ENLISTING.
It was Sunday, and Jim was walking home from church with the Leslies. A
gradual, but very great change had come over him since Taffy’s death. He
had grown nearly as cheerful as he was before it happened, and did not
seem to be exactly unhappy, but only the day before, Johnny had said to
his mother,—
“I don’t think Jim can be well, mamma; he let slip the best kind of a
chance for taking me off, the way he’s so fond of doing, this morning,
and when I come to think of it, he hasn’t said any of those things for a
good while.”
Mrs. Leslie smiled at Johnny’s conclusion; she did not think that was the
reason, and she said,—
“He looks perfectly well, dear. He is growing fast, and so getting
thinner, but I don’t see any signs of ill health about him.”
“There’s something about him,” said Johnny, in puzzled tones, “I never
knew him to miss a chance of saying one of his sharp things, till lately;
in fact, I used to think he was watching out for them!”
Johnny had not been mistaken in thinking so. Somebody has said that if
we look to the very root of our ill-will against anyone, we shall find
that it is envy; and though this does not, perhaps, always hold good, it
certainly does in many instances. Ever since Jim had known Johnny, there
had been in his heart an unacknowledged feeling of envy, of which he was
himself only dimly aware. Why should Johnny have been given that safe,
pleasant home, with a father and mother and sister of whom he could be
both fond and proud, while he, Jim, was left to fight for even his daily
bread, with no ready-made home and friends, such as most people had? For
even among the boys with whom he was chiefly thrown, many had some place
which they called home, and somebody who cared, were it ever so little,
whether they lived or died. He persuaded himself that it was because
Johnny was “foolish,” and “needed taking down” that he said disagreeable
things to him, but, since Taffy died, he had, as he expressed it to
himself, been “sorting himself out, and didn’t think much of the stock.”
His face, this morning, wore a troubled look, which Mrs. Leslie was quick
to notice, but she had learned that, in dealing with Jim, she must use
very much the same tactics that one uses in trying to tame some little
wild creature of the woods—a sudden attack, or even approach, scared him
off effectually; and although now he no longer ran, literally, as he had
done at first, he would take refuge in silence, or an awkward changing of
the subject.
She had stopped asking him to take meals with them, when she saw how it
distressed him. He was painfully conscious of his want of training, and
shrank from exposing it, and he was shrewd enough to know that there is
no surer test of “manners” than behavior at the table.
But the evening visits, begun with the making of the gardens, and the
reading and singing lessons, she had managed to have continued after the
gardens were frostbitten, and the early nightfall made the evenings long.
Yet even about this she had been obliged to exercise a great deal of tact
and care. Jim had announced that the lessons were to end the moment there
was no more work for him to do, and she knew that he meant what he said,
so, after thinking a good deal, she appealed to Mr. Leslie for help.
“You don’t happen to want kindling-wood just now, perhaps?” he asked,
after thinking a little.
“Don’t I?” she replied. “Why, we _always_ want kindling-wood! I believe
that fair kitchen-maid could burn ‘the full of the cellar,’ as she would
put it, in a week, if she could get that much to burn.”
“Oh, well then,” said Mr. Leslie, cheerfully, “It’s all right. I
happen to know where I can get a wagon load of pine logs and stumps,
in comparison with which a ram’s horn is a ruler! I should think half
a stump, or one log, an evening might be considered a fair allowance,
and you shall have them before the gardens are done for, to make sure.
You can explain to your muscular scholar that, by having a few days’
allowance chopped at a time, the reckless maiden can be kept within
bounds. But Jim will have my sympathy when he comes to those stumps!”
“He will like it all the better for being so hard, I do believe,” replied
Mrs. Leslie, and this proved to be true. When Jim had wrestled for half
an hour with a stump which looked like a collection of buffaloes’ heads,
he sat down to his lesson with calm satisfaction; no one could say that
he had not earned it.
Mrs. Leslie had been very much pleased by his consent to share the Sunday
evening talk—for it could scarcely be called a lesson—without offering
to do anything in return, and, although he had always been respectfully
attentive, she had noticed a growing interest and earnestness, since
Taffy’s death, which made her feel very glad and hopeful.
