beautiful name. It must be Theodore."
"That's it! That's it!" exclaimed Tode, excitedly. "I 'member
somebody told it to me once, an' I know that's it. How'd you know it
so quick?" He looked up wonderingly into his teacher's face as he
asked the question.
"I once knew another Theodore who was nicknamed Tode; but, my boy, do
you know what your name means?"
Tode shook his head. "Didn't know names meant anything," he answered.
"But they do. Theodore means the gift of God. A boy with such a name
as that ought to count for something in the world."
"I mean to." The boy uttered the words slowly and emphatically.
Mr. Scott's face brightened. "Do you mean that you love and serve the
Lord Jesus, Theodore?" he asked, softly.
The boy shook his head half sadly, half perplexedly.
"I don't know nothin' much 'bout Him," he answered, with a gentleness
most strange and unusual in him, "but I've promised to do the right
thing every time now--an' I'm a-goin' to do it."
"You have promised--whom, Theodore?"
"Promised myself--but I don't know nothin' much 'bout what is the
right thing," he added, in a discouraged tone.
"You'll soon learn if you're in earnest, my boy. This Book will tell
you all you need to know. Can you read?"
"Some."
"Then read this verse for me, will you?" Mr. Scott held out his Bible
and pointed to the verse.
Slowly and stumblingly the boy read, "Dearly beloved, avenge not
yourselves," and again,
"Recompense to no man evil for evil."
Seeing that Tode did not understand the meaning of what he had read,
Mr. Scott explained the passages to him. The boy listened attentively,
then he exclaimed in a tone of dismay,
"But does it mean that a feller can't never strike back?"
"That's what it says."
Tode pondered this unpalatable statement with a clouded face.
"But what ye goin' to do when some other feller cuts up rough with
ye?"
"Find some other way to get even with him."
"But I don't see--what other way is there 'cept hittin' him a harder
one'n he gives you?"
Mr. Scott opened his Bible again and pointed to the last two verses of
the twelfth chapter of Romans.
Tode went home that day with his mind in a tumult. These new ideas did
not suit him at all. A "word and a blow," and the blow first had been
his method of settling such questions heretofore, and it seemed to him
far the better way.
He took a roundabout route home, for he did not want to see Nan until
he had thought out this matter to his own satisfaction. To help people
poorer or weaker than himself, or to "keep straight" himself, and help
others to do likewise--this was one thing. To meekly submit to ill
treatment and "take a blow" from a fellow whom he "could whip with his
little finger"--this was quite another and, to one of Tode's
temperament, a far more distasteful thing.
The boy had reached no conclusion when he finally went home to
supper. He was silent and thoughtful all the evening, but it was not
until the following day that he spoke of the matter to Nan.
Nan listened in perplexed silence to what he had to say. She had been
well taught while her mother lived, but she had never given these
subjects any real, deep thought, as Tode was doing now. She began to
feel that this rough, untaught street boy was likely to get far ahead
of her if he should keep on pondering over questions like this. Even
now she could give him but little help.
Seeing this, Tode took up his Testament again, and read on and on
until he had finished the book of Matthew, and gained a pretty clear
idea of the life and death of Jesus the Christ. There was much, of
course, that he did not understand at all. Many of the words and
expressions conveyed no meaning to him, but yet he gathered enough to
understand, in a measure, what that Life was, and he began dimly to
realise why the bishop gave so much of his time and thought to God's
poor. The boy pondered these things in his heart, and a new world
seemed to open before him.
"Nan," he said at last, "I've found out what my real name is. It's
Theodore."
"Theodore," repeated the girl. "Well, I'm glad to know it, for I never
did like to call you Tode. How did you find out?"
"Mr. Scott said it to me, and I knew as soon as I heard it that that
was it."
"Then I won't ever call you Tode again. I shall call you Theo. I like
that."
The boy liked it too. It gave him a strange thrill of pleasure every
time he thought of what Mr. Scott had said about the meaning of his
name.
VIII. THEO'S SHADOW WORK
The days that followed were very busy ones for both Nan and Theo. The
girl spent most of her time over the stove or the moulding board, and
the boy, delivering the supplies to many of the families in the two
big tenement houses, attending to his stand, and selling evening
papers, found the days hardly long enough for all that he wanted to
do.
