the Good and the True and Beautiful,—how they of themselves will help
men up, and how Reason teaches us all we need to know, and about matter
and law and evolution. I couldn’t understand it any more than I could
father’s free agency and election, but it made me feel easier, and
didn’t say _do_ anything in particular, so I liked to think it might
be true. Queer, wasn’t it, Bill Finnegan should be the one to open my
eyes? but queerer yet, as he said, that I or anybody could ever forget
or not care that Christ died for us.”
Dick looked thoughtful. “It seems stranger anybody can believe there
is a God, and not care to know about Him or try to please Him, than it
does not to believe in Him at all, like Mr. Blackman. I wonder if he
reads the Bible? He never goes to church. Would you dare ask him to?”
“To go to church? Mr. Blackman? No, indeed!—that is, I shouldn’t like
to. He is so much older, and he turns up his nose,—that is, he makes
you feel as if it was all nonsense.”
“But it ought not to make us feel so. If he should turn up his nose at
the sun, we shouldn’t think any the less of it. I’ve a good mind to. It
would come a little tough to say anything of that sort to him, but—I
guess I could.”
“I do wish you would, then. Oh, dear! you are so much braver than I,
Dick, about these things.”
“Oh! that’s something in the grain, I guess, but I don’t see why we
should be ashamed of our Master. It would be mean enough for us to feel
ashamed of Bill Finnegan anywhere after what he did for us; and Jesus
Christ has done so much more, besides being God’s own Son and the Lord
of heaven and earth.”
That evening Mr. Blackman’s bell rang,—the very faintest tingle;
but when he opened the door, Dick looked him straight in the face,
his honest blue eyes full of eager longing. “Please, Mr. Blackman,
I called—I don’t know how to say it,—but I—I wish—you was a
Christian. Couldn’t you—won’t you go to the meeting to-night?”
The Bible tells of a certain king who went into battle disguised, and
who supposed himself quite safe, covered as he was with a strong armor;
but somebody drew a bow at a venture and smote him between the joints
of his breastplate and killed him.
Now, Mr. Blackman prided himself that nothing Conscience or anybody
else might say about God and religion ever had made or ever could make
the least impression upon his armor of arguments and proofs; but just
those few simple words, so earnestly spoken, found a crevice somewhere,
and struck right home to his heart.
“What makes you wish so?” he asked, taking the boy’s hand.
“Because—because you’re so good and kind and know most everything, and
God wants just such men for his servants. Besides, you couldn’t help
loving Him if you knew Him.”
“Do you think so? Well, suppose I go to-night, just to please you,” and
Mr. Blackman reached at once for his hat.
Dea. Carter looked at Mr. Sampson, and Mr. Sampson said “Thank God!” in
his heart when the two came in together.
Mr. Blackman was an excellent teacher for the older pupils, and had a
great deal of influence over them; many a parent had been praying it
might yet weigh on the Lord’s side. Who shall say that was _not_ the
reason Dick’s bold effort for the Master was so successful?
“He went to please me, that night,” Dick said joyfully, some four weeks
later. “Now I guess he goes to please himself. I’m _so_ glad I asked
him.”
And well you may be, Dick; only remember the results are not always
thus speedy and pleasant; but all the same, _never_ be ashamed of your
Master.
XII.
MAYBEE’S “PREACH” AND PRACTICE.
“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have
kept the faith.”
A bit of black crape hung from the door of the little red house in the
woods.
Aunty McFane had gone home.
Kind friends placed the poor wasted body in the plain coffin, covered
it with fragrant flowers, and laid it away under the new-fallen snow.
“Fought the fight, the victory won!” sang Maybee that night, sitting in
her little rocker before the open fire.
“I shouldn’t think you’d sing wight after you’ve been to a fooneral,”
said Tod, curled up on the hearth-rug.
“Why, they sung it to-day, right beside the coffin,” said Maybee,
“and mamma ’xplained it to me coming home, how Aunty McFane has been
fighting most seventy-seven years, and trusted Jesus all the whole
time, and how she has got through, and gone to stay with Him always.”
