again, and then the boys strolled off to base-ball. “What’s up now?”
they wondered, as Dick struck off into the woods instead of joining
them. “Oh! it’s that fuss this morning. Dick’s riled; got some of the
old grit left.”
That morning Dick had made a mistake in putting an example in Long
Division on the board; while he was diligently hunting it up, the boys
in the back seat—of course Dick was yet in the lower classes—began
to chuckle and cough provokingly. Tom Lawrence wiggled his fingers
insultingly, and quick as a flash, Dick chalked out a head on the
board, unmistakably Tom’s, with a big balloon for a body.
“So that’s the way you do examples!” said Mr. Blackman, coming up just
as it was finished. “No wonder such a dunce calls nine times seven,
sixty-four. Rub that sum out, sir, and do it over.”
Now, of course, Dick was wrong and Mr. Blackman was right; only, if the
latter had known how hard Dick had studied that ninth table the night
before, for fear he should fail, and how patiently he was trying to
find his mistake when the boys began to laugh, he wouldn’t have spoken
just so. Dick was quick-tempered,—such natures always are,—and in a
trice he had swept figures and face from the board, and taken his seat.
“You are to put that example on the board again,” said the master; but
Dick was firm as a rock; he couldn’t,—wouldn’t,—shouldn’t.
There the matter stood. Until he did, and at the same time made a
public apology, Mr. Blackman would not consider him a pupil.
Dick sat down under a tree to think it over. Such a pity to leave
school just as he was trying to learn something; but—put that example
on the board again? He never could. Expelled! How grieved his mother
would be; but a public apology,—never! To be sure, he ought to obey
Mr. Blackman; he had really been trying to; but this,—this was too
hard. How could he?
What was it Tod said? “My _can_, ’cause your hand is so big.” How
queer that should remind him of his talk with old Aunty McFane, about
masters! What did she say?
“My Master will help over all the hard places if you ask him.”
His mother prayed, Dick knew, but he had never really felt like it
himself. God was so great; but then, he cared for the sparrows. He was
so great? Why, that was the very reason he could help everybody. What
was the text his mother had repeated only last Sabbath evening? “_I,
the Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not,
I will help thee._”
The boys stared the next morning, and some of them, I am sorry to say,
sneered a little, when Dick, after saying, “I am sorry, sir,” went
resolutely to work upon his example again; but Mr. Blackman shook him
heartily by the hand, remarking,—
“Only keep on in this way, Dick, my boy, and you’ll surely make a
worthy man as well as a fine scholar.”
And Dick, with a bright smile on his face, thought, “‘My can,’ because
God’s hand is ‘so big,’ and he does help folks when they ask him.”
IX.
BELL’S BARGAIN.
And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?
And he answered, I have found _thee_: because thou hast sold
thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.
Bell Forbush had told something very private to at least fifteen of the
girls, nothing more or less than that her Cousin Mate, the dearest,
prettiest cousin anybody ever had, was coming to stay at her house two
whole months. She was grown up, and very stylish, so rich she didn’t
know what to do with her money, and yet so good everybody loved her
almost to death. For weeks after her arrival Bell regaled the girls
with descriptions of Miss Marvin’s dresses and jewelry, the latter
having a special fascination for Bell, particularly a necklace and
cross, to possess which, she more than once hinted to Cousin Mate,
would make her perfectly happy.
“My mother gave it to me just before she died,” her cousin had said
very sadly, which ought to have made it sacred in Bell’s eyes. _She_
had a father, mother, and two big brothers, while poor Cousin Mate was
an orphan, with no nearer relative than Bell’s mamma. She was very kind
to the little girl, too, letting her wear her coral pin and bracelets
to school, and opening the pretty ebony jewel-case whenever Bell wanted
to feast her eyes on the pearls and rubies inside.
But oh, that necklace and cross! There was nothing quite like that.
Bell tried it on over all her dresses, and lay awake nights fancying
how she would look at church in it, and what Nettie Rand would say to
see her wearing such an elegant thing.
About this time Jenny King had a birthday. It came on Saturday, and
she made a tea-party for her friends. Bell’s new white piqué was just
finished, and Cousin Mate had given her a wide blue sash to wear with
it. If she could only have the necklace and cross!
Wasn’t it queer Cousin Mate should happen to go away the day before, to
stay over the Sabbath? Had she taken the necklace with her? Bell crept
up-stairs just at dusk to see. Didn’t Cousin Mate always let her look
at it whenever she liked? and, yes, there was the tiny key left in the
ebony casket. Suppose she should wear it, what harm would it do? Cousin
Mate would never know it, and it was only borrowing, any way. To be
sure, she ought to ask leave, but—
Bell kept thinking it over,—how beautiful the soft shimmer of gold
would be in the lace at the neck of her dress, and how the lovely pearl
cross would gleam out from among the blue ribbons.