As he went from room to room with Nan's bread and soup and
gingerbread, he soon learned much about the different families and
found plenty of opportunities to serve as the "bishop's shadow," in
these poor homes. Money he had not to give, for every penny that he
could possibly spare was laid aside for a special purpose now, but he
found countless ways to carry help and sunshine to sad and sore
hearts, without money.
One morning he left Nan's room with a basket piled with bread--brown
and white--in one hand, and a big tin pail full of boiled hominy in
the other. He went first to the top floor, stopping at one door after
another, where dirty, frowzy women and children opened at the sound of
his cheery whistle. He handed in the loaves, or the measures of hominy
with a gay word or a joke that more than once banished a frown from a
woman's worn face, or checked the tears of a tired, hungry
child. Children were getting to be fond of the boy now, and he liked
it.
In one room there were two families and half a dozen children. In one
corner, on a rickety couch was a crippled boy, who had lain there day
after day, through long, weary months. He was listening intently for
that whistle outside the door, and when he heard it, his dull eyes
brightened, and he called out eagerly,
"Oh, tell him to come in a minute--_just_ a minute!"
The woman who opened the door, said indifferently, "Tommy wants you to
come in a minute."
Theo stepped over to the tumbled couch, and smiled down into the
wistful eyes of the sick boy.
"Hello, old man!" he said, cheerily. "I've brought you something," and
out of his pocket he pulled a golden chrysanthemum that he had picked
up in the street the day before, and had kept all night in water. It
was not very fresh now, but Tommy snatched it hungrily, and gazed at
it with a happy smile.
"Oh, how pretty--how pretty it is!" he cried, softly smoothing the
golden petals with his little bony forefinger. "Can I keep it, truly?"
[Illustration: "Oh, how pretty,--how pretty it is!"]
"'Course. I brought it for you," Theo answered, his round, freckled
face reflecting the boy's delight. "But I must scoot. Folks'll be
rowin' me if their bread's late."
He ran off leaving the sick boy with the flower held lovingly against
his thin white cheek, while his eyes followed wistfully Theo's strong,
active figure as he hurried away.
On the next floor, an old woman, bent and stiffened by rheumatism, sat
alone all day, while her children were away at work. She could not get
out of her chair, or help herself in any way. Her breakfast would be
a penny's worth of Nan's hominy, but on this morning her children had
gone off without even setting out a dish, or a cup of water for her.
Tode brought her a saucer and spoon, filled a cup with fresh water
from the faucet, and pulled up the curtain so that the sunlight would
shine in upon her.
"There, old lady," he said, brightly, when this was done, "now you're
all right, an' I'll be in again an' fix your dinner for ye."
The old woman's dim eyes looked after him, and she muttered a word of
thanks as she turned slowly to her breakfast.
The boy wasted no minutes, for he had none to spare, but even when he
did not step inside a door at all, he always had a smile or a bright
word ready for each customer, and in lives where sin or grinding
poverty has destroyed all hope, and life has become simply dull,
dogged endurance of suffering, a cheerful word or smile has a
wonderful power. These wretched women and forlorn little children had
already begun to look forward to the coming of the "bread boy," as the
little ones called him, as a bright spot in their days. In almost
every room he managed to leave a hint of cheer behind him, or at least
to lighten a little the cloudy atmosphere.
His pail and basket empty, he ran back to Nan's room for his own
supplies, and having opened his stand he served his customers, taking
his own breakfast between whiles, as he had opportunity. He sold the
morning papers, too, at his stand, and between twelve and one o'clock
he was as busy as a boy could well be. After that hour few customers
appeared, and then, having made his midday meal from whatever he had
left, he closed his stand and went home.
Then was his time for a little more of what Nan called his "shadow
work," when he refilled with fresh water the cup of the rheumatic old
woman, or carried her a cup of tea that Nan had made for her, adding
to it, perhaps, a cooky or a sandwich that remained from his stock. Or
he glanced into a room where two or three children were locked in all
day while the mothers were away at work--and attended to the fire for
them. Often he found time for a five minutes' chat with crippled
Tommy, and now and then he walked awhile with a sick baby in his arms
as he had seen the bishop do that day long before. They were all
little things that the boy did, but as he kept on doing them day after
day, he found in this service for others such happiness as he never
had known before.
Tommy's delight in the half-withered chrysanthemum set Theo to
thinking, and the result of his thinking was that he began to frequent
the flower stalls and pick up the broken blossoms that were
occasionally thrown aside there.
