UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO VINE WAITED, AND THE FAMILY PARTY DREW NEARER." P- 333 EIGHTY-SEVEN EV PANSY AUTHOR OF "CHRISTIE'S CHRISTMAS," "A HEDGE FENCE," "GERTRUDE'S DIARY," "THE MAN OF THE HOUSE," " INTKRRUI-TED," "THE HALL IN THE GROVE," "AN ENDLESS CHAIN," "MRS. SOLOMON SMITH LOOKING ON," "FOUR GIRLS AT CHAUTAUQUA," "RUTH ERSKINH'S CROSSES," "SPUN FROM FACT," "LITTLE FISHERS: AND THEIR NETS," ETC., ETC. BOSTON D L O T II It O P COMPANY CPYI"<~,HT. 1887, BY .J LoTHROr COMJ-ANY. PREFACE. CLASS OF '7: GREETING! DEAR CLASSMATES: Having journeyed through the years together, and accomplished the four years' course of reading, as we are now about to part company, I come to you with the promised book dedicated to " Our Class." I have taken great pleasure in writing it, and hope most earnestly that it will be to you a pleasant souvenir of our Alma Mater. Perhaps just here is the appropriate place in which to thank many hundreds of you for the helpful letters which you sent to aid me in the preparation of our book. That they were decided helps, you, the writers, have only to read the book, to be convinced ; for the inci- dents found therein were taken from your own letters, which contained statements of facts. I have simply grouped within a few lives, the actual experiences of many. It was my earnest desire to write a book for the '87'$ which should, in a slight degree, at least, illus trate the manner in which helping hands might be PREFACE. extended by members of the C. L. S. C., reaching lives where they least expected, and setting in motion influ- ences which should tell for eternity. It is not the least of my pleasures that, in writing this book, I have been able to leave the region of plain fiction and revel in the realm of facts. It is delightful to be able to say to you, that wherever you may chance to find suggestive hints through the book as to ways of helping, you may un- derstand that it is not theory, but practice ; not what might possibly be done, but what has been done, by the members of the class of '87 ; though, in order to make the dates of my story symmetrical, I have been obliged to remove many of the doings of the '87*5 back into the past,' thus apparently giving the honor to the classes of '84, '85, and '86, which properly belong to the '87*5. But this you will understand. And now, trusting that we who gather in the classic groves of the Mother Chautauqua may have the honor of passing through the golden gate together; and hoping and praying that not only we who gather there, but all the great company of those faithful ones who must of necessity abide at home, may meet one day, and pass under the flowery arches of our Father's love, through the golden gate of the Celestial City, " to go no more out forever," I subscribe myself, Yours, in the Master's service and reward, PANSY. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. EIGHT AND TWELVE , i CHAPTER II. " MARCH ! I SAID " 13 CHAPTER III. IN SEARCH OF HOME 24 CHAPTER IV. PRACTICING 35 CHAPTER V. OPPORTUNITY 46 CHAPTER VI. SOME HALF-WAY THINKING 57 CHAPTER VII. UNSEEN CONNECTIONS 68 CHAPTER VIII. "WILL YOU?".. . 80 iv CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. " I WILL " 91 CHAPTER X. GROWING " NECESSARY " 103 CHAPTER XI. ENERGY AND FORCE 114 CHAPTER XII. CIRCLES 125 CHAPTER XIII. PHOTOGRAPHS 136 CHAPTER XIV. EXPERIMENTS 147 CHAPTER XV. SAGE CONCLUSIONS 159 CHAPTER XVI. " ORDERS TO MOVE " 171 CHAPTER XVII. HAPPENINGS 183 CHAPTER XVIII. DIFFERING WORLDS 195 CONTENTS. v CHAPTER XIX. SEEKING STEPPING-STONES 207 CHAPTER XX. "VERY MUCH IMPROVED " 220 CHAPTER XXI. PROGRESS 232 CHAPTER XXII. EVOLUTIONS 244 CHAPTER XXIII. " IN His NAME " 256 CHAPTER XXIV. A " PROVIDENCE " 268 CHAPTER XXV. A GREAT MANY " LITTLE THINGS " 280 CHAPTER XXVI. HOME 292 CHAPTER XXVII. CIRCLES WITHIN CIRCLES 304 CHAPTER XXVIII. A NIGHT FOR DECISIONS 317 CHAPTER XXIX. "THAT BEATS ME ! " 327 EIGHTY-SEVEN. CHAPTER I. EIGHT AND TWELVE. THEY were both barefooted, and, to all intents and purposes, bareheaded. She carried in her hand a much-faded, little old-fashioned sun- bonnet, the strings of which had been chewed a little, and then smoothed out, as though the chewer were penitent. He tossed carelessly from hand to hand, or occasionally pitched a long way ahead of him, a much-soiled, much-torn, nearly rimless straw hat. Her dress was of faded pink calico, and was rapidly growing too short, as to sleeves as well as skirt ; it was clean ; that is, comparatively, but the elbows were much patched with material which had not faded, and the effect was marked. As to the boy's attire, perhaps the least said about it the better. That he was out- growing it in all directions, that it tore on the slightest provocation, and that there was no care- ful hand to patch and sponge and brush for him, 2 EIGHT AND TWELVE. were self-evident truths. However, neither of these, to judge by their faces, took much thought for clothes. They sauntered along the sometimes sandy, sometimes grassy, lakeshore, stopping quite often to dig with their bare toes attractive-looking holes in the damp sand, or to shy a pebble at a darting fish ; between times they talked ; grave, old-fashioned talk, some of it, revealing by the very words in which they expressed themselves that al- ready some of the shadows of life's stern realities had fallen on them. Yet some of the talk was childish in the extreme, indicating the constant bubbling forth of youth and light-heartedness, de- spite the weight of some burdens. " It's pretty here," the girl said, stopping sud- denly to look up to the very top of one of the grand old trees, stretching her neck back, and shading her brown eyes from the sun's rays, and looking up and up beyond the trees into the blue sky, dot- ted here and there with delicate, filmy clouds. " I think it is just lovely through here. And I think this is a lovely day ; it always is nice on my birth- day. Isn't that queer ? Mother says she doesn't ever remember my having a rainy birthday." They had left the lake now, and climbed one of the hills, where the trees were tall and so close together that their branches interlocked, forming lovely arches for the sun to glorify. " It is very nice," the boy said, simply, in answer to his companion, but whether he meant the place, EIGHT AND TWELVE. 3 or the birthday, or the fact of there always being sunshine on that day, he did not explain. The little girl was full of the thought : "This is my birthday walk, you know. Isn't it nice that you could take it with me, and that we could come way out here to the spot I like the best ? Mother won't let me come alone. She is afraid of bears, or snakes, or something; I ain't afraid" with fine superiority lighting up her great brown eyes " but then she is a woman, you know ; and women always get afraid of things; I wonder why?" Dreamy silence for half a minute, while she tries to settle this problem, then she is off again : " O, Win ! we had a talk this morning, mother and I a kind of birthday talk. Mother said when she was a little girl she liked the woods, and the trees, and everything, just as I do. And she meant to study and learn all about them ; out of books, you know, but she couldn't. Grandfather got very poor, and then he got sick, and then he died, and then grandmother died, and there was nothing but trouble, mother said, for years and years. O, wouldn't it be dreadful to have one's mother and father O, poor Win, I am so sorry! I didn't think. And it was mean of me ; I ought to think." " Never mind," said the boy, struggling with a sort of choking feeling, which he did not himself understand. "I don't remember any mother at all, but I do father, just a little. Go on ; I like to hear about it." 4 EIGHT AND TWELVE. "Well, I'll skip all the hard, and tell you when mother was twenty-two years old. That was her happy day, she said. She was married to father the day she was twenty-two. But, dear me ! I wouldn't like to be married as mother was ! Just in a kitchen, and with her old calico dress on, and no cake, nor anything ; and nobody to kiss her and cry. I told her I thought somebody always cried about brides. I read it in a story-book once ; but she laughed at me, and said there was nobody to cry over her ; only herself, and she did, a little, for joy. She was so glad to go away from that place ; they didn't belong to her, and they didn't care for her, any of them. I'd have been glad, too, to go with father, you know. Mother said when I was twenty-two, she would give me a happy day if she could ; a regular feast day. I said maybe I would be married on that day, just as she was ; and she laughed again, and said then she would do the crying, maybe. Isn't it queer to think that if I live, one of these days I'll be twenty-two ? " "That's a long way off, Vine." " Not so very. I counted it up with mother this morning. Mother's birthday and mine come the same time ; isn't that nice ? Mother is forty years old to-day. Mustn't it seem strange to be forty yearS old ? I'll tell you what year I will be twenty- two ; it will be eighteen hundred and eighty- seven." "Then we'll write it," said the boy, "on this old EIGHT AND TWELVE. 