocking grammar."
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