"OH, WHAT A NICE THOUGHT!"
THIS very calm view of the question gave Gracie time to recover from
her excitement, and to laugh at her folly.
Then Mrs. Roberts said, still speaking very gently,—
"I don't want to argue with you, dear, and I couldn't if I wished—you
know I am a dunce about all such things; but I just want to ask you a
little question. You need not answer me unless you choose—not now, that
is; perhaps some time we may want to talk about it. I would like to
know the reasons that people have for thinking that it is out of place
for a lady to kneel down with her Christian friends and speak to Jesus
about a thing that they unitedly desire, and that they believe he is
able to do for them? If it is not proper to speak before them, why is
it proper to speak to them on the same subject?"
This question Gracie carried to her room for thought.
Meantime, as Dr. Everett and young Reid went homeward, they had a talk
together.
"When I found out that those boys had gone to the theatre to-night I
was completely discouraged," declared Reid. "It seemed to me that our
work was a failure; I could almost see Satan laughing over the success
of his scheme. I never felt so about anything in my life. And now it
seems to me that perhaps the Lord will let it result in being the best
thing that ever happened to us."
To all of which Dr. Everett made the apparently irrelevant answer,—
"Mr. Roberts and his wife are singularly well mated; how perfectly they
fit into each other's thoughts. Reid, you and I have a great deal to
learn from them."
"I have," said Reid meekly.
Yet another bit of talk closed this evening.
"M'Cullum has given me an idea," Mr. Roberts said to his wife as they
sat together reviewing the day. "Not a bad one, I fancy. I wonder when
we can act on it and watch results? There are tickets for other places
besides theatres. Why couldn't we furnish them for some entertainment,
lecture, or concert, or something of the sort that would be really
helpful? The only difficulty is that there are few helpful places, as
yet, within reach of their capacities. It takes an exceptional genius
to hold such listeners."
But his wife, her face aglow, clasped her hands in an ecstasy of
delight.
"What a beautiful thought!" she said. "And how nice that it should come
to you just now, when there will be such a splendid opportunity to put
it in practice! Why, don't you know? Gough, next week—half-a-crown
tickets; on temperance, too! How grand! And, Evan, let us give them
each two tickets. I want that Dirk Colson to take his sister. Perhaps
he will not, but then he may; one can never tell. O Evan, won't it be
nice?"
"Ah!" said Mr. Roberts. "As usual you are ahead of me. I had not
thought of the two tickets apiece. That is a suggestion for their
manliness. Flossy, we'll try it."
Yet another bit of talk.
They shambled down the stairs from the second-rate hall at a late hour
that evening—those seven boys; quiet for them, though the play had been
exciting, and not remarkably moral, "viewed" from the standpoint of a
Christian.
"After all," said Nimble Dick, breaking a silence with speech, as
though the subject of which he spoke had been under discussion among
them, "after all, it was rather sneaking to bolt and say nothing; I
kind of wish we hadn't done it."
"That's what I told you all along," said Dirk Colson with even unusual
sullenness; "but you would go and do it, and we was fools enough to
follow you."
"And I'll bet she had oysters or something!" This from Jerry Tompkins.
You have probably no idea how hungry he was at that moment.
"They was goin' to do somethin' new to-night—that there Dennis girl
told me so when I met her on the street yesterday; something that we
would like first-rate, she said— a bran-new notion." This was Stephen
Crowley's contribution to the general discomfort.
"Well," said Nimble Dick, and the sigh with which he spoke the word
would have gone to Mrs. Roberts's heart, "I s'pose it's all up now; I
shouldn't wonder if we never got another bid; I wouldn't if I was them,
I know that. And their old theatre wasn't no good shakes, after all.
We've been a pack of fools, and I don't mind owning it."
Whereupon, having reached the corner, they separated and went glumly to
their homes. And this is gratitude! What a pity Mr. M'Cullum, who had
been smiling over his benevolence all the evening, could not have heard
them!
The weeks that followed this night were crowded with trifles on which
hung important and far-reaching results. This is a very trite saying, I
know. All weeks are crowded with eventful trifles—at least, we in our
blindness call them trifles, although we are constantly discovering
their importance, and being constantly astonished over them.
Among other things, the seven boys became nine, having taken to their
companionship two choice spirits, apparently worse than themselves,
and appeared at the South End Mission with all the bravado that boys
of their stamp are apt to put on when they feel somewhat ashamed of
themselves. The consequence was that the trials which Mrs. Roberts had
to endure from them, though a trifle less apparent to others, were not
a whit less distressing than usual.
But before the session was concluded they were treated to a sensation
that held them in silent astonishment for nearly five minutes. Any
person well acquainted with Alfred Reid could have told that he
had a plan in view, and was trying to carry it in the face of some
opposition. He looked convinced, and Mr. Durant looked astonished and
troubled; there was much low-toned talk between them, and some shaking
of head. Apparently, however, Mr. Reid came off victor, for his brow
cleared, and he presently made his way to Mrs. Roberts's side and said
a few words, and must have been gratified by the sudden lighting up of
her face and her eager,—
"Oh, what a nice thought! Even if it fails apparently, it will not
utterly, for the suggestion will help them."
In the course of time the new idea came to the front. There was to be
a festival, or a social, or an entertainment at the South End in the
course of a few weeks—a sort of anniversary of the starting of the
mission. Among other work that was in progress, the decoration of the
room, involving the hanging of pictures, banners, mottoes, wreaths,
etc., required some strong arms and willing hands. Committees were to
be formed. Two weeks before, teachers had been appointed to prepare a
list of committees. It fell to young Reid to appoint the committee on
decoration. When he was called upon for his report, he came promptly
forward, like a man ready for action, and commenced,—
"A committee of four has been deemed amply sufficient for decoration,
and I appoint for the purpose the following: Richard Bolton, Morris
Burns, Miss Gracie Dennis, and Miss Annie Powell."