She could not help thinking, to-day, as she glanced at Jim, of the
great change in his appearance. He had bought a cheap, but neat and
well-fitting suit of dark clothes, and he still wore the little black
necktie. This suit he kept strictly for Sundays, except that he always
brought the coat on his lesson evenings, and put it on when his chopping
was done. He was very careful, now, to be clean and neat, even when he
wore his old clothes.
Extraordinary patches and darns had taken the place of rents and holes,
about which, formerly, he had neither thought nor cared. His face had
always been honest and cheerful, and a new gentleness made it, now, very
pleasant to look at. And he was growing tall. He had always been somewhat
taller than Johnny, and now he overtopped him by a head, a fact which
gave Johnny no satisfaction whatever. Mrs. Leslie bade Jim goodbye at the
gate, with an allusion to their meeting in the evening, and he assured
her that he was coming.
“Something is troubling Jim,” she said to the children, as they all
went upstairs, “and I want very much, if I can do it without asking
impertinent questions, to find out what it is. Perhaps we could help him.”
“_You_ could, mamma dear,” said Johnny, “even if Tiny and I couldn’t.
Jim’s queer; he doesn’t like to talk things out, the way I do—and I’ll
tell you what, Tiny, I think you and I had better leave Jim alone with
mamma a little while, when we’ve finished talking about our verses. He’d
be much more apt to tell her if there were nobody else there.”
Mrs. Leslie kissed her boy very lovingly. He was growing in the grace of
unselfishness and thoughtfulness for others, in a way that warmed her
heart.
Jim brought a great bunch of wild roses to Mrs. Leslie, when he came that
evening, and she thanked him warmly.
[Illustration]
“I did not think they had come yet,” she said, “and I never feel as if
summer were really here to stay until the roses come. Where did you find
them, dear?”
Jim’s heavy face brightened for a moment. He saw that Mrs. Leslie had
called him “dear” without knowing it—just as naturally as she said it to
Johnny, and a wave of happy feeling went over his heart.
“Away out in the country, down a lane,” he said, “but I don’t know
just where. I walked further than I’ve ever gone yet, this afternoon,
straight out into the fields. I meant to go to church, but I felt full
of walk, somehow, and as if my legs wouldn’t keep still, and I got to
thinking, as I went along, and first thing I knew, I was about half a
mile beyond the church! So I just kept right on, and I don’t see what
folks live in cities for, anyhow—even little cities like this. I was
under a big tree, lying on the grass, for an hour or so, and—”
[Illustration]
Jim stopped suddenly, for want of words that exactly suited him.
Mrs. Leslie thanked him again for the roses, and Tiny ran to fill the
“very prettiest” vase with water. And then they settled down to their
talk about the Sunday-school lesson which they had all recited that
morning. It was the story of Nicodemus; his “coming by night” to the
Saviour, and hearing about the “new birth unto righteousness.”
[Illustration]
For these Sunday evening talks, they always sat in the library, and,
unless the evening was quite too warm, a little wood fire sparkled on the
hearth, and no other light disputed its right to make the room cheerful.
Tiny and Johnny had become skilful in building these little fires, in a
way to make them give light, rather than warmth, so to-night, although
the windows were open to the soft summer-twilight air, three or four
pine-knots blazed upon the hearth, and sent dancing shadows about the
room. Mrs. Leslie had noticed that, in this close companionship and half
light, the reserve and restraint which sometimes tied Jim’s tongue seemed
taken away.
[Illustration]
The cause of the trouble which showed so plainly in his face came out by
degrees, as the lesson was discussed.
“I felt somehow, when Taffy died,” he said, “as if I’d been walking the
other way, and I’ve been trying to turn ’round, and travel towards where
I hope he is. And I don’t mean, either, that I’ve been trying just by
myself; I’ve been asking, you know, for help, and it seemed to me I got
it, whenever I asked in dead earnest. And then, when I was going over the
lesson for to-day, it seemed to mean that people who got religion got it
all of a sudden, and didn’t want to do, or say, or think any of the bad
things they’d been full of, any more, and down I went, right there, for
no matter how I try, and ask, and mean, to keep straight, I don’t do it;
in fact, it’s seemed to me lately, that the more I try the more I don’t,
and—and—if it wasn’t for Taffy, and all of you, Mrs. Leslie, I’d just
give the whole thing up, and try to forget it, and be comfortable! It’s
too much to ask of anybody, if it’s that way!”