The more she thought, the more it seemed she really must. It wasn’t so
very wrong, and something might happen: Miss Marvin might think it was
lost, and she could keep it for her very own. At break of day she stole
into the spare room again, and slipped the chain into the pocket of her
new dress, ready to put on when she reached Mrs. King’s.
“I—mother—mother was afraid I—might lose it—under my shawl,” she
explained to that lady, who offered to clasp it for her, saying, It
is something quite new, isn’t it, dear?——”
“Oh! it—it is Cousin Mate’s; she—she lent it to me,” stammered Bell.
“I didn’t believe it was yours,” said Nettie Rand, provokingly.
“It isn’t mine yet,” returned Bell, reddening, “but Cousin Mate has
just as good as promised it to me.”
Ah, Bell! there is no addition like that Satan sets us to do.
But how heavy the little chain grew before night! or was it the sense
of wrong-doing made the time drag so wearily to Bell, and made her so
glad to wrap her shawl over the long-coveted possession and hurry home
through the dusk? Who should meet her on the steps but Cousin Mate
herself, returned unexpectedly, and ready, as she always was, to take
off the little girl’s hat and give her a kiss.
“I—I—it’s cold,” said Bell, holding her shawl tightly
together,—“and—and I want—something up-stairs.”
Straight to the spare chamber she hurried, and unpinned her shawl. _The
necklace was gone._ She looked on the floor, on the stairs, shook her
shawl and wrung her hands; but it was surely gone. It was there when
she left Mrs. King’s. If she had only put it in her pocket! but she was
afraid Nettie Rand would laugh. She couldn’t go back. Would anybody
find it? Should she ever see it again?
She went slowly down to the parlor.
“It’s very strange,” mamma was saying, “Katy has been with us too long
to doubt her honesty, but this new second-girl,—it must be. Of course
the chain could not go off without hands. I took the poor girl out of
pity, and she has seemed so anxious to please. Oh dear! there’s no
knowing whom to trust.”
Bell slid into a chair, pale and trembling. So Cousin Mate had missed
her chain, and thought the new girl had taken it. Her first feeling
was one of relief. Then she wondered if they would send the poor girl
to states-prison, and what the end of it would be.
“You are all tired out, aren’t you, dear? playing so hard,” remarked
her mother, by and by. “You had better go straight to bed.”
Cousin Mate offered to go up with her as she often had of late. Bell
talked as fast as she could, pulling off half her boot buttons in her
haste. As she stood up to have her dress unfastened, something slid
to the floor,—something bright and shining; and there it lay,—the
necklace, telling its own story. Bell sank in a little tumbled heap
beside it, covering her face with both hands.
“Oh, my little Bell! would you have sold yourself for that?” asked
Cousin Mate, dropping down in turn beside her, and drawing the whole
little heap into her lap. “Would you have sold yourself for that?” she
repeated, uncovering the shame-stricken eyes with one hand, and holding
up the necklace with the other.
“Sell myself!” echoed Bell, wonderingly.
[Illustration: “Oh my little Bell, would you have sold yourself for
that?”—Page 70.]
“Yes; you know Satan is always trying to make bargains with us. Did you
stop to think how much you paid him for this? First, that most precious
of all gems—TRUTH, which you can wear forever in Heaven,
while this, you know, moth and rust can corrupt, and thieves steal away
from you. And then did you forget, Bell, that this sin, unrepented of,
could shut you out of heaven? Would you give up that beautiful home for
this poor little trinket, my darling? And didn’t you forget, too, that
God was looking down upon you, so grieved and sorry? Wasn’t it a _very_
poor bargain, dear? Would you take the necklace for your very own at
such a price?”
“No, no! I never want to see it again,” sobbed Bell. “Oh! what shall I
do?”
“I will tell you what God said once to his disobedient people,” said
Cousin Mate, softly: “‘_Ye have sold yourselves for nought_,’ ‘_Ye
shall be redeemed without money_.’ You know _how_ He ‘redeemed’ them,
Bell, and Who it is that ‘was wounded for _our_ transgressions.’”
X.
WALKING WITH GOD.
And Enoch walked with God and he _was_ not; for God took him.
Miss Cox, Sue’s Sabbath School teacher, was absent, and Miss Marvin,
Bell’s cousin, heard the class. Bell was in it, and Nettie Rand, Jenny
King, Sarah Ellis, Dick Vance, Robert Rand, Varney Lowe, and Will
Carter,—five girls and four boys. The lesson was on Elijah, and the
boys were exceedingly interested in speculations about the chariot of
fire, its probable appearance, and did Miss Marvin think Enoch had a
chariot too?