“Wimmins don’t fight,” said Tod, disbelievingly.
“Yes, they do; everybody does that kind of fighting. Don’t you know our
Sabbath School hymn says,—
“‘I’m glad I’m in this army’?”
“Yes, but I thought it meant when we march Fourth of Julys and have
flags and cannon and evewyfing.”
“Why, The-od-o-re Smith! I’m surprised! Don’t you know what fighting
means, the Bible way? Suppose it’s time for you to go to bed and you
don’t want to. It’s the ‘_don’t want to_’ you fight with, and if you
beat and go straight along, just as aunty says, all pleasant, that’s
being a conqueror; but if you don’t—”
“I’m weal hungwy, ain’t you?” interposed Tod. “Let’s go out and
snowball so ’twill be supper-time quicker.”
Maybee was nothing loth, and after a nice frolic they sat down on the
steps to rest and make snow images.
“Wouldn’t you like to be a sure-enough soldier?” asked Maybee, rolling
up a tiny ball for a head.
“I’d wather be a cap’n or a gen’wal,” said Tod, “an wide a horse, and
have folks say ‘Hurwah’!”
“Yes, but everybody can’t be generals, ’cause who’d carry the guns? And
you know we can be ever so much greater.”
“No; how?”
“We can be greater than Napoleon or George Washington. The Bible says
so. My mamma showed me the verse. It says, ‘_He that is slow to anger
is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that
taketh a city._’”
“What is wuling his spiwit?” asked Tod.
“Oh, it’s being real mad and not saying a single word till you feel
pleasant. I guess it means _feel_ right, soon as you can, too. I’ll
show you. There comes Tom Lawrence and Jack Mullin. They’ll be sure
to say something awful provoking, and I shall be just as polite.
Good-morning, Tom—I mean good-afternoon.”
“Did anybody speak—I mean squeal?” queried Tom, staring all around. “I
saw a couple of magpies—no; ’pon my word, one is a bumble-bee. Hear it
buzz, now.”
But Maybee worked on without a word.
“Oh, she’s mad; regular spitfire, _she_ is. I wonder what she’s
making,—a duck or a toad.”
Maybee reddened, but rejoined quite cheerfully, “Tod’s making a house.
Mine is a soldier, and this stick is for a gun.”
“Look out, then! Here comes one of Carter’s three-hundred-pounders,”
and sending a huge snowball over the fence, the two boys moved
leisurely on.
It fell directly on the roof of Tod’s house, quite demolishing it.
“Never mind,” said Maybee, pulling a feather out of the wing on her
hat, to stick in her soldier’s cap. “You saw how pleasant I was, didn’t
you?”
“They didn’t skwush _your_ house all to nuffin, an’ you was just
showing off, _you_ was. I wish I could fump ’em,” said Tod, excitedly.
“That’s very wicked; you can’t be one of Christ’s soldiers and wish
such bad things,” said Maybee, plastering a knapsack on to her soldier.
“I do, sometimes,” she added, more humbly, “but I don’t mean to ever
again,—much,” and she began singing, louder than before,
“Fought the fight, the victory won.”
Tod worked away, rebuilding his house, putting on _two_ “chimleys” this
time. By and by, just as Maybee was giving the finishing touch to her
image, he reached over for a fresh handful of snow, lost his balance,
and in trying to recover himself, managed to hit the poor soldier in
the breast with his elbow, leaving him a shapeless ruin.
Maybee’s black eyes blazed. “Tod Smith! you did it a purpose.”
“Yes’m,” said Tod, sitting coolly down and facing her.
She turned quickly, and lifted one foot. Another moment and Tod’s
pretty cottage, with its “merandah” and bay-window, would have shared
the fate of its predecessor; but a better thought came suddenly to
Maybee, in the words of her song,—
“Fought the fight, the victory won.”
A _real_ victory this would be,—no make-believe, no mere
“showing-off,” as Tod had called it; and to tell the truth, she _did_
feel just like the Pharisee mamma read about all the time she was
being so polite, but _now_ she was—oh, so dreadfully angry! If she
_could_ speak pleasant, wouldn’t that be “ruling her spirit,” “real,
sure-enough.”
