"Ronald! Ronald! our van has come! John saw it go past the gate whilst
we were in school."
"Has it!" exclaimed Fred Norton, no less excited at the news than his
brother; "then let's go down at once and have a look at it."
Off ran the two little fellows, and were soon in the village; and there,
sure enough, drawn up in a side street, was the van of a travelling
tinker. The old horse had been taken out of the shafts and was standing
patiently on one side, while the tinker's wife, with her baby in her
arms, walked slowly up and down, casting from time to time an anxious
look up the street.
Her sunburnt face beamed with a hearty smile as the two boys rushed up
to her.
"Here you are, young gentlemen!" she said, with evident delight; "I was
looking out for you. I thought you'd see us go by; but my old man, he
says, 'Susan, what are you thinking of? Those young gentlemen have
forgotten you by this time, for it's six months more or less since we
last passed by here.'"
"We haven't forgotten you," said little Ronald indignantly. "How could I
forget when you were so kind to me? I could not have got home that day I
sprained my foot, and then your van came up, and you jumped out and
carried me in, and bathed my foot, and brought me home. Why--why--"
stammered the little fellow in his eagerness, "I should be a _pig_ if I
forgot you."
"Step inside, sirs," said the woman, quite confused by Ronald's
gratitude; "I want you to see how beautiful the clock looks that your
mamma gave me. It goes just splendid; my old man _is_ proud of it; it
never loses a minute, and yet it gets many a jolt."
The children needed no second invitation. The van was a paradise to
them, and they ran up the steps and looked at everything, and everything
seemed charming. They longed to possess such a treasure, and thought
the tinker and his wife must be the happiest of mortals.
"I should like to live here always," said Fred, as he and Ronald stood
at the door of the van and looked out at the scene around them. "It's so
jolly free," continued the boy, "so far better than always being in one
house; and the cat there, and the cocks and hens, and old Dobbin--I'd
much rather look at things like that than at the maps and pictures on
our schoolroom walls."
"Ah! but you don't know all, sir," said the woman, shaking her head. "I
was born in a van, and have always lived in one, but I don't want my
little laddie here to lead the life," and she danced the crowing baby in
her arms as she spoke. "I hope, by and by, we shall have a little
cottage of our own and settle down, and my boy can go to school and
learn to read his Bible, which is more than his mother can do, for I
never had a day's schooling in my life."
"Can't you read?" said little Ronald in astonishment. "I'll come every
day that you stay here and teach you. I'll begin to-night!" and before
another word could be said he had darted out of the van and was up the
street and out of sight, returning in a very few minutes with a large
picture-book, out of which he himself had learned to read.
Ronald was a wise little fellow to have brought a picture-book; for such
a work of art had never been seen by the woman before, and if reading
was only looking at pictures like that she felt she might manage it
after all.
She was by no means a stupid scholar, and Ronald was so earnest a little
teacher that the progress made was really astonishing. The tinker found
a good many jobs in the village, and stayed nearly a fortnight, and by
that time Susan could spell little words very nicely, and no longer read
a-s-s, donkey, as, misled by the picture, she had done at the beginning
of the lessons.
Ronald's mother gave the woman a large print Bible with a great many
pictures in it; and when next year the tinker's van again visited the
village, Susan was delighted to be able to exhibit her progress, and
slowly and reverently she read the parable of the Lost Sheep.
"I read that to my old man most nights," she said; "his father was a
shepherd, and he knows all about sheep. Oh, Master Ronald!" said the
woman, suddenly changing her tone, "I do bless you for putting it into
my head to learn to read."
Certainly Ronald was a happy boy that day.
[Illustration: TEMPTATION.]
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