THE WAY OF ESCAPE.
“It must have been most beautiful,” said Tiny, “I wonder if it looked at
all like that?” and she pointed to a large, bright star, which seemed
quite alone in the sky, for the sun had only just set, and no other star
could yet be seen near this one.
“I think it was much larger, Tiny,” said Johnny, who was standing close
beside her. “You know if it hadn’t been quite different from the other
stars, no one would have thought it was anything in particular, and the
wise men said, quite positively, ‘We _have seen_ His star in the east,
and are come to worship Him.’ So you see, it must have been different.”
“Yes,” said Tiny, “I didn’t think of that. And how glad they must have
been to see it, for they seemed perfectly certain about what it meant.
They didn’t ask if He really had come, or if the people at Jerusalem
thought He had, but just ‘Where is He?’ And then they found out right
away; I don’t believe they would, if they hadn’t been so certain.”
“And just think,” said Johnny, “how splendid it must have been for them
to be the first ones to tell the people about it, when they got back to
their ‘own country.’ That was even better than it is to be a missionary
now. I wonder if any of the people they told it to laughed at them, and
didn’t believe them.”
“I don’t see how they could,” said Tiny. “Why, you know everybody was
looking for the Saviour, then; and so when the wise men told them how He
had been born just where the prophets had said He would be, and that they
had really seen Him, how could anybody not believe them?”
Tiny and Johnny were standing by the library window, waiting for their
mother and Jim, for it was Sunday evening, and time for the “talk.” The
lesson was about the leading of the star, and it seemed to the children
unusually beautiful, although there was never any lack of interest in
these talks. They were growing impatient, when Jim came in sight, walking
fast, as if he were afraid of being late, but they hastily agreed not
to question him; for Johnny had found that this always annoyed him as
nothing else did. He had a keen eye for “chances” to help his less
fortunate neighbors, and more than once, Johnny had accidentally caught
him giving time, and thought, and even money, although, industrious as
he was, he seldom made more in a day than sufficed his actual needs.
But he seemed so thoroughly disconcerted when anything of this kind was
discovered, that Johnny tried hard to resist the temptation to tease him
which was offered by his sensitiveness on this point.
Mrs. Leslie came down a few minutes after Jim arrived, and a beautiful
talk followed. She had brought an old book about the Holy Land, which
she had recently found at a second-hand book store, and it described in
such good, clear language the state of affairs throughout the world, and
the manners and customs of the people at the time of the birth of our
Saviour, that the children, deeply interested, felt as if they had never
before so clearly realized it all.
And Johnny spoke once more of the happiness of the wise men, in being the
bearers of this great news back to their own country.
“I think it must have been much more interesting to be alive then, than
it is now,” he said, with a little discontent in his voice, “for don’t
you believe, mamma, that it seemed a great deal more wonderful about the
Saviour then, when it was all happening, than it seems now, after so
many, many years?”
“Perhaps it did,” said Mrs. Leslie, “but you know how it was when the
apostles began to tell the good news. Besides being disbelieved, and
persecuted, and imprisoned, and banished, they had to endure something
which, to some people, would be hardest of all—we are told that they were
‘mocked’; that is what you would call at school, being made fun of.”
“I never thought of that before,” said Johnny, “I do believe that must
have been the hardest of all! You see, a person can screw himself up
to something pretty bad, like having a tooth out, or being killed, or
anything; but to see a whole lot of people making faces and laughing at
you—do you believe you could ever stand that, mamma?”
“It would be very hard, and yet it is part of their daily work for some
of our missionaries, at this very day,” said Mrs. Leslie, “I have heard a
missionary who had been preaching and teaching in India say that nothing
delighted some of the natives more than to bait and worry a teacher
until it was next to impossible for him to keep his temper. And no doubt
the wise men had that very thing to contend with, when they went back to
their own country. I think every one has, at some time or other. And then
is, above all other times, the time to ‘let our light so shine before
men that they may glorify our Father which is in Heaven.’ When people
see that the power of God _is_ a power, it nearly always makes some
impression on them. So here is a chance for every one to ‘make manifest,’
and how beautiful the blessing is! ‘That which doth make manifest is
light.’ We are allowed to carry to others the Light of the World.”
This was the end of the talk, for that time, and it made more impression
upon Jim and Johnny than it did upon Tiny, for Jim, as we have said,
carried his sensitiveness too far, often—as in the case of little
Taffy—allowing it to hinder him from asking for help for others, when he
had come to the end of his own ability, but not the needs of the case,
and when such help would have been most gladly and efficiently given; as
for Johnny, he was foolishly alive to ridicule, and many of the slips
of temper which he afterwards lamented were due solely to this cause. A
jeering laugh or a mocking speech always had power to make his face flush
and his hands clinch, and the effect did not always stop there—he often
said things for which he was bitterly sorry as soon as the rush of angry
feeling was past. And somehow it seemed to him that the attacks upon his
temper always took place when he was unusually off his guard, and open to
them.
[Illustration: POOR KATY.]
The effect of this talk upon Jim was very marked. He began, from that
time, shyly to take Mrs. Leslie into his confidence, whenever he felt
that she could help him, and he schooled himself to bear, without
wincing, any and all allusions to the various and unobtrusive acts
of kindness which he was able to perform. And he very soon had the
encouragement of finding his usefulness greatly increased, while he
still had the satisfaction of doing many things which were known only to
himself and those whom he helped. To his firm and resolute character, the
plan of the campaign was more than half the battle, while Johnny, who was
naturally more heedless and forgetful, found great difficulty in keeping
his good resolutions where he could find them in a hurry.
