"WHAT DID IT ALL AMOUNT TO, ANYHOW?"
SETTLED, that is, so far as the class of boys in the corner would
permit the use of that term. They had not settled in the least. Two of
them indulged in a louder burst of laughter than before, just as Mrs.
Roberts took her seat. Yet her face was in nowise ruffled.
"Good-afternoon," she said, with as much courtesy as she would have
used in addressing gentlemen. "I wonder if you know that I am a
stranger in this great city? You are almost the first acquaintances
that I am making among the young people, and I have a fancy that I
would like to have you all for my friends. Suppose we enter into a
compact to be excellent and faithful friends to one another? What do
you say?"
What were they to say? They were slightly taken aback, surprised into
listening quietly to the close of the strange sentence, and then giving
no answer beyond violent nudges and aside looks. What did she mean?
Was she "chaffing" them? This was unlike the opening of any lesson.
It certainly could not be the first question on the lesson-paper; nor
did it sound like certain well-meant admonitions to "try to improve
the opportunity" and "learn all that they could." With each of these
commencements they were entirely familiar; but this was something new.
"Do you agree to the compact?" she asked, while they waited, her face
bright with smiles.
"Dunno about that," said one whom she very soon discovered occupied the
position of a ringleader; "as a general thing, we like to be kind of
careful about our friendships. We might strike something that wasn't
quite the thing with people in our position. You can't be too careful
in a big city, you know."
It is impossible to give you an idea of the impishness with which this
impudent answer was jerked out, to the great amusement of the others,
who laughed immoderately.
It suited Mrs. Roberts to treat the reply with perfect seriousness and
composure.
"That is very true," she said courteously; "but at the same time I
venture to hope that since you know nothing ill of me as yet, you
will receive me into a sort of conditional friendship, with the
understanding that I remain your friend until I am guilty of some
conduct that ought to justify you in deserting me. I am sure you cannot
object to that; and now, if we are to be friends, we should know each
other's names. I am Mrs. Evan Roberts, and I live at No. 76 East
Fifty-fifth Street. I shall be glad to see you at my house whenever
you would like to call on me. Now, will one of you be kind enough to
introduce himself and the class? Perhaps you will introduce me to your
friends?"
She looked directly at the ringleader.
"Certainly, certainly, mum!" he replied briskly. "This is Mr. Carrot
Pumpkins, at your service, mum—this fellow on my left, I mean; rather
a queer name I daresay you think. It all came of his being fond of
sitting astride a pumpkin when he was a little shaver, and of his hair
being exactly the colour of carrots, as you can see for yourself. And
this fellow on my right is Mr. Champion Chawer; so-called because he
can make the biggest run on tobacco of any of the set, taking him day
in and day out. That fellow at your elbow is 'Slippery Jim.' We don't
call him 'Mister,' because he doesn't stay long enough in one place to
have it tacked on to him. He is such a slippery scamp that an eel is
nowhere, compared to him."
During this rapid flow of words the listeners, who evidently admired
their leader became so convulsed with laughter as to lose all vestige
of respectability, and Mr. Durant's disturbed face appeared in view.
"Boys, this is perfectly disgraceful!" he said, speaking in sharp and
highly-excited tones—"Perfectly disgraceful! I don't know why you wish
to come here to disturb us in this way Sabbath after Sabbath! But we
have really endured enough. There is a policeman at the foot of the
stairs, and he can easily call others to his help; so now, if you wish
to remain here, you must behave yourselves."
During the deliverance of this sentence, some of the boys gave mimic
groans, one of them whistled, and others kept up a running comment.
"A policeman! Oh good! That's little Duffer, I know! We've seen him
before! Wouldn't mind giving him a chase to-day, just for exercise, you
know, mum."
"I say, boys, let's cut and run, the whole band of us. We can jump
these seats at one bound, and take the little woman along on our
shoulders for a ride! Shall we do it?" This from the leader, who in
time came to be known as "Nimble Dick."
"Bah! No!" replied a third. "Let's stick it out and see what she's got
to say; she's a new party. Besides, we can't give her the slip in that
way; we're friends of hers, you know."
"Mrs. Roberts," said the distressed Mr. Durant, in a not very good
undertone, "I think you will have to give it up. They are worse than
usual this morning. We have endured much from them, and I must say that
my patience is exhausted. Will you not take the seat at the other end
of the room?"
