Bryan, I'm afraid," she said.
"There ye go agin, always a flingin' at me," retorted Dick,
rudely. "How's a feller to git on in the world when his own mother's
always down on him?"
"You know I'm not down on you, Dick," replied his mother, tearfully.
"You're always a hintin' nowdays, anyhow," muttered Dick, as he
reached over and helped himself to the biggest sausage in the dish.
Mrs. Hunt sighed but made no answer, and the breakfast was eaten
mostly in silence.
Meantime, Tode running across the entry, had knocked on the door with
fingers fairly trembling with eagerness and excitement. Nan opening
it, gave a glad cry at sight of him, but the boy, with a nod, pushed
by her, and snatched up Little Brother who was lying on the bed.
The baby stared at him for an instant and then as Tode hugged him more
roughly than he realised, the little lips trembled and the baby began
to sob. That almost broke Tode's heart. He put the child down, crying
out bitterly,
"Oh Little Brother, _you_ ain't goin' to turn against me, sure?"
As he spoke he held out his hands wistfully, and the baby, now getting
a good look at him, recognised his favorite, and with his old smile
held out his arms to the boy, who caught him up again but more gently
this time, and sat down with him on his knee.
It was some minutes before Tode paid any attention to Nan's questions,
so absorbed was he with the child, but at length he turned to her and
told her where he had been and what had happened to him. She listened
to his story with an eager interest that pleased him.
"Wasn't it strange," she said, when he paused, "wasn't it strange, and
lovely too, that you should have been taken into the bishop's
house--and kept there all this time? Did you like him just as much in
his home as in the church, Tode?"
"He's--he's"--began Tode with shining eyes, then as the bishop's face
rose before him, he choked and was silent for a moment. "I don't
b'lieve there's any other man like him in _this_ world," he said,
finally.
Nan looked at him thoughtfully, at his face that seemed to have been
changed and refined by his sickness and his new associations, at the
neat clothes he wore, then at his bare feet.
"I shouldn't think, if he's so good, that he would have let you come
away--so," she said, slowly.
Tode flushed as he tried to hide his feet under his chair.
"'Twasn't his fault," he answered, quickly. He too was silent for a
moment, then suddenly he sat upright with a look of stern resolve in
his grey eyes, as he added, "Nan, I'll tell you all there is about it,
'cause things are goin' to be diff'runt after this. I'm goin' to live
straight every way, I am; I've--promised."
Then he told her frankly the whole story; how he had deceived the
bishop, pretending to be deaf and dumb; how Mr. Gibson had come upon
him in the study, and what he had said, and how, finally, he himself
had come away in the night.
Nan listened to it all with the keenest interest.
"And you had to sleep out of doors," she said; "I'm so sorry, but, if
the bishop is so good, why didn't you stay and tell him all about it,
Tode? Don't you think that that would have been better than coming
away so without thanking him for all he had done--or anything?"
Tode shook his head emphatically. "You don't know him, Nan," he
replied. "He's good, oh better than anybody else in the world, I
b'lieve, but don't you see, just 'cause _he's_ so good, he hates
cheatin' an' lyin', just _hates_ 'em; an', oh I _couldn't_
tell him I'd been cheatin' him all this time, an' he so good to me."
"I know, 'twould have been awful hard to tell him, Tode, but seems to
me 'twould have been best," the girl insisted.
"I _couldn't_, Nan," Tode repeated, sadly, then impatiently
thrusting aside his sorrow and remorse, he added,
"Come now, I want to know what you've been doin' while I've been
gone. I used to think an' think 'bout you'n him," glancing at the
baby, "an' wonder what you'd be doin'."
"Oh, we've got on all right," answered Nan, "I was worried enough when
you didn't come, 'specially when one of the Hunt boys went down and
found that your stand had not been opened. I was sure something had
happened to you, 'cause I knew you never would stay away from us so,
unless something was the matter."
"Right you are!" put in Tode, emphatically.
Nan went on, "I was sure there was something wrong, too, when Tag came
here the next day. Poor fellow, I was so sorry for him. One of his
legs was all swollen and he limped dreadfully, and hungry--why, Tode,
he acted as if he were starving. But just as soon as I had fed him he
went off again, and didn't come back till the next morning, and he's
done that way ever since."
Tag had kept his bright eyes fastened on Nan's face while she talked,
and he gave a little contented whine as Tode stooped and patted his
head.
"But tell me what you've ben doin', Nan. How'd you get money enough
to hire this room an' fix it up so dandy?" Tode inquired, looking
about admiringly.