“I’ll try not to mind,” she said, slowly. “Let’s build some more
houses, a whole village; yours is so pretty.”
“Oh, my gwief!” ejaculated Tod. “I wanted to see if you _would_ fight
that Bible way, an’ you _did_, an’ I’m awful sorwy I made you, ’twas
such a splendid soldier.”
“I just wanted to show it to papa,” sighed Maybee, furtively wiping
away a few tears.
Tod sprang up, and set both feet squarely on the dainty snow-house.
“There! my’ll punish my’s own self,” he cried, forgetting his
nominative case in his excitement. “My is sorwy as my can be, my never
will do so again. Please, won’t you forgive my this time?” and putting
both arms around her neck, the little fellow burst into tears.
“I declare, there must be a thaw,—such a freshet! What _is_ the
matter?” asked Dick Vance, coming up the walk, and sitting down beside
them.
Tod explained as well as he could.
“I don’t feel much bad now,” said Maybee, “but I think that kind of
fighting is better to _talk_ about than ’tis to _do_! Seems’s if it
was a miser’ble kind of a world,—the good times all chopped up so you
can’t get only the littlest bit to once.”
“That’s so,” said Dick, gravely. “I’ve just been riled myself, and know
how it feels.”
“Did you fump ’em, or fight th’ other way,” inquired Tod, eagerly.
“I’m afraid I ‘fumped,’—that is, I felt real cross—”
“What’s the matter with you?” laughed Sue, coming out on the piazza.
“Oh! it’s Tom and Jack. You know they don’t come to Sabbath School
scarcely any, now, but they keep promising to, and just now, when I
asked them, they were so awfully provoking. I don’t believe I’ll ever
say another word to them.”
“We mustn’t forget it’s a fight for life,” said Sue, gently. “You see,
I’ve been talking with mother about this very thing. I do so want
Bell to be a Christian, and I get _so_ discouraged. But mother says a
soldier must not expect to win every battle with the first shot. Some
places have to be besieged for months. And she says the very hardest
kind of fighting is waiting patiently and bearing meekly, because it
is then we get discouraged and give up trying. So I’m going to keep on
praying for Bell and do everything I can. And we must remember how wild
Tom has always been—”
“I’d better remember I was just as bad, and might not have been a bit
better now if I hadn’t been shut right up there with Aunty McFane. Oh,
how good she did use to talk!”
“Dear old aunty! Isn’t it nice to think of her up in heaven, all well
and happy? Think what a Christmas she will have.”
“O me! I’d most forgot the miser’blest thing of all,” broke in Maybee,
dolefully. “Uncle Thed isn’t going to have any Christmas tree. I heard
him tell mamma so.”
“Not have any Christmas tree!” exclaimed Sue and Tod together.
“That is as you say,” said mamma, standing in the door. “He will leave
it all to you. Come in to supper now and we will talk it over,—you,
too, Dick, for if we decide on the new plan you may like to join us.”
They listened with wide-open eyes while she told them that, because
of the hard times, a great many little boys and girls would have no
Christmas at all, no presents, no dinner even; that what Uncle Thed’s
annual Christmas party, tree, presents, supper and all cost would go
a great ways towards making such children happy, and if they would
agree to go without their nice presents, Uncle Thed would help them
make out a list of names; they should decide on a present for each one,
and Christmas Eve they could go around and leave the parcels on the
doorsteps.
“Oh, oh! in a sleigh an’ eight tiny weindeer, just like St. Nicholas!”
screamed Tod. “Won’t that be nice?”
“With Steady and Frolic instead of the reindeer,” laughed mamma.
“That would be a little bit nice,” said Maybee, gravely. “And then
there’ll be the miser’ble part,—not having a single thing our own
selves.”
“Not exactly so; we’ll make each other some little pretty present not
costing any more than what we give the poor children. But take plenty
of time to think it over before you decide,” said mamma.
