better when there is a child near me--if it's the right sort of a
child," he added, with a smile.
Mrs. Martin went out, and Tode, with a long, happy breath, leaned back
in the big chair and looked about him at the many books, at the dark
head bent over the desk in the alcove, finally at the noble face of
the bishop intent on his writing.
This was the beginning of many happy hours for Tode. Perhaps it was
the weakness and languor resulting from his accident that made him
willing to sit quietly a whole morning or afternoon in the study
beside the bishop's table, when, before this, to sit still for half an
hour would have been an almost unendurable penance to him; but there
was another and a far stronger reason in the deep reverential love for
the bishop, that day by day was growing and strengthening into a
passion in his young heart. The boy's heart was like a garden-spot in
which the rich, strong soil lay ready to receive any seed that might
fall upon it. Better seed could not be than that which all
unconsciously this man of God--the bishop--was sowing therein, as day
after day he gave his Master's message to the sick and sinful and
sorrowful souls that came to him for help and comfort.
It goes without saying that the bishop had small leisure, for many and
heavy were the demands upon his time and thought, but nevertheless he
kept two hours a day sacredly free from all other claims, that he
might give them to any of God's poor or troubled ones who desired to
see him, and believing that Tode could hear nothing that was said, he
often kept the boy with him during these hours.
Strange and wonderful lessons were those that the little street boy
learned from the consecrated lips of the good bishop--lessons of God's
love to man, and of the loving service that man owes not only to his
God, but to his brother man. Strange, sad lessons too, of sin and
sorrow, and their far-reaching influence on human lives. Tode had not
lived in the streets for nearly fourteen years without learning a
great deal about the sin that is in the world, but never until now,
had he understood and realised the evil of it and the cure for
it. Many a time he longed to ask the bishop some of the questions that
filled his mind, but that he dared not do.
Among these visitors there came one morning to the study a plainly
dressed lady with a face that Tode liked at the first glance. As she
talked with the bishop, the boy kept his eyes on the book open in his
lap, but he heard all that was said--heard it at first with a startled
surprise that changed into a sick feeling of shame and misery--for the
story to which he listened was this:
The lady was a Mrs. Russell. The bishop had formerly been her pastor
and she still came to him for help and counsel. She had been much
interested in a boy of sixteen who had been in her class in the
mission school, a boy who was entirely alone in the world. He had
picked up a living in the streets, much as Tode himself had done, and
finally had fallen into bad company and into trouble.
Mrs. Russell had interested herself in his behalf, and upon her
promise to be responsible for him, he had been delivered over to her
instead of being sent to a reform school. She went to a number of the
smaller dry goods stores and secured promises of employment for the
boy as parcel deliverer. To do this work he must have a tricycle, and
the energetic little lady having found a secondhand one that could be
had for thirty dollars, set herself to secure this sum from several of
her friends. This she had done, and was on her way to buy the tricycle
when she lost her pocketbook. The owner of the tricycle, being anxious
to sell, and having another offer, would not hold it for her, but sold
it to the other customer. The boy, bitterly disappointed, lost hope
and heart, and that night left the place where Mrs. Russell had put
him. Since then she had sought in vain for him, and now, unwilling to
give him up, she had come to ask the bishop's help in the search.
To all this Tode listened with flushed cheeks and fast-beating heart,
while before his mind flashed a picture of himself, wet, dirty and
ragged, gliding under the feet of the horses on the muddy street, the
missing pocketbook clutched tightly in his hand. Then a second picture
rose before him, and he saw himself crowding the emptied book into
that box on the chapel door of St. Mark's.
The bishop pulled open a drawer in his desk and took from it a
pocketbook, broken and stained with mud. He handed it to Mrs. Russell,
who looked at him in silent wonder as she saw her own name on the
inside.
"_How_ did it get into your hands?" she questioned, at last.
"You would never guess how," the bishop answered. "It was found in the
pastor's box at St. Mark's, and the rector came to me to inquire if I
knew any one of that name. I had not your present address, but have
been intending to look you up as soon as I could find time."
"I cannot understand it," said Mrs. Russell, carefully examining each
compartment of the book. "Why in the world should the thief have put
the empty pocketbook there, of all places?"