The teachers, who had been long at the mission, looked from one to
another with a bewildered air. Morris Burns they knew—a clear-eyed
young Scotchman, with willing hands and feet ever ready to run off
errands for all workers, a boy of nineteen or so, whom everybody liked,
warmhearted, unselfish, and thoroughly trustworthy. Annie Powell was
one of the older girls in Mr. Durant's Bible-class—a sweet-faced,
lady-like little factory girl, who would work in with Morris Burns
nicely. Miss Gracie Dennis was Mrs. Roberts's beautiful young friend.
All the teachers knew her, and all thought it very kind in her to throw
her strength and taste into the preparations as heartily as though she
were one of them. But who was Richard Bolton? Nobody knew. Yet their
knowledge of business etiquette told them that he was chairman of the
decoration committee. Where was he? Not a teacher, certainly, for they
were intimately acquainted with one another; and they knew no such name
in the one Bible-class made up of trustworthy helpers.
Over in Mrs. Roberts's class, with the single exception of the teacher,
there was equal ignorance. The nine boys had stopped their restless
mischief to listen, because there is a sort of fascination to boys
in all the details of well-managed business. They liked to hear the
appointments; but who Richard Bolton might be seemed not to occur to
one of them. It is true that Jerry Tompkins nudged Nimble Dick in
anything but a quiet way with his elbow, and murmured, "You've got a
namesake it seems in this 'ere job." Yet no light dawned on them.
Mr. Durant, who, it is possible, has not appeared to you in a
favourable light, for the reason that he was being much perplexed
by the entirely new methods being introduced among the boys who had
heretofore driven him to the very verge of desperation, was really a
quick-witted man, and having succumbed to what he feared was a wild
experiment, knew how to help to carry it out properly. He came briskly
to the front—Alfred's committee being the last on the list—and began
his work.
"The chairmen of these different committees will be kind enough to
report to me as rapidly as possible the time and place of their first
meeting for consultation, and I will make the announcements." Then he
stepped to Mrs. Roberts's class. "Bolton," he said, bending toward that
astonished scamp, and speaking as though this were an every-day affair,
"you are chairman, I believe, of the decoration committee; where and
when will you have them meet?"
Imagine Nimble Dick's eyes! Nay, imagine the eyes and faces of the
entire nine! It would have been a study for an artist.
For a moment Nimble Dick was speechless; then he managed to burst forth
with,—
"What in thunder are you talking about?"
"Your committee," said Mr. Durant politely, ignoring the manner of the
questioner. "You must call them together, you know, to plan your work.
Where shall it be, and when?"
"I ain't got no committee; and I ain't got no place to meet nobody; and
I don't know what in thunder you're after."
Then came Mrs. Roberts to the rescue.
"Why, Mr. Bolton, you can meet at our society parlour, you know. It is
the very place, and will be so convenient for Miss Dennis."
"What's to meet, and what's to do?" said Dick defiantly. "I ain't going
to meet nobody."
"Why, it is just to hang mottoes and banners, and trim the room for the
anniversary. Of course you'll help; I would have the meeting arranged
there by all means."
"Very well," said Mr. Durant quickly, as though he had received the
answer from the chairman himself. "Now as to time, you ought to come
together to-morrow evening if you could; there is a good deal to do."
"Mr. Bolton, couldn't you come up at six o'clock for once? Then you
could get your work all done before the time for our social. I can
arrange for Annie Powell to be there at that time; and, Mr. Durant,
doesn't Morris Burns work for you? Could he be present at six o'clock?
Then I don't see but your meeting is nicely planned. You can be there
at six, can't you, Mr. Bolton?"
"I tell you I don't know nothin' what you are talking about."
Nimble Dick, who was rarely anything but good-natured, was surprised
by the bewilderments of the situation into being almost as fierce as
Dirk Colson was habitually; the gaping amazement of his boon companions
seeming to add to his irritation.
"But you will," said his teacher cheerily. "It is an easy matter to
explain. Miss Dennis knows all about such things, and I'm going to
help, though they haven't honoured me with an appointment."
At a sign from the lady, Mr. Durant stepped back to his platform and
announced,—
"The chairman of the committee on decoration desires me to say that
his committee is called together to-morrow evening at the Young Men's
Social Parlours, No. 76 East Fifty-fifth Street, at six o'clock,
'sharp,' as the chairman has another engagement at seven."
"I had to coin a name for the place of meeting," he said to Mrs.
Roberts afterwards. "I beg your pardon if it was wrong; but Reid has
been giving me glowing accounts of that room, and you said something
about its being a social parlour, didn't you?"
"It is a good name," said Mrs. Roberts. "We have awkwardly called it
the 'new room.' I am glad it is christened. I will have some curtains
hung through the centre to-morrow to make 'parlours' instead of parlour
of it. I can see how a second room can be made useful in several ways."
Thus was the bewildering committee whirled into existence; the chairman
thereof being still so dumbfounded with his position that he did not
rouse until the laughing boys, by whom he was surrounded, began to
take in some of the fun of the situation, and to assail him right and
left with mock congratulations, ill-suppressed groans, hisses, and the
like. Then he turned towards them with new-born dignity that would have
fitted Dirk Colson, and said,—
"If you fellows don't shut up and behave yourselves something like
decent for the rest of the time, I'll chaw half-a-dozen of you into
mincemeat as soon as we are out of this!"