XIII.
UNCLE THED’S CHRISTMAS PLAN.
“I count all things but loss for the excellency of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.”
The children could talk of little else. They thought over it, slept
over it, and one at least cried over it. Maybee had so set her heart
on a little cooking-stove like cousin Daisy’s and a new doll with a
Saratoga outfit. And Daisy’s papa, who lived in New York, and who,
whenever he could not come himself and bring the twins, always sent
such _elegant_ presents to them all, might,—who knew? But now, Uncle
Thed wanted them to ask Uncle Grant to send the money instead, unless
he preferred giving it to poor children in the city. It would be just
the _forlornest_ Christmas!
“But not to have the least bit of a present nor any dinner either would
be forlorner yet,” said Sue, who had as secretly been hoping for a
pearl ring like Bell Forbush’s, and found the hope almost as hard to
give up as the ring itself. She had decided, however, to try the new
plan; so had Jenny King, Will Carter and his sister Nanny, and Dick
Vance. Bell declared it the most ridiculous nonsense; they would be
sorry enough when they saw her presents. Her mamma was going to have
a tree, and invite Esq. Ellis’s family. Miss Georgiana was engaged to
her brother Walter, and most likely the ’Squire would bring something
_perfectly superb_.
“Well, but—”
Sue laid a warning hand over Maybee’s mouth. It was not to be told
how one day the ’Squire met Tod and Maybee on the street and asked
them what they wanted for a Christmas present; and how, when they
told him Uncle Thed’s plan, he laid a five-dollar bill in each little
palm. _That_ money was to provide new winter cloaks, trimmed with fur,
for Say and Tilly Ellis. You see, Say had asked if she might _make_
something for the poor children, because her mother “never gave her
anything that cost money, and there was nobody else to.”
Nobody else! And the ’Squire, her father’s own brother, rolling in
riches, with only an old grudge to hinder him from making the widow’s
and orphans’ hearts sing for joy, once a year at least.
“It is his own loss,” thought Uncle Thed, taking Say’s thin, pale face
between his two hands, and leaving a fatherly kiss on the pleading
lips, Maybee all the while tugging at his coat and making almost
audible demonstrations of her wonder what would be done with the two
cloaks if Say was allowed to be of the party.
“We’ll send Jackson with them while you are gone,” whispered mamma; and
away danced Maybee to charge Nanny Carter “not to breathe one single
word about cloaks to a living soul, ’specially Say Ellis.”
What a long list they made out! Thirty-four names, among which were
the McFanes,—Mose and little Peter,—the Hartes, Judy Ryan, Bill
Finnegan, Jack Mullin, Benny Cargill and his mother, Abby and Jakey
Flynn, Molly Dinah, and some half dozen Catholic families suffering
from the dulness of business at the Mills.
The Hartes lived very comfortably now, Dan having steady work at the
’Squire’s; but sickness and the “hard times” would prevent their
indulging in anything but necessities. Jack Mullin lived with his
uncle, a hard, close-fisted man, never known to give his own children a
penny’s worth.
“Jack doesn’t deserve a thing, any way,—he acts so,” said Jenny King.
“But none of us deserve anything,” said Sue, “and you know Christ said
His Father was ‘good to the unthankful and the evil.’”
And Jack’s name was added, although Maybee demurred about trying to
“mind the whole Bible to once.”
It was real fun deciding what each one would like. The children puzzled
their heads over it a week, and then the wonderful order went to Uncle
Grant to be filled.
Christmas Eve was as clear and cold and shining as crystal and
moonshine could make it. The big and little bundles, tied and ticketed
with due care, nearly filled the double sleigh, but Uncle Thed
contrived to squeeze in the whole party besides. Of course they left
the bells at home, and the little tongues managed to keep tolerably
quiet as they skimmed lightly along.
