A CONTRACT.
A three days’ rain which set in the morning after Johnny’s first
appearance as a schoolmaster, put a stop to gardening, and Jim decided
for himself that he was not entitled to any more lessons until he had
done some more work.
This had not been Tiny’s and Johnny’s idea of the contract at all; they
expected Jim to help them whenever they needed help, and intended to keep
on regularly with their teaching, unless some very special engagement
should prevent them. But, as they remembered when they came to talk it
over, they had not made this plain to Jim, and they decided to draw up a
contract, and have it ready for his signature, or rather his “mark,” if,
as Johnny said rather mournfully, “it should ever clear up again.” They
lamented very much not having planted anything before the rain.
“It would be soaking and swelling all the time,” mourned Johnny, “and
come bouncing up the minute the sun comes out!”
They tried shooting some radish seed at the beds with Johnny’s
pea-shooter, from an upstairs window, and had the pleasure of seeing a
flock of hungry sparrows make a breakfast of the seed almost before it
had touched the ground. Johnny was indignant, but Tiny said tranquilly,—
“I’m glad I saw that. It was in last Sunday’s lesson, you know,
Johnny,—about the fowls of the air devouring it up. When things don’t
come up in my head, now, I shall know it was because I didn’t plant them
deep enough.”
It was after it had rained for two days and part of another, that they
drew up the contract, and thus it ran,—
“We are going to teach James Brady all we know, that he wants
to learn, and he is to come every evening, unless we ask
him not to, which we shall not do except for something very
particular, like a birthday party, or having folks here to tea.
And he is going to help us work in our gardens, when we want
help, but he is to come all the same in the evening, whether he
has helped that day or not.
“Signed,
“CLEMENTINE AND JOHN LESLIE
“James Brady.” X HIS MARK
They admired this production so much, that they made arrangements for
framing it, when Jim should have added, “his mark.” The arrangements
consisted chiefly of an old slate-frame, which Tiny painted bright red,
using up her entire cake of vermillion to do it, and Johnny was obliged
to copy the contract in very large letters, to make it fill the frame.
A day of brilliant sunshine followed the three days’ rain. Johnny passed
Jim’s stand on his way from school, reproached Jim for his absence, told
him of the contract, and secured his promise to come that evening at a
quarter past six, sharp. Tiny carefully practised a little song for which
she could herself play the accompaniment, and both the children had their
stock of seeds in readiness, before tea.
When Jim appeared, punctually at the appointed time, Mrs. Leslie came
out on the porch, and wished him good evening, and she noticed with much
pleasure that he had on a clean shirt, and that a fresh patch covered the
knee of his trousers, where a gaping rent had been, four days ago. His
face and hands shone with scrubbing, and his hair with brushing, and he
made the best bow at his command, as he came up the steps.
“You’ll have to come too, mamma,” said Tiny, “for we haven’t quite made
up our minds where the things are to go, and we want you to help us.”
“I’ll bring a camp-stool, and a board for your feet, mamma dear,” chimed
in Johnny, “and you can ‘sit on a cushion as grand as a queen,’ and watch
us work.”
“But I haven’t given papa his second cup of tea yet,” remonstrated Mrs.
Leslie, “nor eaten my piece of cake.”
“You can pour out the tea, and then ask papa to please excuse you, and
you can bring your cake with you,” said Johnny, coaxingly, and to this
Mrs. Leslie consented, although she said something about tyrants. She
came out, presently, with two pieces of cake on a plate, and insisted
upon Jim’s eating one of them, which he did without the slightest
reluctance, and then went vigorously to work. You might have thought a
large farm was being planted, if you had heard the earnest discussion,
and the number and variety of seeds named, and dusk overtook them before
they were half done. It was decided that Tiny’s lesson should be given
first, as her bedtime came before Johnny’s did. The little song was quite
new to Jim, and he could not join in it as readily as he had joined in
the hymn, but Tiny went patiently over it, again and again, until he
caught the air, and knew the words of one verse, and she did not stop
until they were singing together in perfect harmony.
Then she gave him up to Johnny, and considerately left the room. Johnny
brought out the card with a flourish, saying confidently,—
“We’ll just run over the letters again, to make sure, and then we’ll go
on to the a-b-abs. Oh, here’s the contract—you just put your mark to it
there, where we’ve left a place, and then we’ll frame it and give it to
you.”
Jim listened thoughtfully, while Johnny read him the contract, but he
made no motion toward affixing his mark to it.
“It don’t seem to me to be fair,” he said, “you’ll not need much work
done in those little gardens, and here you’ve promised to teach me nearly
every evening; I think I ought only to have a lesson when I’ve done some
work.”
“Oh fiddlesticks!” said Johnny, impatiently, “you’ve worked like
everything already, and besides, we like to teach you; papa says it’s the
very best way to learn things, teaching them to somebody, so you see it’s
just as good for us as it is for you. Come, put your mark there, where
we left the hole for it,” and Johnny dipped the pen in the inkstand, and
handed it to his pupil, who reluctantly made his mark in the “hole.”
“I’ll frame it to-morrow,” said Johnny, “Now for the letters. What’s
that?” and he pointed to V.
Jim pondered a moment, then,—
“That’s A,” he said, confidently.