"Of course he would want to get rid of it," the bishop replied,
thoughtfully, "but that certainly was a strange place in which to put
it."
"If the thief could know how the loss of that money drove that poor
foolish boy back into sin and misery, he surely would wish he had
never touched it--if he has any conscience left," said Mrs. Russell.
"There is good stuff in that poor boy of mine, and I can't bear to
give him up and leave him to go to ruin."
The bishop looked at her with a grave smile as he answered:
"Mrs. Russell, I never yet knew you willing to give up one of your
straying lambs. Like the Master Himself, your big heart always yearns
over the wanderers from the fold. I wonder," he added, "if we couldn't
get one or two newsboys to help in this search. Many of them are very
keen, sharp little fellows, and they'd be as likely as anybody to know
Jack, and to know his whereabouts if he is still in the city. Let me
see--his name is Jack Finney, and he is about fifteen or sixteen now,
isn't he?"
"Yes, nearly sixteen."
"Suppose you give me a description of him, Mrs. Russell. I ought to
remember how he looks, but I see so many, you know," the bishop added,
apologetically.
"Of course you cannot remember all the boys who were in our mission
school," replied Mrs. Russell. "Jack is tall and large, for
fifteen. His hair is sandy, his eyes blue, and, well--his mouth
_is_ rather large. Jack isn't a beauty, and he is rough and rude,
and I'm afraid he often does things that he ought not to do, but only
think what a hard time he has had in the world thus far."
"Yes," replied the bishop with a sigh, "he _has_ had a hard time,
and it is not to be wondered at that he has gone wrong. Many a boy
does that who has every help toward right living. Well now,
Mrs. Russell, I'll see what I can do to help you in this matter. Your
faith in the boy ought to go far toward keeping him straight if we can
find him."
The bishop walked to the hall with his visitor. When he came back
Tode sat with his eyes fastened on the open book in his lap, though he
saw it not.
He did not look up with his usual bright smile when the bishop sat
down beside him. That night he could not eat, and when he went to bed
he could not sleep.
"Thief! Thief! You're a thief! You're a thief!"
Over and over and over again these words sounded in Tode's ears. He
had known of course that he was a thief, but he had never
_realised_ it until this day. As he had sat there and listened to
Mrs. Russell's story, he seemed to see clearly how his soul had been
soiled with sin as surely as his body had been with dirt, and even as
now the thought of going back to his former surroundings sickened him,
so the remembrance of the evil that he had known and done, now seemed
horrible to him. It was as if he looked at himself and his past life
through the pure eyes of the bishop--and he hated it all. Dimly he
began to see that there was something that he must do, but what that
something was, he could not as yet determine. He was not willing in
fact to do what his newly awakened conscience told him that he ought
to do.
In the morning he showed so plainly the effects of his wakeful night,
and of his first moral battle, that the bishop was much concerned.
He had begun to teach the boy to write that he might communicate with
him in that fashion, but as yet Tode had not progressed far enough to
make communication with him easy, though he was beginning to read
quite readily the bold, clear handwriting of the bishop.
This morning, the bishop, noting the boy's pale cheeks and heavy eyes,
proposed a walk instead of the writing lesson. Tode was delighted to
go, and the two set off together. Now the boy had an opportunity to
see yet farther into the heart and life of this good, great man. They
went on and on, away from the wide streets and handsome houses, into
the tenement house district, and finally into an old building, where
many families found shelter--such as it was. Up one flight after
another of rickety stairs the bishop led the boy. At last he stopped
and knocked at a door on a dark landing.
The door was opened by a woman whose eyes looked as if she had
forgotten how to smile, but a light flashed into them at sight of her
visitor. She hurriedly dusted a chair with her apron, and as the
bishop took it he lifted to his knee one of the little ones clinging
to the mother's skirts. There were four little children, but one lay,
pale and motionless on a bed in one corner of the room.
"She is sick?" inquired the bishop, his voice full of sympathy, as he
looked at the small, wan face.
The woman's eyes filled with tears.
"Yes," she answered, "I doubt I'm goin' to lose her, an' I feel I
ought to be glad for her sake--but I can't." She bent over the little
form and kissed the heavy eyelids.