While Nan talked she had been passing busily from table to stove, and
now she said, "Breakfast is ready, Tode. Bring your chair up here and
give me Little Brother."
Tode reluctantly gave up the baby, and took his seat opposite Nan at
the little table.
"You've got things fine," he remarked, glancing at the clean towel
that served for a tablecloth, and the neat white dishes and
well-cooked food. He was hungry enough to do full justice to Nan's
cooking, and the girl watched him with much satisfaction, eating
little herself, but feeding the baby, as she went on with her story.
"When you didn't come back, I knew I must find some way to sell my
cookies and gingerbread and so I made some fresh and went to every
family in this house and asked 'em if they would buy their bread and
all of me instead of at the bakeshops. I told 'em I'd sell at the same
price as the shops and give them better things. Some wouldn't, but
most of them had sense enough to see that it would be a good thing for
them, and after they'd tried it once or twice they were ready enough
to keep on. Now I supply this house and the next one. It keeps me
cooking all day, but I don't mind that. I'm only too glad that I can
earn our living--Little Brother's and mine. Of course, I couldn't be
cooking all day on Mrs. Hunt's stove, and besides they have no room to
spare and we crowded 'em, and so, as soon as I got money enough, I
hired this room. I'm paying for the furniture as fast as I can. It was
all secondhand, of course."
Tode looked admiringly at the girl, as she ceased speaking.
"You've got a head," he remarked. "But now about cooking for my
stand. Will you have time to do that too?"
"Yes indeed," replied Nan, promptly. "I'll find time somehow."
Tode hesitated, moved uneasily in his chair and finally said, "'Spect
you'll have to trust me for the first lot, Nan. I ain't got no money,
ye know."
"Why, Tode, have you forgotten that ten dollars you asked me to keep
for you?"
"No--'course I ain't forgot it, but I thought maybe you'd had to use
it. Twould 'a' been all right if you had, you know."
"Oh no, I didn't have to use that. Here it is," and Nan brought it out
from some hidden pocket about her dress.
"Then I'm all right," exclaimed the boy, in a tone of
satisfaction. "I've got to get some clothes first an' then I'll be
ready for business."
"What's the matter with those clothes?" questioned Nan.
"Oh, I've got to send these back to the bishop." Tode's face was grave
as he spoke.
"But--I don't see why. He won't want em," Nan remonstrated.
"It's this way, Nan." Tode spoke very earnestly. "If I'd been what he
thought I was, I know I could have kept all he gave me, but, you see,
if he'd known I was cheatin' an' lyin' to him all the time he wouldn't
'a' given me a single thing, so don't ye see, I ain't no business to
keep 'em, an' I ain't goin' to keep 'em a minute longer'n I have to."
Nan shook her head, for Tode's reasoning had not convinced her, but
seeing how strong was his feeling in the matter she said no more, and
in a few minutes the boy went out, his face radiant with satisfaction,
because Little Brother cried after him.
He invested half his ten dollars in some second-hand clothes,
including shoes and stockings. They were not very satisfactory after
the garments he had been wearing of late, but he said to himself,
"They'll have to do till I can get better ones an' sometime I'm agoin'
to have some shirts an' have 'em washed every week, too."
Tode's trade, that day, was not very heavy, for it was not yet known
among his regular customers that he had reopened his stand, but he
took care to advertise the fact through those whom he met and he did
not fear but that his business would soon be prospering again.
That afternoon he succeeded in securing a tiny room in the house with
Nan. It was a dismal little closet, lighted only from the hall, but it
was the best he could do, and Tode considered himself fortunate to
have his dark corner to himself, even though a broken chair and a
canvas cot without bedding of any sort were all the furniture he could
put into it then. Nan shook her head doubtfully when he showed her the
room.
"Dark and dirty," she said, with a sniff of disgust, as the boy threw
open the door. "You must get somebody to scrub it for you, Tode, and
then whitewash the walls. That will make it sweeter and lighter."
"So it will," responded the boy, promptly, "but I'll have to do the
scrubbin' an' white-washin' both, myself."
Nan looked at him doubtfully. "I wonder if you'd get it clean," she
said. "Scrubbing's hard work."
"You'll see. What'll I scrub it with--a broom?"
"You ought to have a scrub-brush, but I haven't any. You'll have to do
it with an old broom and a cloth. I can let you have the broom and I
guess we can get a cloth of Mrs. Hunt. You going to do it now?" she
added, as Tode began to pull off his coat.