Johnny controlled himself by a violent effort, pointed out the difference
between A and V, and then “skipped” Jim through the rest of the alphabet.
To his utter consternation, Jim only remembered about half the letters,
and of some of these he was not perfectly certain.
“I didn’t think I was such a stupid,” said poor Jim, humbly, “but I
suppose that’s because I never tried to learn anything before. I thought
I knew half the letters before I began, but the boys must have fooled
me—I’m certain somebody told me that was K,” and he pointed to R.
This made Johnny laugh, and Jim’s humility gave him such a comfortable
feeling of superiority, that he took courage, and went through the
alphabet once more, with tolerable patience. But Jim was too keen-sighted
not to notice the effort which Johnny was making, and when the lesson was
at last over, he said,—
“It’s going to be more of a job than you thought it would, Johnny; I can
see that, and if you want to be off your bargain, I’ve nothing to say.”
But he looked so dull and disappointed, that Johnny’s conscience
reproached him with selfishness, and he said cheerfully,—
“Oh, you mustn’t give up the ship so soon, Jim. I’ll stick to it as
long as you will, and it will get easier after you’ve once learned the
letters. You’d better take your spelling-book home with you to-night, and
then to-morrow you can try to pick out the letters whenever you have a
little time, you know.”
“I will do that,” said Jim, brightening, “and I’ll not forget this on
you, Johnny—you’ll see if I do!”
Johnny went into the parlor, when Jim was gone, and dropped his head on
his mother’s shoulder.
“O mamma!” he said, dolefully, “he’d forgotten nearly every single
letter, and I could see he hardly believed me, when I told him that R
wasn’t K!”
Mrs. Leslie gently pulled Johnny down on her lap.
“You must go out bright and early to-morrow morning, and see if your
seeds are up,” she said.
Johnny looked at her in amazement.
“Why, mamma!” he exclaimed, “they’re only just planted! It will be
several days before they show the least little nose above ground.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Leslie, but she said nothing more, only looking into
Johnny’s eyes with a little smile in hers.
He suddenly clapped his hands, exclaiming,—
“I see what you mean, mamma! I’m sowing seeds in Jim’s head, and
expecting to see them come up before they’re fairly planted! But indeed,
it’s harder work than digging.”
“‘Fair exchange is no robbery,’” said Mrs. Leslie, laughing at Johnny’s
mournful face. And then she said, quite seriously,—
“I will give you another text, dear; one that I thought of when I was
watching you plant your seeds this evening. ‘The husbandman waiteth for
the precious fruit of the earth, and hath _long patience_ for it, until
he receive the early and latter rain.’ You see, the patience is needed
not only before the seeds come up, but while the plants are blossoming,
and while the fruit is forming, and while it is ripening. It is not being
patient just for a day, or a week, or a month, but for the whole season,
for it says ‘the early and latter rain.’ Now a great many of us can have
a little—a short patience, but it takes much more grace to have the long
patience, and this is what my little boy must strive for.”
[Illustration]
“I don’t think I’m naturally patient, mamma,” said Johnny, with a sigh.
“No, I don’t think you are,” replied his mother, “but Tiny is, and her
patience will be a great help to you, if you will only let it, just as
your courage and energy are a help to her, for she is naturally timid,
and a little inclined to be faint-hearted. You have a chance now to win
a great victory, and, at the same time, you are running the risk of a
great defeat; but you must not try to have patience for the whole thing
at once—ask every day for just that day’s patience. You know when it
is that we don’t receive; it is when we ‘ask amiss.’ All our fighting
for our Great Captain will be in vain, unless we are ‘strengthened
with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and
long-suffering, with joyfulness.’ We will see, next Sunday, how many
times we can find this word ‘patience’ in the Gospels and Epistles; you
will be surprised, I think, to find how often it is used.”
“It will be a help to remember, mamma,” said Johnny, with a more hopeful
look, “working in the garden, first. And I shall say ‘long patience’ to
myself ever so many times, before we begin our lessons.”
So instead of going to bed with the discouraged feeling which the lesson
had left, Johnny went with a vigorous determination not to be beaten, and
he added to his evening prayer a petition for patience.
“If it hadn’t been for that contract, I wouldn’t have come a step
to-night,” said Jim, as they finished planting the gardens, the next
evening, “but I thought I would try one more shot, and then, if it’s like
last night, you must just let me off, and burn the contract up.”
“Indeed I shall not!” said Johnny, stoutly, “there it is, all framed and
glazed, and here I am, and there you are, and you’ll not get off till you
know how to read, and then you’ll not wish to!”
[Illustration]
We will not follow Johnny through all the discouragements and
encouragements which attended his career as a teacher; but you will be
glad to hear that, with that help which is always near, he conquered,
and that by the time he and Jim were husking the corn which the little
gardens had yielded, Jim could read as fluently as his teacher could, and
was beginning to write a legible, if somewhat uncertain hand. He had
shown a real talent for music, and, having learned all that Tiny could
teach him, was joyfully and gratefully taking lessons from Mrs. Leslie.
“And just suppose my patience had turned out to be only the short kind,
Tiny!” said Johnny, as Tiny and he, with heads close together, proudly
popped the corn from their own farms.