"Not unless they wish me to."
The people who had known Flossy Shipley well would have detected a
curious little quiver in her voice, which meant that she was making
a strong effort at self-control; but a stranger would hardly have
observed it.
"Do you wish me to go away, young gentlemen?"
The scamps thus appealed to looked at one another again, as if in doubt
what to say. This again was new ground to them. Policemen they were
accustomed to. At last Nimble Dick made answer:—
"No, I'm bound if we do; it comes the nearest to looking like a lark
of anything that we have had in a long time.—I say, parson, go off
about your business and let us alone. We was having a good time getting
acquainted till you come and spoiled it. We'll be as sober as deacons
at a prayer-meetin'. And look out how you insult this young woman;
she's a friend of ours, and we're bound to protect her. No asking of
her to change her seat; she's going to sit right here to the end of the
chapter."
Mr. Durant looked his willingness to summon the police at once; but
Mrs. Roberts's voice, evenly poised now, took up the story:—
"Thank you; then I will stay. And since it is getting late, suppose we
lose no more time. There was something about which I wanted to tell
you. But a few evenings ago I attended a gathering where I saw some
very singular things. A gentleman in the party was tied with a strong
rope, hands and feet, as firmly as two men could tie him—people who
knew how to tie knots, and they did their best; yet while we stood
looking at him, he shook his hand free and held it out to them. How do
you think it was done?"
"Sham knots," said one.
"No, for my husband was one of the gentlemen who tied him, and he
assured me that he tied the rope as firmly as he could. Besides, more
wonderful things than that were done. I tied my own handkerchief into
at least a dozen very hard knots, and gave it to him, and I saw him
put it in a glass of water, then seize it and shake it out, and the
knots were gone. I saw him take two clean glasses, and pour water from
a pitcher into one, and it seemed to turn instantly to wine. Then he
poured that glass of wine into the other empty glass, and immediately
it turned back to water, or seemed to. Dozens of other strange things
he did. I should really like to tell you about them all. I will, at
some other time; but just now I think you would like to know how he did
them?"
"How he did them!" "As if you could tell!" "Can you tell?" "Pitch in,
mum; I'd like to hear that part myself!" These were some of the eager
answers.
Had the little teacher, under the embarrassments of the occasion, taken
leave of her senses? Actually she was bending forward, opened Bible
turned face downward on her knee, engaged in describing, in somewhat
minute detail, the explanations of certain sleight-of-hand performances
which she had recently seen! What idea of the office of teacher, and
the solemnity of the truths to be taught, had she?
The boys were listening, their heads bent forward all around her. What
of that? They would have listened equally well to a graphically-told
story of a Fourth Avenue riot, and been equally benefited, you think?
They did not know just when the speaker slipped from the events of last
week to the events of more than three thousand years ago. Indeed, so
ignorant were they of all past history, that they were not even aware
that she went back into the past; for aught they knew, she might have
gone on Wednesday of last week to see the man who could untie knots
by magic, and on Thursday to see the men who could drop canes on the
ground that would appear to turn into wriggling serpents. But there was
one statement that proved too much for their credulity.
"You could not imagine what occurred next," said the bright-faced
teacher. "The cane or rod that the first man had dropped actually
opened its mouth and swallowed the other rods that seemed to be
serpents, and was left there alone in its triumph!"
"Oh, bosh!" said Nimble Dick, contempt expressed in the very curve
of his nose. "That's too steep; I don't believe a word of it! These
fellows can do lots of queer things—I've seen 'em perform myself; but
they never made a live thing yet; I've heard folks that know say so."
"Precisely what I wanted to reach," said Mrs. Roberts with animation.
"You are right; they never did; and you have discovered just the
difference between them and the one man of whom I have been telling
you. He worked by the power of God; he distinctly stated that he did,
and that God really turned his rod into a serpent, and allowed it to
swallow the imitations of life, and then turned it back again into a
rod, to show that nothing was beyond his power."
"Did you see the thing done?" questioned a young sceptic, running his
tongue into his cheek in a skilful way, and distorting his whole face
with a disagreeable leer. He began to suspect that he was being cheated
into listening to a Bible story.
Mrs. Roberts was prompt with her answer:—
"Oh no, I did not; neither did I see the great fire that you had in
this city about a year ago. At that time I was a thousand miles away;
and it so happens that I have never talked with any person who did see
it; yet I know there was a great fire, and many buildings were burned
and lives lost. It has been proved to me."