"Right now," he answered. "You see, Nan, I've got loads of things to
do, an' I can't be wastin' time."
"What things?" questioned Nan, curiously.
"Oh--I'll tell you about them after awhile," replied the boy. "The
broom in your room?"
"Yes, I'll bring it to you," and Nan hurried off.
She came back with an old pail full of hot water, a piece of soap, a
broom and a cloth, and then she proceeded to show Tode how to clean
the woodwork and floor, thoroughly, with special attention to the dark
corners which looked, indeed, as if they had never been visited by a
broom. Nan was a thorough little housewife, and she longed to do the
whole work herself, but Tode would not allow that, so she could only
stand and look on, wondering inwardly how a boy could handle a broom
so awkwardly. But if he was slow and awkward about it, Tode was in
earnest, and he looked with much satisfaction at the result of his
labor when it was completed.
"You'll have to wash the floor again after you've whitewashed the
walls," Nan said, "but it needed two scrubbings, anyhow."
Tode looked at it ruefully. "Oh, did it?" he said. "I think one such
scrubbing as that ought to last it a year."
Nan laughed. "If you'll carry out my bread and things to-morrow, I'll
do your whitewashing for you," she said.
But Tode shook his head. "I'll carry out your stuff all right," he
answered, "but I ain't a-goin' to have a girl doin' my work for me."
He bought the lime and paid also for the use of a pail and brush, and
the next day he put a white coat on his walls, and when this was done,
he was much better satisfied with his quarters. Nan offered to lend
him her shawl in place of a blanket, but he guessed that she needed it
herself and refused her offer.
VII. AFTER TODE'S DEPARTURE
In the bishop's household, Mrs. Martin was always one of the earliest
to rise in the morning, and just as Tode sat down to breakfast with
Nan and Little Brother, the housekeeper was going downstairs. Tode's
door stood open and she saw that he was not in the room. Her quick
eyes noted also the pile of neatly folded garments on a chair beside
the bed. She stepped into the room and looked around. Then she hurried
to the study, knowing that the boy loved to stay there, but the study
was unoccupied.
By the time breakfast was ready she knew that the boy had left the
house, but the bishop refused to believe it, nor would he be convinced
until the house had been searched from attic to cellar. When
Mr. Gibson made his appearance, a gleam of satisfaction shone in his
narrow eyes as he learned of Tode's disappearance.
"I was afraid something like this would happen," he remarked,
gravely. "It's a hopeless kind of business, trying to make anything
out of such material. I've had my suspicions of that boy for some
time."
"Don't be too quick to condemn him, Mr. Gibson," exclaimed the
bishop, hastily. "He may have had some good reason for going away
so. I've no doubt he thought he had, but I had grown to love the lad
and I shall miss him sadly."
"Did you never suspect that he was not deaf and dumb, as he pretended
to be?" the secretary asked.
The bishop looked up quickly. "Why, no, indeed, I never had such an
idea," he answered. An unpleasant smile flickered over the
secretary's thin lips as he went on, "I heard the boy talking to
himself, here in this room, last evening. He can hear and speak as
well as you or I."
"Oh, I am sorry! I am sorry!" said the bishop, sadly, and then he
turned to his desk, and sitting down, hid his face in his hands, and
was silent. The secretary cast more than one swift, sidewise glance at
him, but dared say no more then.
After a while the bishop drew his Bible toward him. It opened at the
fourteenth chapter of John, and there lay Tode's poor little soiled
and blotted note. The bishop read it with tear-dimmed eyes, read it
again and again, and finally slipped it into an envelope, and replaced
it between the leaves of his Bible. He said nothing about it to his
secretary, and presently he went to his own room, where for a long
time he walked back and forth, thinking about the boy, and how he
might find him again.
Then Brown came to him with a telegram summoning him to the sickbed of
his only sister, and within an hour he left the city, and was absent
two weeks.
Meantime Tode, the morning after his scrubbing and whitewashing
operations, had carefully folded the clothes he had worn when he left
the bishop's house and tied them up in an old newspaper. Into one of
the pockets of the jacket he had put a note which ran thus:
DEAR MRS. MARTIN:
Pleas giv thes cloes to the bishop and tell him i wud not have took
them away if i had had any others. I did not take shoes or stockins.
I keep the littel testament and i read in it evry day. Tell him i am
trying to be good and when i get good enuf I shall go and see him. You
was good to me but he was so good that he made me hate myself and
evrything bad. I can never be bad again while i remember him.
TODE BRYAN.