"Tell me all about it, my daughter," the bishop said, and the woman
poured out her story--the old story of a husband who provided for his
family after a fashion, when he was sober, but left them to starve
when the drink demon possessed him. He had been away now for three
weeks, and there was no money for medicine for the sick child, or food
for the others.
Before the story was told the bishop's hand was in his pocket and he
held out some money to the woman, saying,
"Go out and buy what you need. It will be better for you to get it,
than for me to. The breath of air will do you good, and I will see to
the children until you come back."
She hesitated for a moment, then with a word of thanks, threw a shawl
over her head and was gone.
The bishop gathered the three older children about him, one on each
knee and the third held close to his side, and told them stories that
held them spellbound until the sick baby began to stir and moan
feebly. Then the bishop arose, and taking the little creature tenderly
in his strong arms, walked back and forth in the small room until the
moaning cry ceased and the child slept. He had just laid it again on
the bed when the mother came back with her arms full of packages. The
look of dull despair was gone from her worn face, and there was a
gleam of hope in her eyes as she hastily prepared the medicine for the
baby, while the bishop eagerly tore open one of the packages, and put
bread into the hands of the other children.
"God bless you, sir,--an' He will!" the woman said, earnestly, as the
bishop was departing with a promise to come soon again.
Tode, from his seat in a corner had looked on and listened to all, and
now followed the bishop down to the street, and on until they came to
a big building. The boy did not know then what place it was. Afterward
he learned that it was the poorhouse.
Among the human driftwood gathered here there was one old man who had
been a cobbler, working at his trade as long as he had strength to do
so. The bishop had known him for a long time before he gave up his
work, and now it was the one delight of the old man's life to have a
visit from the bishop, and knowing this, the latter never failed to
come several times each year. The old cobbler lived on the memory of
these visits through the lonely weeks that followed them, looking
forward to them as the only bright spots in his sorrowful life.
"You'll pray with me before ye go?" he pleaded on this day when his
visitor arose to leave.
"Surely," was the quick reply, and the bishop, falling on his knees,
drew Tode down beside him, and the old cobbler, the child and the man
of God, bowed their heads together.
A great wonder fell upon Tode first, as he listened to that prayer,
and then his heart seemed to melt within him. When he rose from his
knees, he had learned Who and What God is, and what it is to pray, and
though he could not understand how it was, or why--he knew that
henceforth his own life must be wholly different. Something in him
was changed and he was full of a strange happiness as he walked
homeward beside his friend.
But all in a moment his new joy departed, banished by the remembrance
of that pocketbook.
"I found it. I picked it up," he argued to himself, but then arose
before him the memory of other things that he had stolen--of many an
evil thing that he had done, and gloried in the doing. Now the
remembrance of these things made him wretched.
The bishop was to deliver an address that evening, and Tode was alone,
for he did not feel like going to the housekeeper's room.
He was free to go where he chose about the house, so he wandered from
room to room, and finally to the study. It was dark there, but he felt
his way to his seat beside the bishop's desk, and sitting there in the
dark the boy faced his past and his future; faced, too, a duty that
lay before him--a duty so hard that it seemed to him he never could
perform it, yet he knew he must. It was to tell the bishop how he had
been deceiving him all these weeks.
Tears were strangers to Tode's eyes, but they flowed down his cheeks
as he sat there in the dark and thought of the happy days he had spent
there, and that now he must go away from it all--away from the
bishop--back to the wretched and miserable life which was all he had
known before.
"Oh, how _can_ I tell him! How can I tell him!" he sobbed aloud,
with his head on the desk.
The next moment a strong, wiry hand seized his right ear with a grip
that made him wince, while a voice with a thrill of evil satisfaction
in it, exclaimed in a low, guarded tone,
"So! I've caught you, you young cheat. I've suspected for some time
that you were pulling the wool over the bishop's eyes, but you were so
plaguy cunning that I couldn't nab you before. You're a fine
specimen, aren't you? What do you think the bishop will say to all
this?"
Tode had recognised the voice of Mr. Gibson, the secretary. He knew
that the secretary had a way of going about as soft-footed as a
cat. He tried to jerk his ear free, but at that Mr. Gibson gave it
such a tweak that Tode could hardly keep from crying out with the
pain. He did keep from it, however, and the next moment the secretary
let him go, and, striking a match, lit the gas, and then softly closed
the door.