“It seems the writer of Enoch’s memoir thought that of very little
importance; at least, he said nothing about it,” rejoined Miss Marvin,
smiling. “But then he only used fifty-three words any way; and yet how
much we seem to know about Enoch. Did you ever think of it?”
“Memoirs are awfully stupid; most always there’s three volumes,” said
Varney Lowe.
“Paul wrote the second volume of Enoch’s,” said Miss Marvin. “You will
find it in Hebrews, eleventh chapter, fifth verse. But there are only
thirty-two words in that.”
“It doesn’t say much in Genesis,” said Jenny King, who had opened her
Bible, “only how long he lived and that Methuselah was his son.”
“And that God took him,” added Sarah Ellis, who had opened her Bible
too.
“One other and best thing of all, twice repeated,—don’t you see it?”
asked Miss Marvin.
“Oh, yes; that ‘he walked with God’; but I never could understand
really what it meant.”
“What is the first thing necessary when two people walk together?”
“To keep step,” answered Will Carter, who was captain of the “Young
Rangers.”
“And to do that they must be agreed, mustn’t they? have one common
impulse, do the same thing.”
“But we _can’t_ do what God does,” said Sarah Ellis, in a tone of
surprise.
“Can’t we? What does God do?”
“Why, he makes everything and keeps making it beautiful, and takes care
of everything and everybody.”
“And isn’t that what he wants us to do? to help beautify this world
of his, just the little bit right around us, helping ourselves and
others up into better things as fast and as far as we can? I think that
was what Enoch did. What else is necessary for people to walk happily
together?”
“They must like the same things,” said Dick, “or they won’t have
anything to talk about.”
“Very true: Enoch must have loved what God loved, and so should we. God
loves truth and holiness, everything pure and noble and good, and he
hates sin. What next?”
“They must love each other,” suggested Sue.
“Yes, indeed; two will never walk together long unless they love one
another. God loves everybody, and Enoch must have loved God or he
couldn’t have walked with him. God said to those who refused to walk
in his ways, ‘_All day long have I stretched forth my hand, but no
man regardeth_.’ That reminds me of what I saw coming to church this
morning. A gentleman was walking across the fields, with a dear little
yellow-haired boy beside him, who tried his best to take as long steps
as his father.”
“I most know it was Tod,” whispered Sue.
“You all know the stepping-stones across the marsh where the mud is so
black,” continued Miss Marvin. “The stones are some ways apart, and the
little fellow drew back doubtfully; but after a while, taking hold of
his father’s hand, he began jumping from one to the other. Perhaps you
remember a little stream of water trickles between the last two stones,
and there he stopped again. His father smiled, and held out his other
hand, and without waiting a second the boy seized hold of it and sprang
across, straight into his father’s arms. I saw the gentleman hold him
tightly, and give him half a dozen kisses before he set him down. He
was so glad, you see, to have his little son trust him so entirely.
Now, it seems to me that is the way Enoch ‘walked with God.’ Paul says
‘he pleased God,’ and I think it was because he trusted Him, just as
that little boy did his father. God is our father, you know, strong and
wise enough to lead us.”
Tinkle, tinkle went the superintendent’s bell.
“I wish you’d hear our class next Sabbath,” said Dick. “Miss Cox never
tells us anything only what’s in the book.”
“There is more in the book than we can ever learn,” said Miss Marvin,
pleasantly. “We want to help each other find out what it means and obey
it. I’ll tell you what I will do. If you will all come to Bell’s next
Saturday night we will study the lesson together,—as many as would
like to, I mean.”
“May I come?” asked Maybee, who had stopped to wait for Sue.
“Yes, indeed, the more the better; and I’ve a pretty bit of poetry
perhaps you will like to learn. Now, good-by.”
“Don’t you think—does it seem quite fair—you know it would be so much
nicer to go up in a chariot than to be sick and die; and to think only
just two! Shouldn’t you like it better?” asked Sarah Ellis, lingering
till the others were all gone.
Miss Marvin glanced out at the open door, from which the elegant
carriage belonging to the child’s uncle, Esquire Ellis, had just driven
away, then back to the faded muslin dress and plain straw hat beside
her. Sarah’s mother was a widow, and supported herself and daughter by
doing fine sewing.
“We must remember this,” she said, slowly, looking down into the
uplifted eyes: “if we really _trust_ God he will surely lead us by the
very best way to himself; and when we are with him _up there_ it will
make little difference _how_ he took us from _down here_.”