I wish I could tell you what they left at each house, and how sometimes
they looked in at the windows and watched them undo the parcels; and
how Mrs. Harte was in the front room alone, fastening three bits of
candle, half a dozen cornballs, as many tiny bags of candy, and one or
two penny picture-books to the scrawniest little bush, and how, when
she left the room a minute, Uncle Thed raised the loose sash, dropped
the big bundle under the bit of pine, and hurried away as fast as he
could; how Tod begged to hang the basket on Molly Dinah’s door, and how
the infirm old latch suddenly uncaught, and the roast chicken, round
yellow apples, Tod, and two mince pies rolled in all together, and
how Molly Dinah laughed and hugged him, and then sat down and cried
over the merino dress Sue handed her; how the little Mullins clapped
their hands when Jack cut the string of the big brown-paper parcel; and
how they saw Abby Flynn’s mother, after she had filled the two little
stockings hung beside the old cracked stove with the toys she found in
the bundle of bright plaids and nice warm flannel, go softly into the
little bedroom and kneel down beside the bed on which the children lay
fast asleep.
“Oh, it has been so much better than pearl rings!” said Sue, when the
horses’ heads were at last turned homeward.
“Wait till other folks show you their things, and you haven’t got
nothing much yourself,” sighed Maybee. “I ’xpect to feel miser’ble
then.”
“You couldn’t feel miserable if you should try,” said Dick. “Seems as
if this was the first _real_ Christmas I ever had.”
“I don’t envy Bell the least bit,” said Jenny, as they passed the
brilliantly-lighted house.
“There’ll be something miser’ble, even to a party,” said Maybee,
brightening. “If it isn’t anything else, it’ll be the fruit-cake; the
molasses or something’ll make you, oh, just as sick! when you’ve most
pretty near ate enough. But then, I s’pose the miser’ble times run
along between the good ones same’s the mud and mire down to the marsh,
and we’d better jump right over and never mind.”
“Then the good times are stepping-stones,” added Sue. “So much better
than a plank walk, you know Tod said.”
“Hasn’t this been a bouncer?” laughed Dick. “I wonder how Bill likes
his skates and the other fixings. I wish Rob could have come with us,
but Nettie wouldn’t hear a word to it.”
“I know that money Rob gave me was some his grandfather sent him to buy
a pistol with,” said Will. “Rob asked if I thought it would be any like
a ‘thank-offering.’ We boys have enough to be thankful for this year,
without any presents.”
“Not forgetting the Gift for which none of us can ever be thankful
enough,” rejoined Uncle Thed. “Beside that, all temporal blessings
and deliverances are as nothing,—God’s best Gift to dying men, the
Lord Jesus Christ, a saving knowledge of whom makes the only ‘real
Christmas.’ Suppose we sing one verse of our Christmas Carol.”
Out upon the clear, frosty air floated the happy voices:—
“Merry, Merry Christmas everywhere!
Cheerily it ringeth through the air.
Christmas bells, Christmas trees,
Christmas odors on the breeze.
Merry, Merry Christmas everywhere!
Cheerily it ringeth through the air.
Deeds of Faith and Charity,
These our off’rings be,
Leading every soul to sing,
_Christ was born for me!_”
Transcriber’s note:
Punctuation has been standardised; spaces have been removed from
contractions. Hyphenation and spelling have been retained as they
appear in the original publication except as follows:
Page 39
He eat so much he _changed to_
He ate so much he
Page 68
isn’t it, dear? “——” _changed to_
isn’t it, dear?——”
Page 84
and Say Ellis’ mother is real poor _changed to_
and Say Ellis’s mother is real poor
Page 98
whole story at the Ellis’ _changed to_
whole story at the Ellis’s
Page 110
said Tod encourageingly _changed to_
said Tod encouragingly
Page 116
in your chateleine pocket _changed to_
in your chatelaine pocket
Page 134
I’ll sew it righr straight _changed to_
I’ll sew it right straight
Page 147
into Say Ellis’ yard _changed to_
into Say Ellis’s yard
Page 159
Wonldn’t mamma let _changed to_
Wouldn’t mamma let
Page 166
t’wasn’t, neither _changed to_
’twasn’t, neither
Page 335
Seem’s if _changed to_
Seems’s if