5 tree," and he took from a ragged pocket a battered and bruised jackknife, with two broken blades, and with much patience and care cut into the jagged bark of one of the great trees the inscription : "Vine, 22, 1887." " It is a good many years to wait," said Vine, re- flectively. " It looks more when it is printed out. I wonder what mother will do to celebrate it ? I told her I wanted a cake, and some baked pota- toes; and, Win, I said I wanted you to come to tea. Oh ! that reminds me ; it is very queer I for- got it ; I'm going to have a little bit of a tea-party to-night. No cake," shaking her head gravely, " because eggs are so dear, you know, but the po- tatoes will be lovely. I picked them out myself, and washed them before I came away; nice big ones, all of a size, and you are to come to supper, Win, this very night." " I can't," said the boy, gloomily. " It was almost as much as my head was worth to get off for this walk. I've worked like sixty ever since daylight before daylight, for that matter to get this chance, and if I'm not home before milk- ing-time, I wouldn't give much for my skin." " O, poor Win ! I say it is too mean for any- thing !" and the brown eyes blazed. "And you can't come to my birthday, after all, when there's a potato picked out for you, and washed, and everything, and mother has a little treat in a dish ; I don't know what it is, but it will be nice ? O, EIGHT AND TWELVE. Win ! couldn't you ; wouldn't they let you, just for my birthday ? " The boy gravely shook his head. " They don't care a thing about birthdays, and they'd rather disappoint me than not, any time." His face was growing hard over the thought. Stern lines about the mouth, and an angry sullen- ness in his eyes ; but Vine's brown eyes were brimming with tears, and, seeing this, he instantly turned comforter. " Never mind, Vinie, it won't be so very long to wait. I'll come to the other supper ; no Mr. Josiah Griggs in all the world can keep me from it ; just think, Vinie, I'll be twenty-six years old ! " "A great tall man," said Vine; "as tall as father. Oh! how funny to think of;" and she laughed out gleefully. At eight years of age tears and laughter may come very close together. " But 1 don't want to wait ; " and already the voice was growing tremulous again. " I might not like you nearly so well, you see. Perhaps I might even be afraid of you. Will you wear a collar that stands up all around, do you suppose, like Deacon Slo- cumb's ? Oh ! and will you have whiskers over your face ? And I'll call you Mr. Winter, I sup- pose ; or Mr. Kelland. That is the way they do. O, Win, how very funny to think of it all! I could never say 'Mr. Kelland;' do you believe I could ? Win, why did your mother give you such a queer name ? My mother was wondering about EIGHT AND TWELVE. / it the other day. She said she never heard of any- body named Winter before." " Father named me," said the boy, a tender sad- ness spreading over his face, such as always came when he spoke the names " father " and " mother." " He said mother dreaded the long winter so much, and she never lived to see it. She thought so much about it, that he gave me the name, because it make him think of her, and because she escaped." This last was added in an undertone, as though it were a thought beyond little Vine. She was considering the matter, though, with her head dropped a little to one side, like a canary-bird's. It was a pretty, thoughtful way she had. " I like winter," she said, at last. " I like the snow it's so white and the cold, and every- thing. The evenings are so nice and long, and it is warm and pleasant in our kitchen ; and some- times we roast apples, and a few times I popped some corn. Then I like to go to school through the snow, and to slide down-hill. O, Win ! won't you and I have fun together next winter ? " The boy shivered and frowned. " I hate winter," he said, fiercely. " It is so awfully cold everywhere. The coldest place in the world is our attic. You can't possibly get clothes enough over you to keep from shivering ; at least, I can't, with the clothes I get hold of. If I were manager of the bed-clothes, I'd try for it." " Mother comes and tucks me in," said Vine, 8 EIGHT AND TWELVE. surveying him with thoughtful gravity, "and then I'm always warm." Whereat the boy laughed almost fiercely. "Mrs. Josiah Griggs doesn't!" he said, with a toss of his head and a flush on his face. The troubled thought which Vine had been con- sidering for some minutes now came to the surface in hesitating speech : "Win, is she I mean, isn't she well, is she good to you ? " Whispered, those last words, as though the pos- sibilities they contained were dreadful to think of. " Oh ! good enough," said Winter, with another toss of his head. " I don't have much to do with her, nor she with me, only to scold ; but I get used to that. She doesn't do any tucking up, or that sort of thing. And I don't want her to ; I'd kick all the bed-clothes off in a hurry that she tucked." " Yes," said Vine, a little hesitatingly ; " I sup- pose so, because you are a boy." "It isn't that. It's because well, because I wouldn't want her to do things that were any like mother's, you know, when she isn't mother, and never can be, and nobody ever wants her to be." Vine nodded. She could readily understand that a boy would not care to have Mrs. Josiah Griggs for his mother. Winter returned to the subject of schools. " I don't know about next winter ; I don't be- EIGHT AND TWELVE. 9 lieve I'm to go to school. I heard them talking, the other day, Mr. Josiah and Mrs. Josiah, plan- ning work for me which sounded as though it was to take all my time. I don't see where the school is to get put in." "Oh! but," said Vine, in dismay, "that would be horrid ! Why, every boy goes to school in winter. Didn't they promise to you ? " " Yes, of course three months of schooling every year; but promises don't signify. Who's to complain, if th^y don't keep them ? Nobody cares but a boy, without friends ; and they don't care how much I complain. I don't know as it matters. School doesn't amount to much with me, Vine. When a fellow has to work up to the minute for starting, and set to work the minute he gets back, and hasn't books that he ought to study, and gets behind with all his classes, and doesn't understand things, and hasn't time to stop and ask questions, why, school is a kind of a hum- bug. Except for giving you rides at recess, and taking you home on the sled at night, I don't know but I'd as soon be at work." But over this decision Vine shook her shapely brown head violently. " O, no ! that wouldn't do at all ; because you are going to be a man, and I want you to be a real smart man. I'm to call you Mr. Kelland, you know, and every little bit of study helps a little. I couldn't call you Mr. Kelland unless you were a smart man. Now. could I ? " !O EIGHT AND TWELVE. The boy burst into a merry laugh, the first real outburst of boyishness which there had been. "Why not?" he said. "Aren't people who haven't been to school ever called mister ? " Vine shook her head again. " O, no I no indeed ; they say ' Win,' or ' Wint,' and ' Old Wint,' when your hair begins to get gray. I wouldn't allow it, Win. This is my name for you while you are a boy ; but I wouldn't want to say ' Old Win ' ever." The brightness faded from the boy's face. " Don't call me Wint," he said ; " I hate that name. There is something about your little name for me which sounds pleas? r,t. It makes me feel, once in a while, as though i should win something yet, though everything is against me. But, Wint \ Every hateful boy I know yells it out at the be- ginning or end of some ugly speech ; and Mrs. Josiah never pretends to call me anything else." As they talked, they wandered on through the thickly-matted carpet of brush and twigs, and came out now upon a little clearing, where the grass was greener and a view of the lake could be had, glimmering through the great old trees. Here stood two men, gazing about