He had, for the time being, quite forgotten this talk about the wise men,
when, one day during the following week, as he was playing with the boys
at recess, a little girl strayed into the playground, with a basket of
apples and cakes, hoping to sell some of her wares to the schoolboys.
Johnny remembered her at once, for she was one of the many people whom
Mrs. Leslie had helped and befriended; she had found the poor child in
great trouble and destitution, a few months before, and had put her to
board with an old woman who only demanded a very moderate amount of work
in payment for the care which she gave the little girl.
[Illustration]
Katy employed her spare time in trying to sell whatever she could pick
up most cheaply, whenever she had a few cents at her command; matches,
sometimes, and what Tiny called “dreadful” cakes of soap; very thick
china buttons, blunt pins, or, when she had not enough even for these
investments, a few apples or oranges, and unpleasant-looking cakes.
She was a solemn and anxious-looking child, and although, through Mrs.
Leslie’s care and teaching, her clothes were nearly always whole and
clean, they had a look of not belonging to her, and Tiny and Johnny,
while they pitied her very much, and were always willing to help her in
any way they could, did not admire her.
It had never before occurred to her to visit the playground with her
basket, a fact over which Johnny had secretly rejoiced, and it was with
a feeling of dismay quite beyond the occasion that he saw her come in at
the gate. She did not see him, just at first, and he was attacked, as he
afterward told Tiny, with a mean desire to “cut and run.” Before he could
make up his mind to do this, however, she recognized him, and a smile
broke over her solemn countenance.
“Why!” she said, in the drawl which always “aggravated” Johnny, “I didn’t
know you went to school here, Johnny Leslie! I’m right glad I came in.
Don’t you want to buy an apple? And don’t some of these other boys want
to? They’re real nice—I tried one.”
“I haven’t any money here, Katy,” said Johnny, briefly, “and I don’t
believe the other boys have, either. And I wouldn’t come here, again, if
I were you; it’s not a good place to sell things _at all_—at least, some
things,” he added hastily, as he remembered how a basketful of pop-corn
candy had vanished in that very yard, a few days before.
Katy’s face grew solemn again, and she was turning to go, with the
meekness which, to Johnny, was another of her offences. But a few of the
boys who were standing near, and who had heard the conversation, saw
how anxious Johnny was to get rid of her, and one of them called out
mockingly, loud enough to be heard all over the playground,—
“Boys! Here’s a young lady friend of Johnny Leslie’s, with some wittles
to sell! His friends in this crowd ought to patronize her!”
The mischief was done, now; the boys flocked around Katy, and being, most
of them, good-natured fellows, as boys go, they said nothing unmannerly
to her, but they contrived, in their politely worded remarks, which
she did not in the least understand, to sting Johnny to the verge of
desperation. And yet, when he thought it over afterwards, nothing had
been said which was really worth minding; it was the manner, not the
matter, and the mocking laughter, which had roused him.
“I think your friends are real nice, Johnny Leslie,” said Katy, as she
turned, with her empty basket, and her hand full of small coins, to leave
the yard, “and I won’t come back, if you don’t like me to, but I don’t
see _why_ you don’t!” and she walked dejectedly away.
But before she reached the gate, Johnny had fought his battle—and won it.
He sprang after her, and held open the gate, as he would have done for
his mother, saying, loud enough for every one to hear him,—
“I’m glad you’ve had such good luck, Katy! Come back every day, if
you like, and you wait for me here after school, and I’ll show you a
first-rate place to buy things, where the man won’t cheat you!”
She thanked him all too profusely, as she went slowly through the gate,
and then he turned, feeling that his face was fiery red, to receive the
volley which he fully expected, and had braced himself to bear. But it
was not exactly the sort of volley for which he was prepared.
“Hurrah for Johnny Leslie!” called one of the little boys; the others
caught it up with a deafening cheer, and an unusual amount of “tiger,”
and Johnny saw that they were quite in earnest.
And then came back to his mind once more the words which had so often
come there, since he had read the quaint and beautiful story of “The
Pilgrim’s Progress from this world to a better,”—“The lions were chained.”
The fact was, several of the boys had heard about Katy through Tiny
and their sisters, but they could not, or rather would not, resist the
temptation to tease Johnny, when they saw the foolish annoyance which her
coming had caused him. It has often been noticed how a word, or even a
look, will turn the tide, in affairs like this, and even in much larger
ones, and Johnny’s bold championship of Katy had done this at once.
It was a good day for her when she invaded the playground, for Johnny
kept his word about showing her where to buy, and, knowing as he did the
things which would be most likely to sell well, the result was that,
after a few lessons, poor little Katy, who was slow rather than stupid,
began to show real judgment in her purchases. She was always modest and
quiet in her manner to the boys, and the result of this was that their
chaffing never passed the bounds of harmless fun. They called her “The
Daughter of the Regiment,” and threatened her with dire penalties, should
she not always come “first and foremost” to their playground with her new
stock.
“I’ve often thought, Tiny,” said Johnny, long afterward, when Katy had
made and saved enough to buy a second-hand counter, have shelves put
in the front room of the two which she and the old woman occupied, and
start a small but promising business. “I’ve often thought of how it would
have been if I _had_ cut and run. And it seems to me that the ‘way of
escape’—about temptations, you know—is right straight ahead!”