“I must send _her_ my ‘Brown-Haired Bess’ that I’ve promised Maybee,”
said Miss Marvin to herself, as Sarah walked thoughtfully away. “I
believe the ‘hidden life’ is beginning to show in that sweet, earnest
face.”
XI.
BROWN-HAIRED BESS.
“They said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha.” 2 Kings
2:15.
Fan, handkerchief, and gloves in waiting lay;
She turned them gently over,—brown-haired Bess,
Stroked each one fondly, then looked up to say,
“There’s lilies, mamma, in your drawer, I guess.”
Mamma smiled down upon the upturned face,
And ’gainst the rosy cheek she softly laid
A letter. “Oh! they made it in the place
Where violets blossom,” said the little maid.
All out of sight and sound played noisy Fred;
Came in, so happy, when the sun went down.
“Out in the field you’ve been,” his mother said,
“Among the clover and the grass, new-mown.”
“How could you tell? Oh! I know,” laughed the boy,
“I’ve caught the sweet, and brought it all away;
Just so, you said, I’d bring a pain or joy,
As with the bad or good I chose to play.
“And in my lesson on the apostles bold,
It said, ‘They’d been with Jesus.’ Did it mean
They brought away the pleasant things he told,
And showed to other men what they had seen?”
So brown-haired Bess, trying the livelong day,
To be obedient, patient, loving, true,
Serving the Master in her child-like way,
Can show as plainly as the violets blue
The fragrance of a life “hid evermore
With God, in Christ.” Lord, humbly we implore
Thy Spirit on each little child may rest,
And make them, one and all, forever blest!
XII.
MAYBEE’S STEPPING-STONES.
“But God _is_ the judge; he putteth down one, and setteth up
another.”
A hard, driving, northeast storm. No hope of its breaking away at
noon; no getting out with water-proof and rubbers, even; no Sabbath
School,—“nothing but a great, long, dull, tiresome day,” Sue said,
sitting down to breakfast with a face as cloudy as the sky.
“’Thout papa preaches, and mamma sings, and we make-believe meeting
it,” rejoined Maybee, inclined to find a bright side.
Around the breakfast-table on Sabbath mornings, everybody at Mr.
Sherman’s was expected to recite a text of Scripture, and that morning
it happened papa and Maybee had chosen the same one: “_But God is the
judge; he putteth down one, and setteth up another._”
“Suppose,” said papa, “we take that for a text, and write a
sermon,—Sue, Maybee, and I; Sue, with her Concordance, shall look
out in the Bible the sort of people God ‘putteth down’ and ‘setteth
up’; and Maybee, with mamma’s help, shall find the names of some of
them. Then, when I come back from morning service, we’ll put our heads
together and make an application.”
What a short forenoon it seemed! Right after lunch they were to meet in
the library. Maybee drew a big chair behind papa’s desk for a pulpit,
and placed the chairs in rows for the pews. Then it occurred to her,
with mamma for choir, there was nobody left for congregation, and she
coaxed Bridget in from the kitchen, rather against that individual’s
inclination.
First they sang the Sabbath School hymn, “Better than thrones”; then
papa prayed a short prayer, so simple Maybee could understand every
word, after which he gave out the text, and called upon Sue for her
part of the sermon. Sue had it neatly written out, and read,—
GOD IS THE JUDGE.
Those that walk in pride he is Yet setteth he the poor on high
able to abase. from affliction, and maketh
_him_ families like a flock.
He casteth the wicked down to The Lord lifteth up the meek.
the ground.
Thine heart was lifted up because Humble yourselves in the sight
of thy beauty; thou hast of the Lord, and he shall lift
corrupted thy wisdom by reason you up.
of thy brightness: I will cast
thee to the ground.
There are the workers of iniquity Because he hath set his love
fallen: they are cast down, upon me, therefore will I
and shall not be able to rise. deliver him. I will set him
on high, because he hath known
my name.
For the arms of the wicked But the Lord upholdeth the
shall be broken. righteous.
“Very well. Now, Maybee.”—
And Maybee counted off on her fingers, carefully using her right hand
for the good men, “Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon”; and then with
her left hand, “Pharaoh, Saul, Jeroboam,—and—and—I can’t think, but
lots of little bits of kings what wouldn’t mind him.”
“Does the text mean God always promotes the good and puts down the
wicked?” asked papa.
“Oh, it can’t,” returned Sue, “because there’s Esq. Ellis, ever so
rich, and he never goes to church; and Say Ellis’s mother is real poor,
and just as good as she can be. And you know Varney Lowe’s father has
failed, and everybody calls him good.”