them with an air of interest. " I should think this would be a good site," one said, as the children came into view. "I should like to put up a building for them just in this angle." EIGHT AND TWELVE. II " Do you suppose it will really amount to put- ting up buildings ? " asked the other. "Why, of course it will. The association is already formed, and some capital secured. The people who are pushing it command influence and money. Oh ! I have no doubt of its eventual suc- cess." " It's a camp-meeting," said Vine, nudging her companion's elbow, to call attention to the talk. " One day we were coming to it, but father was too busy. Mother can't walk so far. I'd like to come ; it is such a pretty place. But camp-meet- ings don't have anything nice for children, do they ? " " No," said Winter ; "nothing but sermons, that I ever heard of. But I don't know much about them. Mr. Griggs wouldn't let me come, because he didn't believe in encouraging laziness and late hours. I wonder what they are talking about it now for ? It's over for this year." " Maybe they are going to build a church, or something, and to work at it this winter. It would be fun to come out here once in a while and watch them, wouldn't it, Win ? Let's ask them what they are going to build. Do you know who they are ? " " Never saw them before." " Well, never mind ; you can step right up to them and talk, just as though you knew them. Men always do that. Father talked with a man 12 EIGHT AND TWELVE. all the way home from the pasture, the other night, and when I asked who he was, he said he never saw him before." The boy laughed good-humoredly. " You have a great idea of making a man of me, haven't you, little Vine ? All right ; I'll help it along when I can. Here goes." And the two moved toward the gentlemen. "MARCH ! i SAID." 13 CHAPTER II. "MARCH ! i SAID." WELL,, sir," said the elder of the two gentle- men, greeting the young people with a genial smile, " have you come to locate a lot for yourself ? These grounds are all to be marked off into building lots one of these days, and streets and avenues cut through to the lake, and all sorts of fine things are to be done. First come, first served ; you can have your choice now." " I'm not quite ready to build yet," the boy answered, in a merry, arid yet respectful tone. "What is going to be done, sir? Is it building for the camp-meeting ? " " No ; something new under the sun. There's to be a meeting here, but' I believe they don't call it a camp-meeting. If I were going to name it, I should say it might be a school ; a sort of play school for summer time. A great many things are to be done which do not belong to camp-meet- ing ; that is certain. I heard of illuminations, ind concerts, and fire-works, even, planned for. I 'eally can't tell you just what it is, but it is some- 14 " MARCH ! I SAID." thing which will be pleasant for young folks and old folks, and will be pretty sure to bring them here in quite respectable crowds. I shouldn't wonder if the day were to come when we should see a couple of thousand people in these woods." "And is there to be a building put up here, sir?" "Well, that depends on whether the managers of the thing are people of taste," the young man answered, with a genial smile. " It is the place above all others which I would select for some sort of building; wouldn't you ? " " It is the prettiest spot anywhere around," said Vine, clasping her hands together in a sort of lit- tle ecstasy of delight, and forgetting the presence of strangers, as she seemed to take in anew the beauty spread around her. Both gentlemen turned and looked at her. " So it is, little lady," said the one who had done the most of the talking. "The very nicest place in these woods ; you are a lady of taste, I perceive. Suppose you select a lot at once, and let me put you up a building? Come, now, there is nothing like being energetic in these matters." Vine laughed gleefully. "I should like it," she said; "a little house, large enough for Dolly and me ; oh ! and a room for you, Win, to come and visit us ; and a room for father and mother." " Exactly," said the would-be builder. " Quite a "MARCH ! i SAID." 15 house, and I am at your service entirely. I have one building here already contracted for, and I would just as soon look after another at the same time." But by this time Vine's face had grown thought- ful. "And will there be meetings here for iittie girls? " she asked, with a curious mixture oi child- hood and womanhood in tone and manner, which was very winning. " Especially calculated for little girls, I should say ; in fact, the entire scheme seems to be for the benefit of little girls and little boys ; and bigger boys and girls, of course ; it would not do to leave them out." " No," said Vine, gravely. Then, after a pause : " It is very nice ; I like to see buildings going up, and people doing things ; it is a long time since anything has been done, it seems to me. I'm just as tired of our little old house, and nothing going an, as I can be. I wished we lived nearer, so I could* run here and watch it all, getting ready. Wouldn't it be nice ? " All this was addressed to Winter; she had dropped the grown people out of her thoughts. He, on his part, was examining the position of the sun, with a look of apprehension on his face, and the quick words he spoke did not answer her ques- tion : "Vine, I must hurry home just as fast as I can ; 16 "MARCH! i SAID." look where the sun has traveled. I did not know it was so late ; can you skip over the ground very fast ? " " Yes, indeed," affirmed Vine, tying on her sun- bonnet, and holding out her small brown hand, to be grasped in Win's larger one, preparatory to a skip. The two gentlemen looked after her as she went flying down the hill, being skillfully "jumped " over the rough places by her watchful companion. "That's a bright little creature," said the younger gentleman ; " a regular little woman of business ; she would build a house to-morrow if she had her way, and employ me as architect." "The boy has a good face," said the elder gen- tleman. " Yes, rather ; a trifle sullen, perhaps ; at least there are shaded lines to it ; the little girl, now, is open-faced and bright. Well, Edwards, you think you will not locate your lot to-day ? " Meanwhile, the two children lost no time in con- versation, but made all speed. The boy frequently cast apprehensive glances sunward, and several times made the remark that he "had no notion it was so late." As for Vine, it took all her breath to keep pace with his rapid strides, and to be ready for his frequent "jumps "over obstructions. At a point where two roads forked they paused for a few seconds, the boy speaking rapidly : "MARCH ! i SAID." 17 " I'm sorry I can't go with you, Vine, but you see how it is ; that old sun has gone and left me ; 1 must rush with all my might, and then maybe not get there in time. I'm sorry about the potato, too ; there isn't a fellow in the world who would like to eat it so well as I ; but it will have to wait. When you are twenty-two, you know, it is to be ready." " O, dear ! " said the little girl, with a half laugh, half sigh. " Think of waiting fourteen years for a potato ! I hope we'll eat bushels of them together before that time. The very first night that you can come, Win, I mean to ask mother to let us have some. Good-by ! " The last word was shouted ; for Winter had not waited until the close of her sentence ; he was al- ready climbing the hill up which his road led, and he shouted back the " good-by " as he reached the top, and broke into a run. The little girl looked after him until his fleet feet were lost in the dis- tance, then turned, and sped away in the opposite direction: An hour afterwards she was arranging some much-chipped plates on a coarse, worn table-cloth, setting them skillfully, in a way to hide the worn places as much as possible, and talking with a middle-aged woman, who sewed swiftly in the wan- ing light. The room was a small kitchen ; the woodwork worn, the furniture as scanty as could well be imagined, yet there was something pleas- 1 8 "MARCH! i SAID." ant about it all. The small cook-stove was in order, the singing teakettle was bright, the little kitchen table had been freshly scrubbed, as had the floor, and a general air of holiday attire per- vaded the room ; at least, so it seemed to Vine. She sighed a little as she took it all in. " You make everything so nice, mother, and then Win couldn't come. Wasn't it too bad ? He felt sorry, I can tell you. I guess they never have baked potatoes nor anything else