One day a woman who was selling flowers, said to him, "Say, boy, what
do you do with the flowers you pick up? I've seen you 'round here
after 'em lots o' times lately."
"Give 'em to sick folks an' poor ones that can't get out anywheres,"
replied the boy, promptly.
The woman searched his face to see if he were deceiving her, but there
was nothing sly or underhanded in the clear eyes that returned her
gaze so frankly.
"Hm-m," she murmured, thoughtfully. "What do you do Saturday nights,
boy?"
"Nothin' much, after I've sold out my papers."
"Well, Saturday night's our busy time here; one of our busy times,
that is, an' if you want to come 'round an' help for an hour or two,
I'll pay you in the flowers that are left over."
Theo's eyes brightened, but he was shrewd, and was not going to bind
himself to an agreement that might not be satisfactory.
"I'll come next Sat'day an' try it," he said.
"All right," and the woman turned to a customer.
Theo was on hand promptly the next Saturday evening. He found that the
flower woman wanted him to carry home pots of growing plants for lady
purchasers. He was kept busy until nine o'clock, and received in
payment a good-sized basket full of violets, roses, heliotrope and
carnations. Some had short stems, and some were a little wilted, but
the boy was well content with his pay.
"Most of them will freshen up and look bright as ever if you put them
to-night in a pail of water where they'll have plenty of room," the
woman said; "and here--this is for good luck," and she handed him a
little pot of geranium with a cluster of pink blossoms.
That brought a smile of genuine delight to the boy's face.
"Oh!" he cried, "that's dandy! I'll give it to Nan."
"And who's Nan--your sister?" questioned the woman.
"N--no, not quite. Guess she's as good's my sister, though. Shall I
come next Sat'day, ma'am?" replied the boy.
"Yes, come next Saturday, an' right along, if you keep on doing as
well's you've done to-night."
Theo almost ran home, so eager was he to show Nan his treasures. He
had never cared very much for flowers himself, but he was beginning
now to realise their value to others, and he was sure that Nan would
be delighted with the geranium.
He was not disappointed. The girl's eyes sparkled at sight of the
delicate pink blossoms and she thanked him so heartily that he could
only mutter, "Oh, shucks! 'Tain't nothin' much."
Then he showed her his basket of cut flowers, and she exclaimed
delightedly over them as she lifted them out as tenderly as if they
had been alive, and placed them carefully in a pail of fresh water in
which she had sprinkled a little salt.
"Mother used to put salt in the water to keep flowers fresh," she
said, "and oh, won't it be _lovely_ to carry these around to the
shut-ins, tomorrow, Theo! I think Mrs. Hunt would like some," she
added.
"All right. Pick out what you like an' take 'em in to her now."
Nan selected some of the freshest blossoms and went across with them
to her neighbour, leaving Theo with the baby, who was asleep. She was
gone some time, and when she returned her face was grave.
"What's the matter? Didn't she like 'em?" asked the boy.
"Yes, indeed, she was ever so pleased with them, and told me to thank
you for sending them to her--but, Theo, she's worrying so over Dick.
She thinks he's going all wrong."
"So he is," answered Theo, soberly.
"And can't you do anything about it?"
"Don't see's I can. He's in with a mean lot o' fellers, 'n he's no
good anyhow, nowadays."
"But there must be some good in him. His father and mother are so
good," pleaded Nan.
"Mrs. Hunt was crying when I went in. She says Dick often stays out
till midnight or after now, and she's afraid he'll be locked up."
"Serve him right if he was," muttered Theo, under his breath.
"He's lost the place his father got for him," added Nan.
"'Course. Nobody'd keep such a feller long."
Nan shook her head sorrowfully, thinking of Dick's mother. Theo said
no more, and soon left the room. Nan thought he had gone to bed, but
instead, he went out and walked slowly and somewhat doubtfully toward
a saloon which he had seen Dick enter more than once of late. Theo,
himself, used to go there, but he had not been near the place for many
a week. He did not want to go in now, and he waited about outside,
wishing that Dick would come out, and yet uncertain what to do if he
did come. Finally he pushed open the door and went up the stairs. A
dozen or so boys were there, many of whom he knew, and among them was
Dick. The proprietor of the place gave the boy a warm welcome, and
some of the boys greeted him gaily, but Dick scowled as Theo sat down
beside him.