"Now," he said, coming back to the desk, "what have you to say for
yourself?"
"Nothing--to you," replied Tode, looking full into the dark face and
cruel eyes of the man. "I'll tell the bishop myself what there is to
tell."
"Oh, you will, will you?" answered the man, with a sneer. "I reckon
before you get through with your telling you'll wish you'd never been
born. The bishop's the gentlest of men--until he finds that some one
has been trying to deceive him. And you--you whom he picked up out of
the street, you whom he has treated as if you were his own son--I tell
you, boy, you'll think you've been struck by lightning when the bishop
orders you out of his sight. He never forgives deceit like yours."
Tode's face paled and his lips trembled as he listened, but he would
not give way before his tormentor.
His silence angered the secretary yet more. "Why don't you speak?" he
exclaimed, sharply.
"I'll speak to the bishop--not to you," replied the boy, steadily.
His defiant tone and undaunted look made the secretary furious. He
sprang toward the boy, but Tode was on the watch now, and slipped out
of his chair and round to the other side of the desk, where he stopped
and again faced his enemy, for he knew now that this man was his
enemy, though he could not guess the reason of his enmity. The
secretary took a step forward, but at that Tode sped across the room
out of the door, and up to his own room, the door of which he locked.
Then he sat down and thought over what had happened, and the more he
thought of it the more certain he felt that what the secretary had
said was true.
A long, long time the boy sat there, thinking sad and bitter
thoughts. At last, with a heavy sigh, he lifted his head and looked
about the bright, pretty room, as if he would fix it all in his mind
so that he never could forget it, and as he looked at the soft, rich
carpet, the little white bed with its fresh, clean linen, the wide,
roomy washstand and bureau, he seemed at the same time to see the
bare, dirty, cheerless little closet-like room to which he must
return, and his heart ached again.
At last he started up, searched in his pockets for a piece of paper
and a pencil, and began to write. His paper was a much-crumpled piece
that he had found that morning in the wastebasket, and as yet his
writing and spelling were poor enough, but he knew what he wanted to
express, and this is what he wrote:
DEAR BISHOP:
I hav ben mene and bad i am not def and dum but i acted like i was
caus I thot you wood not kepe me if yu knu I am sory now so i am going
away but i am going to kepe strate and not bee bad any more ever. I
thank you and i lov you deer.
TODE BRYAN.
It took the boy a long time to write this and there were many smudges
and erasures where he had rubbed out and rewritten words. He looked at
it with dissatisfied eyes when it was done, mentally contrasting it
with the neat, beautifully written letters he had so often seen on the
bishop's desk.
"Can't help it. I can't do no better," he said to himself, with a
sigh. Then he stood for several minutes holding the paper thoughtfully
in his hand.
"I know," he exclaimed at last, and ran softly down to the study. It
was dark again there and he knew that Mr. Gibson had gone.
Going to the desk, he found the Bible which the bishop always kept
there. As Tode lifted it the leaves fell apart at one of the bishop's
best-loved chapters, and there the boy laid his letter and closed the
book. He hesitated a moment, and then kneeling down beside the desk,
he laid his face on the cover of the Bible and whispered solemnly,
"I _will_ keep straight--I will."
It was nearly nine o'clock when Tode returned to what had been his
room; what would be so no longer. He undressed slowly, and as he took
off each garment he looked at it and touched it lingeringly before he
laid it aside.
"I b'lieve he'd want me to keep these clothes," he thought, "but I
don't know. Maybe he wouldn't when he finds out how I've been cheatin'
him. Mrs. Martin's burnt up my old ones, an' I've got to have some to
wear, but I'll only take what I must have."
So, with a sigh, he laid aside his white shirt with its glossy collar
and cuffs, his pretty necktie and handkerchief. He hesitated over the
shoes and stockings, but finally with a shake of the head, those, too,
were laid aside, leaving nothing but one under garment and his jacket,
trousers and cap.
Then he put out the gas and crept into bed. A little later he heard
Mrs. Martin go up to her room, stopping for a moment to glance into
his and see that he was in bed. Later still, he heard the bishop come
in and go to his room, and soon after the lights were out and all the
house was still.