nice and pleas- ant where he lives. O, mother ! I told him about our talk this morning, and he said he'd be sure to come to supper the day I was twenty-two. Wouldn't it be real queer if he should ? And we are to have baked potatoes, and something nice ; some treat, you know, for a surprise. I wonder what the treat is for to-night ? It doesn't seem as though I could wait ! Do you suppose father will be late to-night ? O, mother, they are going to have something new down at the Point ! Houses and things, and a big meeting next sum- mer for children. Won't that be nice ? " " For children ? " repeated the mother, as Vine paused to take breath ; also to determine, with her head dropped a little to one side, whether the apple-sauce should stand at just that angle, or a little more to the centre. " Well, of course, it's for grown people, too ; but the man said there would be things especially for children." "MARCH ! i SAID." 19 "Why, they have a camp-meeting there every summer, child." " Oh ! but this isn't a camp-meeting ; isn't a bit like one ; the man said so. He said they would have concerts, and fireworks, and animals, you know ; I guess he said animals, I don't quite re- member. It is going to be very nice. Don't you suppose father could take me once in awhile ? " Now it was the mother's turn to sigh. "I don't know, Vinie," she said, gently, the swift needle pausing a moment while she looked at the child. " I'm afraid there isn't much chance for father to take you anywhere in a good while, or do any of the things he would like to do. Poor father is having a hard time ; there's been trouble since you went away. Old Brindle is dead." " Old Brindle dead ! " repeated Vine, in a voice which was full of anxiety and alarm ; and she set down the little sauce-plates she was bringing, with- out regard to whether they were in just the best position or not. "Why, mother, how did it hap- pen ? Who told you ? Does father know ? " " Father came himself and told me, on his way to the upper lot. She got hurt in the new wire fence below the meadow ; so badly hurt that they had to kill the poor creature in mercy. I wasn't going to tell you, Vine, dear, to-day, since it was your birthday, but then I thought father would not be likely to feel very gay, and if you under- stood the reason, you wouldn't wonder over it." 2O " MARCH ! I SAID." Vine sat down on a low chair, which was her special property, wrapped her two hands in her neat work-apron in a queer, little, old-fashioned way she had, and looked mournfully before her. " What are we going to do ? " she said, at last. " Mother, how can we get along without Brindle ? " The mother shook her head, and sewed swiftly again, without speaking for some minutes, then she said : " I don't know, Vine, I am sure ; it is of no use to borrow trouble, and I suppose we shall get along somehow ; we always have, but the winter looked hard enough before this. Vine sighed again. " There is a very great deal of trouble in the world," she said, gravely. " I thought a little while ago Win had it all, and here it is spread around ; but we haven't as much as he's got. Just think, mother, he has nobody who truly cares whether he has pleasant times or not." " Yes," the mother said, that was trouble ; and it was very sensible in Vine to remember that she was better off than some other people ; and she must be as pleasant as she could when father came, and not mind if he looked a little sober ; they would manage, somehow, perhaps soinething new would happen to-morrow ; something pleasant ; who could tell ? "Yes," said Vine; "maybe it will have to do with the new things down at the Point. What if "MARCH ! i SAID." 21 father could get work there ; steady work, and they would pay him real well, so that he wouldn't need old Brindle. Wouldn't that be nice ? " The mother shook her head again, but she smiled on the child, and felt comforted, she hardly knew why. And the potatoes were done to a nicety, and Vine knelt on the clean floor, and took them out one by one with careful hand, giving each a little scientific squeeze before she plumped it into the dish ; and the father's step was heard outside, and they planned to be happy and keep the birthday feast. It was just at this moment that Winter Kelland set down two pails of foaming milk in Mrs. Griggs' kitchen, and waited to lift them one at a time for Mrs. Griggs to strain. There was an ominous frown on that lady's face ; she had been waiting twelve minutes and sixteen seconds, by the great solemn kitchen clock, which reached from floor to ceiling, and spoke in measured tick-tock tones, and never made mistakes. Winter said not a word, neither did she. In fact, not a word had she spoken since he reached the door, breathless with haste, an hour before, and said, in most apologetic tones, " O, I am so sorry to be ten minutes late ! I will hurry with all my might." Then he had seized the pails and vanished. No word from Mrs. Griggs ; neither then nor now. What did it mean ? Winter lifted the pails, then carried them emptied, to the sink, 22 "MARCH! i SAID." and pumped cold water into them ; then brought armful after armful of nicely split wood, and piled the box high, carefully brushing up the little dirt he had made by the operation, and stood at last before the fire, waiting for orders, his chores all well done, though he had been ten minutes late. In the meantime, Mr. Josiah had come in, and taken his seat in the corner behind the stove, weekly newspaper in hand. "Josiah/' said Mrs. Griggs, in warning tone, while Winter waited, having spoken only to ask respectfully if there was anything else he could do, and having received no answer. Josiah laid down his newspaper, slowly took off his glasses, folded them, dropped them into the leather case, placed the case in his pocket, and fixed a pair of cold eyes on Winter. " Are you through ? " " Yes, sir ; I have the chores all done, as usual." " Have you locked the old barn and fastened the bars for the night ? " "Yes, sir; I have done everything." " What time did you get home to-night ? " " I was ten minutes late, sir ; I was up on the hill in the woods, and the sun was hidden by the trees, and I did not know it was so late ; but I ran every step of the way, and was just ten minutes behind time." " A very conscientious and punctual boy ! The sun ought to have waited for you. I am surprised "MARCH ! I SAID." 23 at it for going down at the right time, when you didn't know it was going." No reply from Winter ; only a slight deepening of the glow on his cheeks which haste and exer- cise had produced. " Is there anything ready for me to work at just now, sir ? " he asked, at last, seeing Mr. Griggs re- solved apparently to gaze at him, and say nothing. " Yes, sir, there is. You may march up to the attic and take off your jacket, and I'll walk up after you, and see if I can teach you that being ten minutes late is no't being punctual ; and that you are to come home at the minute you are told, whether the sun sets at an hour to suit you or not." "But Mr. Griggs"- " March ! I said. I don't want any words. You've got plenty of words any time ; what you lack is action." The spot glowed fiery red on Winter's cheeks now, but he turned without another word, and, opening the door leading to his attic room, ran swiftly up the steep steps, followed by the slower Mr. Griggs. 