"IT IS NO MADE-UP AFFAIR."
IT was Monday evening, and there was company at Mr. Roberts's
home—not the usual Monday evening gathering, but quite a large party
of well-dressed men and women, many of them young, yet some were
middle-aged. The pretty room opposite the conservatory was thrown
open, and aglow with lights and flowers; and groups were continually
passing in and out, admiring the paintings and the flowers, and the
type-writers of different patterns, and the books and magazines, of
which there were many. But interest was not confined to this room. The
parlours were thrown open and the music-room beyond; even the cosy
little library was public property for this one evening. The company
was large and their tastes were varied; so no pains had been spared to
give them variety.
You are acquainted with quite a number of the guests; yet I am by no
means sure that you would recognize them all. Even in so short a period
as three years great changes may be effected.
For instance, do you know the young man in unnoticeable, and therefore
appropriate, evening dress, who is doing duty at the piano, watching
with practised eye the course of the player, and turning the leaf with
skilful hand at just the right moment? It is a somewhat embarrassing
position; but his manner leads you to suppose that he has been
accustomed to it all his life, and that he reads music well. In the
latter belief you are correct; but as to being accustomed to it—three
years ago Nimble Dick could have told you a different story.
You can't believe that it is he? I do not wonder. The change is
certainly a great one; but he does not feel it. To tell you the truth,
he almost forgets, when he becomes absorbed in his work, that this sort
of society was not always open to him. Three years mean a long time
to the young; and Richard Bolton has so long been accustomed to the
freedom of Mrs. Roberts's parlour; and to the sort of people whom one
finds there, that none of the refinements of polite life are strange
to him; and as to turning music, has he not done it for his hostess
numberless times?
If your eyes are now opened, it is possible that you may be trying to
spy out other young men. The rooms are full of them, elegantly-dressed
fashionable young men; but a few are noticeable by the air which they
have of being in a sense responsible for the comfort of the others.
They are on the alert; they are taking care that no young guest shall
appear for a moment to be forgotten or neglected. They appear to be
entirely familiar with the house and all its appointments. They can be
appealed to for a glass of water or an ice, or to know what special
scene this landscape hanging over the mantle represents, or whose bust
this is in the niche at the left, or in what portion of the library a
certain book will be found, or from what part of the foreign world that
strangely-shaped shell came; and they are all equally at home.
In short, it is like having a dozen or twenty young hosts to look after
your comfort and pleasure. In point of fact, there are seventeen of
them. The original seven has thus increased. Two months ago there were
twenty; but one has secured an appointment as telegraph operator in a
distant city—and as Stephen Crowley occupies a similar position in one
of the offices in this city, some very interesting conversations are
held, and many important items connected with the "Monday evenings"
and the South End School and the "Library Association," etc., are
transmitted when the lines are not otherwise employed.
Young Haskell, too, has gone with one of the partners from the store
where he was first employed, to set up a branch store in a not distant
town; and his old Sabbath school teacher has already received letters
from him, saying that they have started a branch Sunday school in the
south part of the town, and that he has picked seven little wretches
out of the streets, from eight to twelve years of age, and gone to work.
"And, dear Mrs. Roberts, I wish you would pray for me, that I may be
able to bring every one of them to Christ."
So the letter ran; and that tells volumes to the initiated about young
Haskell.
But although the changes among these young men have been great almost
to bewilderment, only one of the number has been promoted to a dazzling
height. The others are without exception earning good, honest livings
for themselves; securing good, substantial education through the
evening classes which have grown out of that first effort; bidding fair
to become leading and honoured citizens when they actually take their
places as men. But Mark Calkins, faithful, plodding, good-hearted,
patient Mark, has surpassed them all!
The truth is, "that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath
entered into the heart," what sort of magnificence surrounds him now.
He has gone to court. The chief Ruler of the realm has sent for Mark to
be always in his immediate presence in the palace; and with what joy he
went I cannot tell you, nor how often they speak of him, and try to let
their hearts conceive of the glory which surrounds him, and dwell on
the day when they will be called, one after another, to share the same
glory, for this is the ambition of more than half of them.
Now, in that sentence is unveiled the most curious part of my curious
story; and that it is curious I frankly admit. It is no made-up affair.
I am not responsible for the strangeness of it. You are to remember
that "truth is stranger than fiction," and then to understand that I am
telling you the truth. It is, then, a fact that these young men have
each received conditional appointments to serve in the palace, high in
power, and splendour, and dignity. The conditions are that they are
to be willing to be guided in all things by the will of their King,
whom they each admit to be wise above all wisdom, and to be kind above
all their conceptions of kindness. It is true that nine of the number
have accepted their appointments, donned their uniform, assumed their
positions as he has directed, and are waiting for the summons to appear
in person at court. It is also true that the others are still in a
state of indecision; they do not know whether to accept the appointment
or not. It is true that they feel themselves honoured; that they
believe this to be the only path of honourable and safe promotion. It
is true that they have full faith in those who will tell with joy that,
having enlisted, they find the service even in this ante-room sweet and
the rewards great.
It is true that they severally visited Mark, just as the door was
opening to admit him to the palace, and heard him speak of the glimpses
of its glory, and heard that his last words before he went away
were, "Oh, mine eyes see the King in his beauty!" And that his voice
was jubilant as that of a conqueror, and his face radiant as with a
reflection of unseen glory. And yet they hesitate, and daily with the
call, and mean, some time, to have such an inheritance deeded to them,
but not now. Remember, I am not responsible for this. Were I writing
fiction I should hesitate to set down such idiotic folly, expecting you
to call it unnatural or absurdly overdrawn; but I do solemnly declare
to you that this is fact. Account for the folly of their behaviour as
best you can.