He spoke with increasing warmth, and in a curiously injured tone, almost
as if he thought he had been deceived.
Mrs. Leslie laid her hand gently on his, saying,—
“Dear Jim, God never asks impossibilities. The new birth is the giving
ourselves wholly to Him, the full surrender, keeping back nothing from
His service. The other part, the making into His likeness, is always the
work of a lifetime. And He knows that; He knows all we have to contend
with. Don’t you remember—‘He knoweth whereof we are made, He remembereth
that we are but dust’—so, while we must not make excuses for ourselves,
beforehand, we may be very sure that, after every unwilling fall, He will
help us up again, and freely forgive us.”
“But there’s something else”—and Jim’s face still looked cloudy—“I don’t
see how it is, anyhow, that after we say we’ll be His, and try to do what
we think He would like, He _lets_ us fall. Couldn’t He keep us up, and
keep us going, in spite of ourselves?”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Leslie, very solemnly, “that is the question which
has puzzled and staggered God’s people for ages, or rather, the people
who are only partly His. And there is no answer for it. All we know is
just this, that there are two great powers abroad in the world, the
power of God, and that of the devil; that if we choose God’s service and
protection, He will join His mighty will to our weak ones, and that then
we can be ‘more than conquerors,’ but that if we let go this stronghold,
we are at the mercy of every sinful impulse and wicked desire. With His
help, we may attain to strength, and victory, and peace, and if we do
not, it is simply because we refuse this ‘ever-present help.’ And when
we turn away from Him, when we withhold our allegiance, we never know
how many others will be turned away by our example, nor how terribly we
may be hindering the coming of God’s kingdom. Questioning and doubting
are worse than useless; we are told that we shall ‘know hereafter,’ and
where we place our love we may well place our trust. Now, I wish you to
do something for me. I wish you to notice how those who are really, with
heart and soul, following the Master are held above the things which
other people count troubles and trials. There are too many who are only
half-heartedly following, and how can these expect more than half a
blessing? And one more thing; you have not yet confessed your allegiance.
If you wished to be a soldier in your country’s army, what would be the
very first thing for you to do?”
“Go to headquarters, and say so, and have my name put down,” said Jim,
slowly and reluctantly.
“Yes. And that is the first thing, now. Own to the world that you are
His, that you mean, with his help, to ‘fight manfully under his banner,’
and then He will ‘surely fulfil’ His part of the contract. Will you do
this, dear?”
There was a breathless pause. Tiny’s hand stole into Jim’s on one side,
Johnny’s on the other; Mrs. Leslie’s motherly hand was pressed lightly on
his head. With a sudden burst of tears, he said, brokenly,—
“I will! I will! I knew I ought to, but the devil’s been putting me off
with all this—this—” he stopped as suddenly as he had begun.
Mrs. Leslie rose and knelt, and the others knelt with her. Briefly and
fervently she prayed for a blessing upon Jim’s resolve, and that he might
be “strengthened with all might” to carry it out.
“Nothing is so dreadful as the want of love and faith,” she said,
presently, “and against this you must fight and pray. Times will come
to you, as they come to all of us, dear, when it must be just a sheer
holding on to that which you have proved; but never, never listen to
those who would take away your stronghold, and who offer less than
nothing in exchange.”
Mrs. Leslie’s good-night kiss when he rose to go—the first kiss he could
remember having received—seemed to him like a seal upon all that she had
said. He felt brave, and strong, and free; the fears which had held him
down were gone, and when, on the following Sunday afternoon, he took the
vows of allegiance to the great Captain of our salvation, there was a
ring of glad triumph in his strong young voice, as if, at the beginning
of the battle, he saw the victor’s crown.