24 IN SEARCH OF HOME. CHAPTER III. IN SEARCH OF HOME. THE stars were just gathering thick in the sky when the back door of Mr. Josiah Griggs' house opened softly, and a boy with the traditional bundle in his hand not, however, "tied up in an old pocket handkerchief," but done very clumsily in stiff brown paper came out, looked about him cautiously for a moment, closed the door as softly as he had opened it, and struck off at a brisk pace down the road. At last he had carried out the threat so often made to himself, and deliberately planned to run away. You are not to suppose that he was the usual boy who had been reading dime novels, and planned a runaway after their pattern, as the most interest- ing thing he could do with his life. Dime novels were as scarce in Mr. Griggs' house as were all other sorts of reading. I am not sure that young Kelland had ever even seen one ; nor, if he had, would his tastes at that time have lain in their direction. The simple fact is, that his life had IN SEARCH OF HOME. 2 5 been so hard and loveless in every respect since he went from the county poorhouse to Mr. Griggs' home, that the wonder was he had not run from it long before. If the actual truth could be reached, I am inclined to think it would have been found to be little Vine's influence which had held him until this time. But to-night's punishment had been the drop too much for him. It was not that it had been so very severe, though the blows' with the strong leather strap were hard enough, and had fallen in rapid succession, Mr. Griggs growing more vexed every moment because of the lad's " stubbornness," as he mentally named Winter's stern determina- tion not to cry out, "if the pain killed him." Still, it was not the pain, but what he had conceived to be the bitter injustice of the whole thing, which smarted in Winter's heart and made him finally resolve to endure no more. Why should Mr. Griggs' declare that, unless he, who had no watch, no way of telling the time save by guessing at it, were back from his long-worked-for half-holiday at exactly five o'clock, he should be whipped ? What harm was done to any one by his being ten min- utes later than that ? His work was as carefully done as usual, nothing had suffered, and he had explained and expressed his sorrow for the mis- take in time. "Would any decent man have whipped me for it ? " This was the question which Winter had muttered to himself as, left in 26 IN SEARCH OF HOME. the darkness and ordered to bed, supperless, he had gone swiftly about, not undressing, but gather- ing the few poor clothes he possessed, and making them into that disreputable-looking bundle. This done, he had time for reflection ; because it would never do to start so long as Mrs. Griggs' candle was flashing from kitchen to pantry, throwing gleams of light across the roadway. Mrs. Griggs' eyes were sharp ; it was not easy to evade them. Reflection in this case did no par- ticular good. I am not sure that it so much as entered Winter Kelland's mind that there was anything morally wrong in the step which he had decided to take. He considered himself in nowise bound to Josiah Griggs. True, he had been taken by him from the poorhouse, and certain conditions had been entered into between the authorities and himself. Just what those conditions were, Win- ter neither knew nor cared. He had been grate- ful to the people in the county house for keeping his dreary childhood from starvation ; he had been more than grateful to poor old half-witted Mother Dorkins, one of the paupers, who used to pat him on the head, and now and then tuck a bit of red shawl about him, which she wore on her shoulders ; once she sat down on a box by his bed and said : " They say prayers when they go to bed, good little boys do, who live in houses. This is what they say : ' Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee, Lord ' I forget the rest, but that is long IN SEARCH OF HOME. 2/ enough for you, Winnie ; you don't live in houses, you know; say it every night, that's a good boy." And then she had put her withered old face down to his, and done what I suppose would have made you shudder : kissed the boy on his round, hard, not overclean cheek with her skinny lips. Winter had loved Mother Dorkins ; and he had said those half lines over and over many a night after that ; and he had cried bitter tears on the day when they carried Mother Dorkins away in her rough box to that portion of the burial-ground set apart for paupers. But being grateful to the authorities for keeping him from freezing and starving when he was a little boy, and weeping bit- ter tears over the rough coffin of his one friend, in no sense bound Winter Kelland to endure any more of Mr. and Mrs. Griggs than he chose ; at least, so reasoned the untaught boy. Mr. Griggs was to give him food and clothes, and a certain amount of schooling, in return for his work each day. Very well. Now suppose he chose to give up the food and clothing, and the schooling, and do no more of the work each day ; was not that perfectly fair and square ? It did not once enter the boy's mind that it was not. Then why did he run away ? Why not walk away in broad daylight, having said to Mr. Griggs that he had grown weary of his side of the bargain, and wanted to try an- other side of the world ? There was one simple reason. Winter Kelland knew none knew bet- 28 IN SEARCH OF HOME. ter than he that the food which Mr. Griggs fur- nished him was poor in quality and meagre in quantity, and the clothes were cast-off garments of his own ; and he also knew that the work he did was such as would have to be paid fair wages for, to a hired boy : wages enough to get him the books he needed, and a pair of second-hand boots, besides ; he knew all about it, for he was on suffi- cient terms of intimacy with two hired boys in the neighborhood to have learned these facts long ago. What was more probable, in view of this, than that Mr. Griggs should be unwilling to close his side of the bargain, and should have ways and means of compelling him to stay until he was a man ? Not that Winter imagined he could have any right to do this ; but, as he had told Vine, who was there to complain for him ? You see the pro- cess of reasoning ? He had simply resolved to do what he had half resolved upon, many times before take matters into his own hands, and support himself, without any of Mr. Griggs' old clothes. Certainly he had earned the clothes he wore, and the clothes he carried in his brown paper bundle ; he was more than sure of this ; but, to be strictly honest, he had, after standing for full five minutes with a half-worn jacket in his hand, the newest article he possessed, hung it back again on the nail with a little sigh and an outspoken : " No, I won't take that ; they might not think I had earned it. I have, five times over : but they IN SEARCH OF HOME. 2Q might not think so ; they might even call it steal- ing!" Here the boy's lip had curled derisively. " I'll leave it for the next boy who sleeps up here ; I hope he won't be colder than I have been ; and he'll earn the jacket without any doubt, before he has been here very long." And now, despite the full hour which he had for reflection, he has closed the back gate for the last time, and walked swiftly away from the house which has been supposed to be his home for two years. At the slope of the hill he pauses and takes a long, lingering look at a clump of trees, behind which he knows stands a little red house, in the back room of which at this moment his one friend, little Vine, is quietly sleeping. " Poor little Vine ! " he murmurs. " I'm afraid she'll be awfully disappointed ; and there's no knowing what they will say about me ; she'll hear it. I wouldn't go if I could help it, just for the sake of her rides this winter. But I don't believe they meant to let me go to school ; and if I did, there would be no time for anything ; no, I'd better do it this time ; but I wish I could have seen Vine and had a little talk with her first. I wonder if the potato was good ? My potato. Poor little Vine ! Never mind ; I can't help it now. She'll get over it ; they'll tell her some stuff about me ; and she will be ashamed that she took a walk with me. I don't care. I'm done with this part of the world forever; now I'm gone." And he broke 3O IN SEARCH OF HOME. into a run in the opposite direction from the little red house. I haven't presented him in a very flattering light, now, have I ? O, dear me, no ! I don't pre- tend to justify him ; as if one could justify all the doings of boys of twelve; even when they are sheltered by Christian homes, and watched over by careful fathers and mothers ! Yes, I know all about the unwisdom of writing stories of boys who run away from places where they ought to stay ; who " try to shake off proper restraint, and strike out in the world for them- selves." It is a dangerous precedent ; an unwise beginning, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hun- dred can have, and ought to have, only a bad ending. I know all that ; but what is going to be done ? I want to write Winter Kelland's story just as it is, and he was bound out to Mr. Josiah Griggs until he was twenty-one, though that part he did not understand, and he did run away. An unwise beginning? You need not fear that Winter Kelland will ever advise it from his expe- rience. It would certainly be hard to have a worse time than he endured in the years which immediately followed this beginning. Many a time he actually wished for his bed in Mr. Griggs attic, and his place at Mrs. Griggs' kitchen table. Nevertheless, the fact remains that he ran away. Neither do I wish to be understood as picturing Mr. and Mrs. Griggs as monsters of cruelty. IN SEARCH OF HOME. 3! They were not. I do not think it entered the minds of either of them