He waited until the loud talk began again, then he said in a low tone,
"Dick, I came after you. Will you go home with me now? Your mother's
frettin'."
Dick's face darkened angrily.
"Who made you boss over me?" he shouted, springing from his seat with
a threatening gesture. "You mind your own business, will you?"
Theo's cheeks flushed as every face in the room was turned toward him.
"What's the row?"
"What's he doin'?"
"What does he want?"
"Put him out! Put him out!"
These shouts and others mingled with oaths as all crowded about the
two boys.
"There's no row, an' nothin' to get mad about," said Theo, trying to
speak quietly. "Dick's mother's frettin', an' I asked him to go home
with me. That's all there is about it."
"An' enough it is too," exclaimed one of the boys. "Dick's big enough
to know when to go home, ain't he?"
"What's he got to do with me or my mother?" growled Dick, "I'll go
home when I get good an' ready, an' not before."
"An' it's time for _you_ to go home now!" exclaimed the
proprietor of the place, elbowing his way to the front of the group,
and addressing Theo. "We don't want none o' your sort around here. Now
clear out--d'ye hear?"
Seeing that it was useless to stay longer, Theo departed, followed by
taunting cries and yells, from all in the room.
He went gloomily homeward, telling himself that he had been a fool to
try to do anything for Dick Hunt. Dick was "no good anyhow." But, as
he passed her door, Mrs. Hunt opened it and peered anxiously out. Her
eyes were red and swollen, and she turned back with a disappointed air
as she saw Theo. The next moment however, she stepped out into the
hall, pushing the door to behind her.
"Tode," she whispered, "do you know where my Dick is?"
The boy answered reluctantly, "He's down at Todd's."
Mrs. Hunt put her apron to her eyes and sobbed softly. "Oh, dear," she
moaned, "his father's gone to look for him, an' if he finds him there
he'll most kill him--he's that mad with the boy for the way he's been
goin' on lately."
Theo stood silent, not knowing what to say, and then Mrs. Hunt turned
back into the room while he went up another flight to his. He had just
reached his own door when he heard loud, angry voices accompanied by
scuffling sounds on the stairs below, and he knew that Mr. Hunt had
found Dick, and was bringing him home.
After Theodore had gone out, Nan had put all the flowers into two big
dishes with plenty of water, and the next morning she was up early and
separated them, putting together two or three pinks or a rose with its
buds and a bit of foliage, or a cluster of geranium blossoms and green
leaves.
When Theo came for them she laid the small clusters carefully in a
basket, and sprinkled them with fresh water, then as she stooped and
buried her face among the fragrant, beautiful things she exclaimed,
"Oh Theo, I wish I had time to go with you, and see how happy you make
them all with these beautiful, lovely flowers."
"I'll begin with you," laughed the boy. "Pick out the ones you like
best."
But Nan put her hands resolutely behind her and shook her head.
"No, I'm not sick and I've had the pleasure of seeing them all, and
fixing them, beside my pot of geranium. That's plenty for me."
Theodore looked critically at her, then at the blossoms; then he
picked out three delicate pink carnations.
"No, no! Please don't, Theo," began the girl, but with a laughing
glance at her, Theodore laid the blossoms in Little Brother's small
white fingers, and hurried away.
He went first to Tommy O'Brien's room. The sick boy's weary face
brightened at sight of him, but it fairly beamed when Theodore held up
the basket saying, "Choose any one of 'em Tommy--the very prettiest of
all."
"O-oh!" cried Tommy. "I never saw so many. Oh, Theo, where did you get
'em all?"
Theo told him while the woman and the children crowded about the
basket to see and exclaim over the contents.
Tommy chose a spray of lily of the valley and Theo added a pink rose
and bud. Then he gave a blossom to each of the children and to their
mothers as well, and went away leaving softened faces and smiles in
place of frowns and sullen words.
The old woman whose breakfast was so often forgotten was not alone
to-day. Her daughters were at home, but they were not paying much
attention to her. At first she peered stupidly with her half-blind
eyes into Theo's basket, then suddenly she cried out,
"Oh, I smell 'em! I smell vi'lets. Where be they? Where be they?"
There was one little bunch of violets in the basket. Theo snatched it
up and laid it in the wrinkled, trembling hands. The old woman held
the blossoms against her withered cheek, then she pressed them to her
lips, and two big tears rolled slowly down her face.