"Oh, well," said sceptic number two, while number one retired into
silence to speculate over this answer, "fires are common enough things;
anybody can know that they happen; but it ain't such a common affair
to see a stick turn into a serpent and swallow up other serpents. I've
seen them fellows make things that looked like snakes myself. I could
most swear to it that I'd seen them wriggle; but they never did no
swallowing."
"That is, they did not give unmistakable signs that they were alive.
But do you think it too strange a thing for God to do? Surely he can
make life. How is it that you are here, breathing, talking, thinking,
if there is no power anywhere to make life?"
"Oh, I came from a tadpole," said the boastful young scientist, putting
his thumbs under his arms, and affecting an air of great wisdom. "I
know all about that; I was there, and see the things wriggle."
Evolution staring her in the face in a corner class in a mission
school—a class that had been gathered from the slums! Mrs. Roberts did
not know that these are the very places in which to find it in all its
coarseness. Yet she made haste to meet the boy on his own ground.
"Very well, if you choose to take that view of it. Was not the tadpole
alive? Where did the life come from? You insist that the story I
have been telling you is untrue because you know that none of these
sleight-of-hand performers have ever or can ever make actual life—that
it is an impossible thing for human beings to do. Yet when I tell you
that God did it, you refuse the statement. How are you going to account
for life? If in its very lowest forms it cannot be made by men who have
given all their time to the study of the marvellous, how is it that it
is everywhere about us, unless I am correct, and there is a Power that
can produce life?"
Not a boy among them had heard the term "evolution," knew anything
about "the survival of the fittest." They were entirely ignorant
of "protoplasm" or "bioplasm;" yet not one of them but had caught
the meaning of some of these terms, as they had been translated for
them into the vernacular of the city slums; not one in the class but
perceived that their champion arguer had been met on his own ground and
vanquished.
Not with an outburst of horror; he had not even been informed that he
was irreverent. Nimble Dick delighted in making each teacher tell him
this. He had merely been replied to in the calmest of argumentative
tones, and called upon to account for the facts in his own statements,
and had been unable to do so.
The crowd broke into a derisive laugh, and were noisy, it is true,
and brought troubled frowns to the face of their superintendent, and
made the flush on Alfred Reid's face deepen; yet if both these anxious
watchers had known it, it was worthy of note that the laugh had been at
the expense of one of their number, and not at their teacher.
"Well, go on," interposed the youngest and quietest of the group. "Tell
us some more about your old fellow with his serpents. Did they stay
swallowed, and what did it all amount to, anyhow?"
Thus challenged, Mrs. Roberts gave her whole heart to the business of
giving, in as dramatic a manner as she could, the closing scenes in the
act performed in Egypt so long ago, carefully avoiding any reference
to time, and mentioning no names, using only modern terms, and an
exceedingly simple conversational form of language. She was, however,
presently interrupted with a question:—
"When did all this happen, and why don't somebody do something like it
nowdays?"
Ignoring the first question, Mrs. Roberts adroitly gave herself to the
second.
"Why don't you find your pleasure in tumbling around on the floor,
playing with a bright-coloured marble or two, as you did when a child?
The world was in its childhood when God taught the people in this way.
He has given them just as wonderful lessons since, but lessons more
suited to men and women who have learned to think and reason. We don't
like to be always treated as children."
Whether they really dimly understood the meaning or not is possibly
doubtful, yet it appealed to their sense of dignity in so indirect a
way, that they did not themselves realize what inclined them to quiet
for a moment, while she finished her sentence earnestly.
In the midst of the quiet, the closing-bell rang, and the seven young
scamps seemed at once to take into their hearts seven other spirits
worse than themselves, and behaved abominably during the closing
exercises, and tumbled out of the door over each other in the wildest
fashion the moment the signal was given, halting only to say, in the
person of their leader,—
"You be on hand next Sunday; we like your yarns first-rate."
Mrs. Roberts, with glowing cheeks and eyes behind which there were
unshed tears, made her way to the desk where Mr. Durant was standing,
and spoke quickly:—
"There is a difference between others who have tried it and myself, Mr.
Durant. The sentence in Mr. Reid's account that gave me courage was,
'Every one has failed, so far; people are unwilling to take the class a
second time.' I have failed, but I want to try again."