that they were ever cruel. They were hard, and cold, and cross, and un- lovely in all possible ways toward the homeless, friendless boy ; yet neither of them imagined that such was the case. They did not love him, cer- tainly. Bless your absurd heart ! is it to be sup- posed that love is included in the indentures of a bound boy? Why, of course, the Bible says, " Love thy neighbor as thyself," but then, that is not to be taken literally ; it means why, it means well now, of course it is absurd to say one can love a boy from the poorhouse ; beside Winter Kel- land wasn't their neighbor. " Enough to eat ? " Of course he had ! Boys were enormous eaters ; trust them for getting enough anywhere. What if the potatoes were generally cold ; whoever knew a boy to care whether things were cold or hot ? Suppose his meat was the tag ends, too tough for chopping. Boys had good teeth and enormous digestive or- gans. Lonesome eating alone in the back kitchen, potatoes in a tin basin and meat in the spider in which it was fried ? Stuff and nonsense ! Why, the boy was brought up in the poorhouse ! Oh ! they did not by any means intend to be unkind. Even the vigorous whippings which Mr. Griggs bestowed on the slightest provocation, and Mrs. Griggs rarely rested until she had found provocation, were given under the dim idea that all boys had to be whipped ; that it was part of a 32 IN SEARCH OF HOME. man's duty, if he was to bring up a boy, to be ready with the rod in season and out of season. Of course, boys must be found fault with, and scolded, and threatened, and the threats persist- ently carried out ; how else were they to be made industrious and honest and manly ? Such was Mr. Griggs' honest creed. Such had really in his own home been his bringing up to a great degree. Shades of tenderness which belonged to father- hood and motherhood had occasionally, it is true, fallen to his lot, and he remembered them now with a smile, as excusable weaknesses which be- longed more especially to mothers ; of course, Mrs. Griggs was not Winter Kelland's mother, nor was he his father ; yet they must try to do their duty by him. And honestly, in their hard, curious way, they did it. Mr. Griggs did it better than his wife. For he, though severe, meant to be just. But the boy, with his quick-wittedness, his keen insight into meannesses, and motives, and his saucy tongue, and saucier smile, often angered the woman until she felt that she could not endure him ; could not be patient with him, even if it were her duty to be ; and she never imagined that it was ; patience often spoiled boys, so she thought. What they needed was discipline. She had no boy, poor Mrs. Griggs ! you are not to blame her too severely ; she knew nothing of the " weak- nesses " of motherhood. So now we have our boy, with all his follies and IN SEARCH OF HOMF. 33 weaknesses, and honest mistakes, launched on the world for himself ; and Mrs. Josiah Griggs is left behind to deplore it. She does not give him credit for honesty. Winter is right in some of his calcula- tions : Mrs. Josiah talks ; she calls the boy " un- grateful," "false," "mean," "sneaking," all the choice words which she can recall from her reper- toire of language. In the early twilight of the Monday afternoon which followed, for I have also to own that it was on a Saturday night when Winter started on his travels ; surely a well-intentioned boy might have waited until Monday night. But I ought to say in excuse, or at least in explanation, that his man- ner of spending the Sabbath in Mr. Griggs' home would not have seemed to him any more religious, had he known anything about religion, than to tramp over the fields in search of a new life. On the Monday afternoon following, therefore, came Vine home from the country schorlhouse where she daily trudged ; where she fondly hoped, as soon as the winter term set in, to trudge back and forth part of the way with her one friend among the boys, and dropped a broken-hearted heap in her little chair in front of the one where her mother sat and sewed ; and placed her little dinner-basket on the floor and her head in her mother's lap and sobbed as though her heart would break. No brindle cow or other common trouble to account for such tears as these. To 34 IN SEARCH OF HOME. the alarmed mother's questions she finally sobs forth her tale of woe : " He's gone, mother ; run away ! He went Saturday night ; and nobody knows where he is ; and Mrs. Griggs says such hateful, hateful things ! She says he stole himself ! As if she owned him ! Mean old thing ! She says he was sly and a cheat ; and oh ! I don't know all her mean, bad words. I hate her, mother." "Elvina!" says the startled mother, her voice full of astonishment, sorrow and reproof. " Well, but, mother, it is too dreadful ! Win never did anything mean ; and he was just as hon- est ! He wouldn't look in his book in the spelling- class when all the others did ; because he said he would not cheat, if he never got to the head. And the other boys laughed at him and called him 'Goody, Goody.' And now she says all horrid things ! How can I help hating her ? And how can I get along without Win ? He was my Win. He was going to help me through the snow ; and we were going to roast apples, and everything. O, mother, mother, what shall I do ? " Another little maiden heart broken over another boy's mistaken sense of independence. What matters it that he at this moment sits on a stone thirty miles away, and wishes he were bringing home the milk for Mrs. Griggs to strain. Vine does not know it ; and he will never bring home the milk for Mrs. Griggs to strain again. PRACTICING. 35 CHAPTER IV. PRACTICING. HE sat at this moment on a stone, though by no means the one he occupied when you last heard from him. That, you remember, was but thirty miles away from Vine and Mrs. Josiah Griggs and all the familiar surroundings of home- life. More than a thousand weary miles stretch between this stone and that, and the time which intervened could be counted even by years. In point of fact, it was Vine's birthday again, and she had attained the ripe age of eleven years ; and the boy Win was so far changed that he had not thought of it, nor of her, once that day. There were other changes than this. Three hard years had Winter Kelland tramped over the world ; he was much wiser, in some respects, than when he first tramped away. I am not going to try to tell you the story of those three years ; it would be unpleasant reading and I do not know that it would accomplish any- thing to linger over the details. Cold and frost, and snow ; heat and weariness, and discomfort of 36 PRACTICING. every sort ; hunger and rags, and wretchedness ; those words pretty regularly distributed through the months would about make up the story. No, it had not been a pleasant thing to shift for him- self. A thousand times during the years, Winter Kelland had discovered a fact which he needed to learn, that, after all was told, he had not been so very badly off in the home of Josiah Griggs. Not so uncomfortably situated but that he might have been, and had been, in worse condition many a time since. He had not planned it in this way ; boys who run away from home never plan it as it works out. He had meant to be very industrious, very energetic, and to accomplish, long before this time, results which would fill the mind of Josiah Griggs with amazement and regret, should he ever come to know the facts. Regret, of course, over his own irreparable loss. But matters had re- fused to shape themselves in a line with this day- dream. Work had been hard to find ; boys who were unskilled in every sort of work, and who wanted, with their unskilled hands, to earn a good living, were plenty. Mind, I do not say that the condition of things into which he presently fell, was a necessity ; even after a boy has run away, provided he does it as ignorantly and honestly as Winter Kelland did, he may have self-respect and perseverance enough to overcome obstacles and come out ahead. I admit that they generally do no such thing, but it is possible. PRACTICING. 