Tode lay with wide open eyes until the big hall clock struck
twelve. Then he arose, slipped on his few garments and turned to leave
the room, but suddenly went back and took up a little Testament.
"He told me to keep it always an' read a bit in it ev'ry day," the boy
thought, as with the little book in his hand he crept silently down
the stairs. They creaked under the light tread of his bare feet as
they never had creaked in the daytime. He crossed the wide hall,
unfastened the door, and passed out into the night.
VI. TODE'S NEW START
A chill seemed to strike to Tode's heart as he stood on the stone
steps and looked up to the windows of the room where the bishop was
sleeping, and his eyes were wet as he passed slowly and sorrowfully
out of the gate and turned down the street. Suddenly there was a swift
rush, a quick, joyful bark, and there was Tag, dancing about him,
jumping up to lick his fingers, and altogether almost out of his wits
with joy.
Tode sat down on the curbstone and hugged his rough, faithful friend,
and if he whispered into the dog's ear some of the grief that made the
hour such a bitter one--Tag was true and trusty: he never told
it. Neither did he tell how, night after night, he had watched beside
the big house into which he had seen his master carried, nor how many
times he had been driven away in the morning by the servants. But
Tag's troubles were over now. He had found his master.
[Illustration: Adrift Again.]
"Well, ol' fellow, we can't stay here all night. We must go on," Tode
said at last, and the two walked on together to the house where the
boy had slept before his accident. The outer door was ajar as usual,
and Tode and the dog went up the stairs together.
Tode tried the door of his room. It was locked on the inside.
"They've let somebody else have it," he said to himself. "Well, Tag,
we'll have to find some other place. Come on!"
Once the boy would not have minded sleeping on a grating, or a
doorstep, but now it seemed hard and dreary enough to him. He shivered
with the cold and shrank from going to any of his old haunts where he
would be likely to find some of his acquaintances, homeless street
Arabs, like himself. Finally he found an empty packing box in an
alley, and into this he crept, glad to put his bare feet against Tag's
warm body. But it was a dreary night to him, and weary as he was, he
slept but little. As he lay there looking up at the stars, he thought
much of the new life that he was to live henceforth. He knew very well
that it would be no easy thing for him to live such a life, but
obstacles in his way never deterred Tode from doing, or at least
attempting to do, what he had made up his mind to. He thought much,
too, of the bishop, and these thoughts gave him such a heartache that
he would almost have banished them had he been able to do so--almost,
but not quite, for even with the heartache it was a joy to him to
recall every look of that noble face--every tone of that voice that
seemed to thrill his heart even in the remembrance.
Then came thoughts of Nan and Little Brother, and these brought
comfort to Tode's sorrowful heart. He had not forgotten Little Brother
during the past weeks. There had never been a day when he had not
thought of the child with a longing desire to see him, though even for
his sake he could hardly have brought himself to lose a day with the
bishop. Now, however, that he had shut himself out forever from what
seemed to him the Paradise of the bishop's home, his thoughts turned
again lovingly toward the little one, and he could hardly wait for
morning, so eager was he to go to him.
Fortunately for his impatience, he knew that the Hunts and Nan would
be early astir, and at the first possible moment he went in search of
them. He ran up the stairs with Tag at his heels, and almost trembling
with eagerness, knocked at the Hunts' door. Mrs. Hunt herself opened
it, and stared at the boy for a moment before she realised who it was.
"For the land's sake, if it isn't Tode! Where in the world have you
been all this time?" she cried, holding the door open for him to
enter, while the children gazed wonderingly at him. "I've been
sick--got hurt," replied Tode, his eyes searching eagerly about the
room. "I don't see Nan or Little Brother," he added, uneasily.
"They don't live here no more," piped up little Ned.
Tode turned a startled glance upon Mrs. Hunt.
"Don't live here!" he stammered. "Where do they live?"
"Not far off; just cross the entry," replied Mrs. Hunt,
quickly. "Nan's taken a room herself."
"Oh!" cried Tode, in a tone of relief, "I'll go'n see her;" and
waiting for no further words, he went.
"Well," exclaimed Mrs. Hunt, "he might 'a' told us how he got hurt an'
all, 'fore he rushed off, I should think."
"Jus' like that Tode Bryan. He don't know nothin'!" remarked Dick,
scornfully.