“They don’t live in the Bible,—that’s why,” said Maybee. “God put all
my wicked folks right down, and let all the good ones have real nice
times.”
“How was it with poor David when he was hiding away from Saul?”
“Oh, I see!” cried Sue. “It means He will, sometime; but”—and her face
clouded again—“there’s Aunty McFane, just as patient and good; she’s
always had dreadful times, and she’s so old she can’t live a great
while longer.”
“God may not think best to ‘lift her up,’ till he takes her to
himself,” observed mamma.
“Then we can’t tell anything about it, now, as they did in the Bible.”
“Don’t you remember when we went to the review of troops,” said her
father, “we couldn’t see any order or reason in all the marching and
counter-marching; but there was the General on horse-back, with all the
whys and wherefores in his mind. We could see it a little more plainly
after we climbed that high hill, and looked right down upon them. And
so when we ‘get up higher,’ we may know more of God’s plans than we do
down here. Meanwhile, the text is to teach us, that he is the great
Commander and Judge, doing just what he pleases with his creatures. It
is for us to trust he will work out the very best plan possible.”
“I can’t just see why he lets good folks have any bad times,” said
Maybee.
“Once, when you and Tod were very little, you were making mud-pies in
the garden, having a splendid time; and Aunt Sue came and took Tod away
to be washed and dressed. They were all going to a picnic on Beech
Island, where he would have ever so much more fun; but the poor little
fellow couldn’t understand that, and screamed and cried all the time
they were getting him ready.”
“Getting ready’s horrid, anyway,” said Maybee.
“Oh no,” said Sue, “not if we keep thinking of what is going to be.”
“That’s it,” said papa. “And we are put into this world to ‘get ready’
for heaven. You know we must be washed in the blood of Christ and
clothed with his righteousness before we can enter that beautiful land,
and when God takes anything from us that would hinder our getting
ready, we need not mind when we think of what is ‘going to be.’ I
remember, too, how afraid Tod was that day, of the cars and boat, and
how he fretted because Uncle Thed wouldn’t let him walk instead of
carrying him over the sand and rocks. So we often grumble at things in
our lives,—things God means shall help us along faster towards heaven.
We are always wanting to try our own ways.”
“Just as I did the time Maybee was lost,” said Sue. “I think I shall
always be sure mother knows best, now.”
“And that is a long step towards trusting our Father in heaven,” said
papa pleasantly.
“Oh, oh! see the sun!” cried Maybee; “and there’s Uncle Thed and Tod
going home from church.”
“Guess my new wubber boots wasn’t afwaid of the wain,” said Tod,
running in and holding up one foot triumphantly. “We comed over the
stepping-stones, too. Oh, my! an’ the mud’s all water, now; covers ’em
most up.”
“Those stepping-stones are just a nuisance,” remarked Sue. “I wish
they’d build a nice plank walk over the marsh.”
“My don’t,” said Tod. “It’s weal fun to take tight hold of papa’s hand
and let him step you wight along.”
Uncle Thed lifted Tod on his knee.
“Were you having a meeting here, and isn’t it through?” he asked.
“We were just seeing how far we’d got to heaven; I mean, how was the
best way,” said Maybee. “And Sue was so frightened when Tod and me was
lost, she won’t never do so again. That’s a step, you know.”
“Dick an’ me isn’t never going to say ‘By funder’ no more, neither,”
said Tod complacently.
“Isn’t Dick just as different as can be?” said Sue. “Only think, mamma,
if you hadn’t gone into Aunty McFane’s that day—”
“Oh, yes,” put in Maybee, “I’m going always to b’lieve God takes care
of everybody when they ask him.”
“And how little squirrels ought to mind their masters, and boys too, my
guesses,” added Tod, reminded of Aunty McFane’s story.
“Dick told Miss Marvin the other Sabbath,” said Sue, “that he wished
everybody knew what a good master God was. Will Carter laughed, and
coming home he asked Dick how many prayers he said a day. I know Dick
was real angry, he turned so red and then white, and he didn’t speak
for ever so long. Then he asked Will if he didn’t like to ask his
father for things he wanted, and why one need to be any more ashamed of
praying. Say Ellis said she wished she could walk with God the way Miss
Marvin said it meant. Do you believe children can?”
“Why not?” said Mr. Sherman, “if they do as Tod does about the
stepping-stones,—take fast hold of God’s hand and let him lead them.”
“And then they’ll be like ‘Brown-Haired Bess,’ and folks’ll know
they’re ’quainted with Jesus,” said Maybee.
“Guess they’d better have their own papa,” put in Tod. “Ain’t any use
to ask th’ other folks.”