He hired a boy whom he knew, to carry the bundle to the bishop's
house, and from behind a tree-box further down the street, he watched
and saw it taken in by Brown. The boy's heart was beating hard and
fast, as he stood there longing, yet dreading, to see the bishop
himself come out of the house. But the bishop was far away, and Tode
walked sadly homeward, casting many a wistful, lingering glance
backward, as he went.
Brown carried the package gingerly to Mrs. Martin, for the boy who
had delivered it was not over clean, and Mrs. Martin opened it with
some suspicion, but when she saw the clothes she recognised them
instantly, and finding the note in the pocket read it with wet eyes.
"I knew that wasn't a bad boy," she said to herself, "and this proves
it. He's as honest as the day, or he wouldn't have sent back these
clothes--the poor little fellow. Well, well! I hope the bishop can
find him when he gets back, and as to the boy's pretending to be deaf
and dumb, I'm sure there was something underneath that if we only knew
it. Anyhow, I do hope I'll see the little fellow again sometime."
When the bishop returned the accumulated work of his weeks of absence
so pressed upon him that for a while he had no time for anything else,
and when at last he was free to search for Tode, he could find no
trace of him.
As for Tode, he had never once thought of the possibility of the
bishop's searching for him. He looked forward to seeing his friend
again sometime, but that time he put far away when he himself should
be "more fit," as he said to himself.
One evening soon after his return, Nan had a long talk with him, a
talk that left her wondering greatly at the change in his thoughts and
purposes, and which made her regard him with quite a new feeling of
respect.
"Nan," he began, "I told you I'd got loads of things to do now."
"Yes?" The girl looked at him inquiringly.
Tode was silent for a little. It was harder for him to speak than he
had thought it would be.
"You see," he went on, slowly, "I've been mean as dirt all my
life. You don't know what mean things I've done, an' I ain't goin' to
tell ye, only that I know now I've got to turn straight around an' not
do 'em any more. I've got to make a man of myself," he drew himself up
as he spoke, "a real man--the kind that helps other folks up. I can't
say just what I mean, but I feel it myself," he added, with a
half-appealing glance at Nan.
She had listened attentively with her eyes fastened on his earnest
face. Now she said softly, "You mean--you want to be the kind of man
the bishop is, don't you?"
"Oh, I couldn't ever be _really_ like him," protested the boy,
quickly, "but, well, I'm goin' to try to be a sort of shadow of him. I
mean I'm goin' to try to amount to something myself, an' do what I can
to help other poor fellers up instead of down. I'm goin' to lend a
hand 'mongst the folks 'round here, just a little you know, as he does
'mongst the poor people he goes to see. But I've got some other
things to do too. I've got some money to pay back, an' I've got to
find a feller that I helped to pull down."
And thereupon, Tode told the story of Mrs. Russell's pocketbook and
her search for Jack Finney. He told it all quite frankly, not trying
in the least to excuse or lessen his own guilt in the matter.
"It will take you a long time to save up so much money, Tode," Nan
said when he paused.
"Yes, unless I can find some way to earn more, but I can't help
that. I'll do the best I can, an' I've got some notions in my head."
He talked over with her some of his plans and projects, and as she
listened, she thought to herself, "He's getting 'way ahead of me, but
I'm afraid he'll get into trouble at first."
And she was not mistaken. Tode was now so thoroughly in earnest
himself that he forgot to take into consideration the fact that those
whom he meant to help up might prefer to be left to go down in their
own fashion. His old associates speedily discovered that a great
change had come over Tode Bryan, and the change did not meet with
their approval. They called it "mighty cheeky" of him to be "pokin'
his nose" into their affairs, and they would show him that he'd better
stop it. So Tode soon found himself exceedingly unpopular, and, what
was worse, in a way, under a boycott that threatened to ruin his
business.
He fell into the way of carrying his trials and perplexities to Nan,
and talking them over with her. She had plenty of that common sense,
which is not very common after all, and she often made him see the
reason of his failures, while at the same time he was sure of her
sympathy.
One evening Tode appeared in her room with his little Testament in his
hand. There was a perplexed expression in his eyes as he said, "Nan,
'bout readin' this, you know--I've been peggin' away at the first
part, an' I can't make nothin' of it. It's just a string of funny
words, names, I s'pose. _I_ don't see no sense to it."
Nan glanced at the page to which he had opened. It was the first
chapter of Matthew.
"Oh, that's all it is, just a lot of names. You can skip all that,
Tode," she answered, easily.