"La! Ma's cryin' over them vi'lets. Here Tode, gi' me some o' them
bright ones. Gi' me a rose!" cried one of the young women, and Theo
handed each of them a rose and went away in silence. He glanced back
as he left the room. The old woman was still holding the violets to
her cheek and it was plain, even to the boy, that her thoughts were
far away.
So, from room to room he went and nowhere did he fail of a glad
welcome, because of the gifts he offered. In the dirtiest rooms, the
most hardened of the women, the roughest and rudest of the children,
seemed to become momentarily gentle and tender when the flowers were
laid in their hands.
When all had been given away except one rose, Theodore paused and
considered. There were several rooms that he had not visited. To
which of these should he carry this last rose?
Not to Old Man Schneider surely. He was standing at the moment outside
Old Man Schneider's door. The old man was the terror of all the
children in the house, so ugly and profane was he, and so hideous to
look at. Fearless as Theodore was--the sight of Old Man Schneider
always made him shudder, and the boy had never yet spoken to him.
While he stood there trying to decide who should have the rose, he
heard a deep, hollow groan, and surely it came from the room of Old
Man Schneider. Theodore stood still and listened. There came another
groan and another, and then he knocked on the door. There was no
response and he opened it and went in. He had been in many dirty,
dismal rooms, but never in one so dirty and so dismal as this. It
looked as if it never had been clean. The only furniture was a
tumble-down bed in one corner, a chair and a broken stove. On the bed,
the old man was lying, covered with rags. He fixed his sunken eyes on
the boy and roughly demanded what he wanted, but even as he spoke he
groaned again.
"You are sick--can't I do something for you?" asked the boy.
The old man gazed at him for a moment, then he broke into a torrent of
angry words, ending with,
"Get out o' my sight. I hate boys. I hate everybody an' everything."
Theodore stood still. The rose in his hand looked strangely out of
place in that squalid room--but--beautifully out of place, for it
seemed to shed light and color as well as perfume through the close,
unhealthy atmosphere.
"Clear out, I say. Why don't ye go?" The old man tried to shake a
threatening fist, but his arm dropped weakly, and in spite of himself
he moaned with pain.
"Can't I bring a doctor or somebody to help you?" the boy asked
gently.
"Ain't nobody ter help me. Don't I tell ye I hate everybody?" was the
fierce reply.
Theodore gazed about him. There seemed nothing that he could do. He
hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward and laid the beautiful
rose against the dark, knotted fingers on the ragged bed-covering, and
then he went away, closing the door behind him. Stopping only to put
his basket into his room and lock the door, he hurried off to the
dispensary and asked that a doctor be sent to Old Man Schneider as
soon as possible. He waited until the doctor was at liberty and then
returned with him. There was no response to their knock, and again
Theodore opened the door and went in, the doctor following.
The old man did not move or look up even when the doctor spoke to
him. He lay as Theo had last seen him only that his fingers were
closed tightly over the stem of the rose, and one crimson petal lay on
the pillow close to the sunken cheek. The old man was dead--but who
could tell what thoughts of other days--of sinless days long past,
perhaps--may have been awakened in his heart by that fragrant,
beautiful bit of God's handiwork?
As Theodore went quietly up the stairs, he was glad that he had not
passed by Old Man Schneider's door.
IX. THEO IN TROUBLE
Theo went regularly now to the mission school on Sunday afternoons,
and Mr. Scott had become much interested in him.
One day Mr. Scott pleased Theo immensely by going to the boy's stand
and getting his lunch there, and not long after he went one evening to
the boy's room. He found the place dark and the door locked, but as he
was turning away, Theo came running up the stairs.
"Oh!" he cried out, in a tone of pleased surprise, as he saw his
teacher. "Wait a minute an' I'll get a light."
Having lighted his lamp, the boy sat down on the cot, giving the
broken stool to his visitor. Mr. Scott's heart was full of sympathy
as he glanced around the forlorn little room and remembered that it
was all the home that the boy had.
"Theodore," he said, after talking a while, "what do you do evenings?"
"Oh, sometimes I stay in Nan's room, an' sometimes I drop in an' talk
to Tommy O'Brien or some of the other sick ones in the house, an'
sometimes I go somewheres outside. Saturday nights I help at a flower
stand."
"Why don't you go to an evening school? I think that would be the best
place for you to spend your evenings," said Mr. Scott.
This was a new idea to the boy. He thought it over in silence.