37 At first, Winter had been lofty ; he had resolved to choose his work ; he hated farms, and cows, and milking, and rinsing milk-pails, and all the hun- dred other duties connected with this life, as he knew it ; he would have no more of farm life. He had a chance to hire out to a blacksmith, but he hated that business even worse than he did farm- ing. So, while he was engaged in being large in his ideas, the days passed, and his clothes grew shorter for him, and grew ragged and soiled, and he grew hungry and grimy-looking, and became, by no means, such a specimen as one would be in haste to hire. Then, the worst, the very worst of it all, was, that the inevitable curse of such a sort of life fell upon him. For a time he rather liked it ; the being his own master ; the getting up at whatever hour he pleased, without the trouble of dressing, and without a responsibility weighing upon him. It was interesting to pass through new towns and cities, to see strange sights, and wonder over crowds of strange people ; to chop a little wood here, for a dinner, and fill a tub or two with water, in another place for a supper. The life had all the charm of novelty and constant excite- ment. The day began with wondering what queer thing he would see or hear, or do, before it closed. What town should he reach to-day ? Who would give him a lift on the road, with ox team, or mule, or noble span of grays ? He had tried all kinds. What matter if his clothes were growing very 38 PRACTICING. ragged and very short ? Nobody knew him, and he would get a chance, by and by, to earn some better ones. So the days passed, and the varying sameness of the life began at last to pall, and the dislike of it grew upon him until he hated it ; and he awakened one morning to the thought that he was, by no means, Winter Kelland, a boy who worked for Mr. Griggs, and had a name and a place in the village, and was nodded to occasionally by well-dressed boys who went to the district school with him, and was waited on in stores, promptly and willingly, because he represented Mr. Griggs, a man who could, and did, pay his bills. Confronting his position squarely, and calling it by its right name, he was just a tramp. And by this time he hated it fiercely, and was ragged and foot-sore and miserable ; and had reached the place where he saw no way out. Yet, there was much, even now, that the homeless boy had to be grate- ful for, if he had only known it. His very friend- lessness, combined with his youth, had preserved him from many snares which Satan sets for unwary feet. The brightly-lighted saloons had tempted him many a time, but he was too entirely without money or place or influence, to be harbored within them. Later on, the low-down grog-shops had tempted him, on cold nights, with their smell of warmth ; but, by this time he was ragged, and, at best, nothing but a boy, without money or home ; and they would have none of him. In fact, it had PRACTICING. 39 just " happened," as we say, that none of Satan's emissaries had found use for him, and he had escaped many things. But for this he had not enough knowledge to be grateful ; so, as he sits, this lovely autumn day, on a stone which has been warmed by the afternoon sun, and munches, almost dog-fashion, a bit of hard bread which has been handed out to him from the kitchen in the rear, he is so ragged, so filthy and haggard-looking that Mrs. Josiah Griggs would not have recognized him ; neither, I am afraid, would little Vine, and there is not a hint on his face that he has anything in life, or ever has had, for which to be grateful. Perched on the fence at a little distance from him, hands in his pockets and whistling softly, is a young fellow of about his own age, or possibly a trifle older. A young fellow of an entirely differ- ent world from his. His Scotch suit of mixed brown fits his trim form as though it had been made, as it has, by a first-class tailor ; his linen collar is spotless and shining, and the bright neck- tie at his throat is arranged with careless grace ; there dangles from the proper pocket a chain which he fingers at intervals, when he can spare his hands from his pockets, with the easy indiffer- ence of one who has been long accustomed to a watch chain ; neither does he consult the excellent watch which it guards often enough to indicate fresh possession. They two are typical boys ; if the one represents the great homeless, friendless, 4O PRACTICING. unwashed world, the other is a fit presentment of the well-to-do, cultured, happy American home. Though the well-dressed young man is whistling, it is done with an absent-minded air, as though the familiar words, " My country, 'tis of thee," had very little place in his thoughts ; in fact, he broke off in the midst of a line with something quite irrelevant to it : " I suppose you are rather hungry ? " " I s'pose I am." This reply Winter made, after indulging in a somewhat prolonged stare at the questioner ; then he took another enormous bite of the hard bread. "What part of the world do you live in ? " "All parts, and nowhere in particular; I don't live at all." " What do you do, then ? " "Tiamp." " Do you like that sort of thing ? " " What sort of thing ? " " Why, tramping, and not living at all." " S'posing I didn't ? " "Why, then, I wouldn't do it if I were you." " Humph ! Do you always stop doing the things you don't like ? " " Generally speaking, yes ; unless I ought to like them ; and then I set about doing it ; but I shouldn't suppose there was any particular ques- tion of conscience about keeping on with your occupation. Why, you must be fifteen or so." PRACTICING. 41 " What if I am ? " " Nothing ; only if that's the case, in another year you'll be sixteen, you know ; and that sort of thing will keep going on until you'll wake up some morning and find yourself a man, and not be quite ready for it." " Why'll I need to be any more ready for that than I am to be a boy and a tramp ? " " Oh ! because you'll have a man's life to live ; a chance to vote, you see, and help settle questions, and somebody to take care of, most men do ; and it takes a good deal of getting ready, I should think. I wouldn't like the kind of life you're living ; it might do very well for a lark ; but to keep on wearing such clothes and eating dry pieces ot bread, instead of having a place at a table, and liv- ing like folks, wouldn't be my idea of a good time." " And you think all a fellow has to do when he doesn't like old clothes and dry crusts is just to put on some good clothes and sit down like other folks to nice tables, eh ? Very well, I'm agreed ; bring on your clothes and I'll wear 'em ; and I've no objection in life to roast beef and plum pud- ding." " Then, as I said before, if I were you I'd plan for them ; they're to be had for the working, you know." " Are they ? Show me a place where they pay for a job of work in roast beef and plum pudding, and I'm your fellow ; I'll do the work in a jiffy." 42 PRACTICING. "Oh ! you know what I mean ; it isn't the one job, nor twenty jobs, it is getting ready for things ; studying and working your way up, and getting your place in the world ; getting where you can manage the plum pudding business for yourself, instead of taking what other people choose to give you." " I say," said Winter, bestowing a long, grave stare on the speaker, "what business do your grandchildren follow ? You must have several of them. You are well on toward a hundred years old yourself, aren't you ? " If his intention was to silence the boy by mak- ing him angry, he failed ; a good-natured laugh was the only reply ; then, after a moment's silence, the boy on the fence spoke again, pleasantly, yet gravely : "I should think you would want to be studying ; there's a look in your eyes somehow, which makes me think you might be a good scholar." "What it 1 ccvild ? Maybe I'm looking for a situation this mirucc a professor I may be, for anything you know ; proit^soi :f rags and tags." The laugh with which the wot els ended had a bitter note ; after a moment he said, in a some- what more serious tone : " I look like going to school, don't I ?" " No, you don't ; but what I'm saying is, thai: _ would if I were you." " How do you know you would ? It's easy for PRACTICING. 