"No I can't, neither," replied the boy, decidedly. "If I begin to
skip, no knowin' where I'll stop. If it's readin' this book that makes
folks good, I've got to know all 'bout it. Say, can't you read this
with me an' tell me how to call all these jawbreakers?"
Nan looked rather shocked at the boy's free and easy reference to the
Book, but seeing from his grave face and serious manner that he was
very much in earnest, she sat down with him, and the two young heads
bent over the page together.
"I remember reading this chapter with mother," Nan said, gently, "and
she told me how to pronounce these names, but I can't remember all of
them now. I'll do the best I can, though," and she read slowly the
first seventeen verses, Tode repeating each name after her.
"Whew!" he exclaimed, in a tone of intense relief, when the task was
ended, "that's 'bout the toughest job ever I tackled."
"Well, you see, you needn't read all that again. The rest of the
chapter is different. It's all about Jesus," Nan said.
Tode read the remaining verses slowly by himself, but he shook his
head in a dissatisfied way as he closed the book. "That's easier than
the names to read, but I don't seem to get much out of it. Guess I'm
too thick-headed," he said, in a discouraged tone.
"Tode," exclaimed Nan, suddenly, "you ought to go to some
Sunday-school. Then you'd learn all about the Bible and the things you
want to know."
"Might be a good scheme, that's a fact," he answered,
thoughtfully. "Reckon I'll try it on anyhow, an' see how it works."
"Yes, do. I always used to go before mother was sick. If you have a
good teacher you'll like it, I'm sure."
"There's a mission school down near my stand. I'll have a try at it
next Sunday an' see what it's like," Tode said.
So the very next day he went to the mission chapel, and, from the
notice on the door, found out the hours of service, and the following
Sunday he was on hand in due season. As he went somewhat doubtfully up
the steps, he saw in the vestibule a young man, who stepped forward
and held out his hand, saying cordially,
"Glad to see you here. Are you a stranger?"
Tode wasn't quite sure what a stranger might be, but he muttered, "I
ain't never been here before."
"Then I'm glad I happened to meet you. Will you come into my class?"
Tode nodded and followed the young man into the chapel, which was
already nearly full of boys and girls.
"My name is Scott. What is yours?" inquired the stranger, as he led
the way to his own corner of the room.
Tode gave his name, and Mr. Scott introduced him to half a dozen boys
who had already taken their places in his class. One of these boys was
Dick Hunt. He gave Tode a careless nod by way of greeting, as the
latter dropped into the seat next him.
To Tode's great satisfaction the lesson chanced to be on the birth of
the Lord Jesus, and Mr. Scott told the boys the whole story so clearly
and vividly, that Tode at least was intensely interested. It was all
new and fresh to him, and he was listening eagerly to every word, when
suddenly Dick Hunt ran a long pin deep into his leg. The pain made
him start and almost cry out, but he suppressed the cry as he turned
and gave Dick a savage pinch that made him writhe, as he exclaimed in
a threatening tone, "You stop that!"
Mr. Scott turned grave, inquiring eyes on the two, as he asked:
"What's the matter, Dick?"
"He's a pinchin' me--Tode Bryan is. He give me an awful tweak when you
wasn't a lookin'."
"Is that so?" Mr. Scott asked, and Tode, with a scornfully defiant
glance at Dick, answered promptly, "Yes."
"I am sorry, Tode," said Mr. Scott; "you can sit here on the other
side."
Tode's face flushed a little as he changed his seat, but now another
of the boys, having a grudge against Dick, cried out,
"Hunt stuck a pin in him first; I seen him do it."
"You hush up!" muttered Dick, with a scowl.
Just then the superintendent's bell sounded and the lesson time was
over.
When the school was dismissed, Mr. Scott detained Tode.
"Why didn't you tell me that Dick had stuck a pin into you first," the
teacher asked, rapidly turning the leaves of his Bible as he spoke.
"I ain't a sneak like he is," answered Tode, briefly.
Mr. Scott found the place that he wanted, and keeping his finger
between the leaves, looked thoughtfully at the boy before him.
"You told me that your name is Tode. That is what the boys call
you. It isn't your real name, is it?" he asked, with a friendly look.
Tode puckered his forehead into a puzzled frown at the question.
"N-no," he answered, slowly. "There's some more to it, but I can't
think what 'tis. Wish't I could."
"You've no father or mother?"
"No--never had none since I's big enough to know anything," was the
careless reply.
Mr. Scott laid his hand kindly on the lad's shoulder.