Well, Sallie and her father are left behind. But, mind you, they are
not among the doubtful ones. They both as much expect to serve at court
as they expect to live through all eternity. But while they wait,
they are busy. They have moved from the alley; the surroundings were
not such as they liked. Did you notice that bit of a house standing
modestly back from the road, at the farther corner of those ample
grounds that surround the South End Church? It is the sexton's house;
and that church, and those Sunday school rooms, and those grounds, and
everything pertaining to them, are under his care. The father is the
sexton it is true, and attends the furnace and rings the bell; but it
is Sallie's care that keeps seat and desk and window so beautifully
free from dust or stain. Oh, they live busy lives, and happy ones.
Sallie trusted not in vain in her father's promise that night, when he
put his weak will into the pledge; but you are to understand that it
was but a few days thereafter when he planted his weak and wavering
feet on the Rock of Ages. Then did Satan angle for him in vain.
So, on this Monday evening, there were but seventeen at the gathering.
I hesitate over what to name the gathering. I would call it a party,
but that in many respects it was so totally different from anything
with which you are probably acquainted by that name.
The young man who stands by the door of the conservatory, eagerly
describing to Miss Henderson a rare and curious flower, which has
been sent to Mrs. Roberts from California, is "Black Dirk." Really, I
hope you are sufficiently astonished; for he looks so utterly unlike
the scamp who used to be the special torment of the South End Mission
that I should be disappointed if you were not impressed by it. "Mr.
Colson" almost everybody calls him now. The name has long since lost
its strangeness. He is in the employment of the great firm of Bostwick,
Smythe, Roberts & Co.
And although Mr. Roberts has never found it convenient to do so before,
there were reasons why he thought it would be well to have a clerk
within call, so Mr. Colson boards with what was the junior partner of
the firm. He is so no more, by the way, for Mr. Reid has been received
as a member, and is decidedly a "junior" partner. Probably Mr. Roberts
could tell you, if he chose, why one so young, and without capital, had
been elected to partnership; but, as a rule, he keeps his own counsel,
only remarking that the young man developed remarkable business
faculties which were patent to the whole firm. To his wife he said:—
"I tell you, Flossy, I believe a consecrated life will be honoured
by the Lord in whatever channel he gives it talents to develop.
'Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.' That young man is going to have a
career in business. I shouldn't be surprised if the Master meant him to
show the world how a Christian can use money to his glory."
It is early yet to prophesy what Mr. Colson will do. Doubtless he will
be a merchant; certainly he will be a Christian; possibly he will be
an orator, of whom the world will yet hear—a temperance orator, for
instance. I know you would like to hear him read a poem. He is not
confined to Will Carleton's style now, though he still reads with power
some of those inimitable delineations of life; but Gracie Dennis offers
no more criticisms when he reads. In fact, I have heard her defer to
him, when a question arose, as one who had probably studied the passage
and caught its best. I am willing to confess that my poor Black Dirk
was a bit of a genius.
The thought I desire you to catch is that so many of those poor
fellows, who of necessity live by their wits in the city slums, are
diamonds which could be fitted to shine. You take a diamond, and throw
it down in the dirt and filth, and put your foot on it, and grind it
in, and leave it there, sinking and soiling, day after day, year after
year; and when somebody comes along and picks it out, how much will it
gleam for him at first? Yet the diamond is there.
"Thou shalt ... be ... a royal diadem in the hand of thy God."
Mrs. Roberts had been at work hunting diamonds for His diadem.
As Mr. Colson stood there chatting freely with Miss Henderson, there
was nothing about the association that looked incongruous, neither did
it occur to any. There was not a trace of embarrassment about this boy
from the slums; he had forgotten the slums, and stood talking with one
of the aristocrats of the city.
How came she to talk with him, to allow herself to be entertained by
him? Let me tell you; thereby hangs a tale. Some time before this
evening—in fact, nearly two years before—Mrs. Roberts had come to a
puzzle, and stood and looked at it doubtfully. Then she presented it to
the others:—
"They are growing easy in their manners with me; learning to be
gentlemanly without embarrassment, and thoughtful over little things
without being ashamed of it; but I am afraid that with other ladies
they would be sadly frightened and awkward. When Mrs. Delaney came in
this evening I could but notice how utterly silent Mr. Colson became;
he had been talking well before. It seems as though there was a great
gulf between them and social advancement. How can we bridge it?"
Then Mr. Reid ventured his thought:—
"My sister Esther had a class in the Centre Street Sabbath school—nice
little girls, who wore pretty dresses, and had their hair curled, and
came from the best families. After she was taken sick, she told me
one of her regrets was that she had not stayed well long enough to
try a plan which she had. She meant to take a class of rough little
boys in the mission school, and she meant to ask the mothers of the
little girls to let them come, once a month, and play with the little
boys from the streets—she to play with them and watch over them
every moment, but to try to interest the girls in teaching the boys
gentleness and good manners. I don't know how it would have worked.
Esther was never well enough to undertake it, nor could she seem
to enlist any one else in such service. It has grave objections, I
suppose; but I have always thought that I should like to see something
of the kind carefully tried."
Mrs. Roberts, before this little story was half concluded, had turned
those eager eyes of hers on the speaker—eyes that always had a peculiar
light in them whenever her soul took in a new suggestion.
"Thank you," she said. "I see—oh! A great many things. I ought to have
called in that dear sister Esther to help on this phase of the question
before. It has always seemed to me as though we were doing her work."