43 you to talk. Look at you and then look at me. Does it take much of a scholar to see the differ- ence between us ? How do you know what you would do if you hadn't your father's gate post to sit on and clothes and watches of your father's buying to wear ? " "That is true," said the boy, frankly ; "I've got my father to depend on ; but then boys who haven't fathers, nor good clothes nor anything, do get to be scholars and accomplish something. I suppose I've no right to say I would do it if I were in your place ; but I can tell you it seems to me just as though I would." " How would you set about it ? " " Why, I'd work ; I'd hire out somewhere to do anything; dig or weed, or split wood, or clean out stables, or anything there was to do ; and I'd ask to be paid in second-hand clothes, until I had earned enough to dress myself decently ; and by that time I would have made myself so useful that they couldn't get along without me ; and I'd agree to work for my board and the school-books I needed, and then I'd go to the district school." " Just so. How much do your board and clothes cost in a year ? and how much work do you do before and after school ? " The boy on the gate laughed again. " Oh ! it is different with me," he said, pleasantly. " I owned that, at first ; I do precious little ; and my board costs considerable, to say nothing of my 44 PRACTICING. clothes ; but then, I have a feeling that I would do, if there were any occasion. More than that, I know fellows who are doing it. Where I was last August, there was a boy, younger than you, I should say, and he worked for his board and went to school a couple of hours every day, and studied by a torch light in the evening ; and he was smart, I tell you ; he wore very common-looking, patched clothes, and I happen to know he often went with- out his supper because he was in too much of a hurry to go home and get it ; but he stood at the head of the class, and people talked about him with respect." " Went to school in August ? " said Winter. " Yes, sir, went to school in August ; it was a summer school, on purpose for busy people ; you could go to it and have your lesson, and then go away and study when you liked, or when you could ; and this boy, Porter his name was, had plenty to do besides studying, and had worked hard all his life ; he was an orphan, and he hadn't had a very comfortable life in any way ; he used to tell me a few things, occasionally ; but he is going to make a man. I heard more than one of the gentlemen who were interested in this summer school say they would like to keep watch of him and see where he came out. ' He'll find his place in the world,' one of them said, ' there's always room at the top, you know ; and he is bound for the top.' ' "Well," said Winter, gravely picking up a few PRACTICING. 45 crumbs of bread which had fallen on the log, and putting them into his mouth, " I wish him success, I'm sure ; I hope and trust he'll reach the top ; as for me, I'm bound for the bottom ; I've suspected it a long time, and this morning I begin to feel sure of it. I'm sorry I can't promise to take your advice ; it's a real pity, because I haven't met so kind and grandfatherly a man in a long while ; out of respect to your age, and gray hairs, I ought to listen to you, but I'm afraid I can't. You see I know more about some things than you do ; the world has changed since you were young ; the peo- ple to whom you can make yourself so necessary that they can't get along without you, are all dead. More's the pity ! But I've proved it over and over again, that there isn't a living being to whom I'm necessary ; if you had been looking on at my life for the last year, as I have been, you'd know that there ain't a more unnecessary animal than I am, on this side of the earth ; I'm even unnecessary to myself ; and when it comes to that, a fellow has got to a pretty pass, you know ; or you would know if you weren't so venerable, and the world had not grown wicked since your time." "There is one thing," said the other, speaking slowly, fixing his eyes steadily on the tramp, as though trying to decide whether or not to speak. " There's more than one thing ; there's a thou- sand, at least ; but what's the one that has tum- bled on top of your brains just now ?" 46 OPPORTUNITY. CHAPTER V. OPPORTUNITY. IT was some minutes before he received his answer; in the meantime, the boy on the fence took his hands out of his pockets and ran the fingers of his left one through his curly hair in a way he had when perplexed or a trifle em- barrassed. Should he, or should he not ? Would this fellow, who seemed to. have no sort of desire to get away from his present position, understand ? But, on the other hand, whether he was under- stood or not, was he not bound to "pass the word along? " Suppose the boy should laugh ? When he made that promise to himself, no, to God, under the trees in the starlight, did he reserve a chance to keep silence, if he was afraid somebody would laugh, or even sneer ? Under the trees ; how vividly he refnembered that August evening ! Starlight ? More stars it seemed to him than had ever before twinkled down on the old earth ; very tall trees casting their shadows, making weird motions on the grass, beckoning somebody somewhere ; so it had seemed OPPORTUNITY. 47 to him ; very near him, arranged on a rude stand, had burned a fire of pine knots ; now dying down into almost extinction, then suddenly bursting forth again to illumine so much of the world as the flames could reach. Illumining for the boy the face of one man ; a face which he felt he could never forget. There was something grand in it ; he was no student of human nature this boy and did not understand the subtle power which drew and held him toward that face. He under- stood the voice better ; the great glorious voice which rolled out such a volume of melody as reached away beyond the tops of the tall trees, away beyond moon and stars, even up to the door of heaven. A joyful voice, and yet a solemn one ; strong, brave, solemn words always set to the music which he sang. This boy, who was not supposed to be particularly emotional, felt his nerves thrill with a peculiar sensation, and his breath seemed to come in throbs, when he heard, one moonlight night, just as he reached the top of the hill and was about to plunge down toward the torch-lighted grove, the strong voice roll out the words : All for Jesus, all for Jesus, All my being's rans'omed powers. It was not new sentiment to him. He had been reared in a Christian home, had been a mem- ber of the visible Church of Christ for three years ; had been told in Sabbath-school and from the pul- 48 OPPORTUNITY. pit, and by his mother's voice, times without num- ber, that all his strength, and time, and talents belonged to the Lord ; that he was bound to give account for the way in which he employed every power he possessed. Yet when he heard those words sung by the glorious voice, he stopped and drew in his breath, and shivered as if with sudden chill, and the meaning of the words took hold of him for the first time. " All my being's ransomed powers?" Who did it ? Who gave their powers of voice and motion entirely to Jesus ? He made a swift circuit of his acquaintances and declared to himself that he knew not one. Did this singer ? he wondered. If not, how could he dare to roll those words up the hill in such majesty as they were coming now ? If they pierced the clouds, as they seemed to do, and reached the throne, did God see that they were only mockery? He made a sudden resolve to watch that man, to learn all about him that he could ; to discover if he lived such words as these or only sang them. There had been a week of watching before the evening to which his thoughts returned as he sat on the fence ; watching, all unknown to the singer ; when he sang on the platform, when he strolled through the grounds, or loitering under a tree chatted with a friend, when he floated idly over the quiet lake, resting, when he sat in the crowded dining hall at lunch-time, constantly he was under the watch of a keen-eyed boy, who was weighing OPPORTUNITY. 49 his words and ways, and even his laugh, to see if they matched his song. A trying ordeal certainly for a human life ; but the boy, as on the evening in question he watched the face pale and glow again in the changeful light, acknowledged to him- self with a thrill of satisfaction and a throb of almost pain, that life and song fitted wonderfully well. Satisfaction, because by this time he had made a hero of the singer, and would not have liked him to fail ; pain because he realized as he had never done before, that he was equally bound with this grand-voiced man to have life and pro- fession correspond ; it could be done, for this stranger was doing it ; then he must do it too. The thought oppressed him ; frightened him ; what a life to live ! He slipped away under the trees, away from the stand, and the voices, and strolled down toward the lake in the solemn star- light to think over the thought. It happened that the singer also slipped away, and strolled in the same direction, thinking his pleasant thoughts, and humming softly a strain from the song he had just led : Or if, on joyful wing, Cleaving the sky, Sun, moon and stars forgot, Upward I fly, Still all my song shall be, Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee. And so humming he came upon the boy. He 5