For Sunday-School Scholars, an Offer.
Charlie and Aunt Stanshy worshiped at St. John’s. Dear old St. John’s! It was a brick edifice, homely in its style, but glorious in its associations. It had two tiers of arched windows, the upper row letting light into a long, lofty gallery, that generally had for its occupants perhaps a dozen very shy auditors. If a “coaster” were in port over Sunday, then the heavy, shuffling tread of several men of the sea might be heard on the gallery stairs. This might happen when the service was a third through, and by the time it was two thirds through the shuffling tread might be heard on the stairs again, and this time echoing toward the door. The gallery was plain and old-fashioned in its finish, but it was supported by twisted wooden pillars considered to be marvels of architectural ingenuity in their day. The pews were old-fashioned in their form and decoration; but then they were surrounded by so many dear associations of the past, that when Aunt Stanshy entered one of those box pews she seemed to have stepped aboard a ship and it drifted her at once far, far away among old friends. On a rainy day, especially, did Aunt Stanshy enjoy the old church. True, not many would come out, and their heads above the backs of the pews looked like scattered turtle heads lifted above the surface of a pond in the woods. Aunt Stanshy was sure to be there, and, while she heard the rain beating upon the windows, there was the minister’s voice reverently echoing in prayer, and Aunt Stanshy had such a sense of protection from this world’s many storms. On fair-weather Sundays there would be quite a rush for the old church. The Browns, Pauls, Randalls, Jamesons, Tapieys, would turn up, smiling, radiant and self-assured as if they had never been absent from church a single service. Their manner almost seemed to declare that they had been there day and night. O, young people, do dare to be rainy-weather Christians!
Aunt Stanshy and Charlie were walking away from the church the noon of the Sunday after the grand march. At St. John’s, the Sunday-school followed the morning service.
“Aunty,” said Charlie, nudging his companion, “here comes somebody.”
That somebody was Mr. Walton, to whom were intrusted the spiritual interests of the congregation. He was tall, stalwart, owned a fair complexion, and wore his hair rather long; hair, too, that would curl, no matter how patiently the brush and comb coaxed it to be straight and dignified. His blue eyes had a rather sharp look at first when turned toward you, but you soon felt that they were kindly, sympathetic, and magnetic. Mr. Walton was very friendly toward the boys, and for that reason he had a strong hold on the affections of many little fellows.
“Well, Miss Macomber, I am glad to see you out, and as for my boy here, I should miss him ever so much if he were not in my school.”
“I should miss you, if you wasn’t there,” replied Charlie, anxious to return the compliment.
“Don’t you know of some boy you could get into the school, Charlie?” asked Mr. Walton.
“I know of one who belongs to my club.”
“You belong to a club! What is the name of it?”
“The U. T. L. Club.”
“U. T. L.! What does that mean?”
“It is Miss Bertha Barry’s notion, sir,” explained Aunt Stanshy, with an air that was somewhat critical. Then she had noticed, or fancied that she had detected, that Mr. Walton, who was single, rather liked Miss Bertha and her ideas. He did not seem to notice Aunt Stanshy’s tone, but remarked,
“U. T. L.! That means ‘Up Too Late!’”
“Ha, ha, guess again,” replied the delighted Charlie.
“Useful To Learn!”
“No sir.”
“Up With The Lark!”
“You have got one word too many in there. ‘Up The’ is right.”
“Up The—Lane!”
“That’s where I live,” said Aunt Stanshy, proudly.
“Up The—”
“It’s ‘Up The Ladder,’ sir,” said Charlie.
“Well, Up-the-Ladder boys ought to be making advances and going ahead all the time.”
“That is what teacher says.”
“What do you do in the club?”
“We had a grand march yesterday, and we have a pammerrammer next Saturday.”
“All the boys in your club go to Sunday-school?”
“All except Tony.”
“Who is Tony?”
“He’s an Italian boy, and his father is away off.”
“Couldn’t you get him into your class?”
“I might try.”
“I will make the club an offer. If they will get five boys into school and keep them there two months, I will give them a banner.”
Charlie was delighted and promised to tell the boys in the club.
Mr. Walton here left Charlie and Aunt Stanshy, and went to his home. Aunt Stanshy greatly reverenced any one who led the worship of the congregation in the old church and encompassed such with a dignity-fence that was about as high as the famous steeple of old St. John’s, and that was a landmark for souls at sea.
Then there was a family mystery about Mr. Walton that fascinated Aunt Stanshy. He lived with his old white-haired mother, and there were hints and whispers that the two mourned over a once wayward and now absent member of the family. It leaked out that this was a son younger than Mr. Walton, and he had married a beautiful foreign lady whom the clergyman loved also, but had relinquished to the younger brother. This younger son was off somewhere on the sea, it was whispered; but he had a child ashore. On stormy days, it was noticed that the white-haired mother would watch the steeple, which consisted of a series of diminutive houses rising one above the other, as if ambitious to fly, but finally relinquishing the task into the hands or wings rather of a gilded weather-cock. The mother would watch the pigeons flying into their hiding-places in the steeple, seeking a refuge from the wild storm, and then her eyes would be lifted higher to the weather-vane, as if seeking for news about the sea-wind. Still higher went her thoughts—to God.
“She’s thinking of him, that son,” said the observant neighbors, who never knowingly gave up a chance to see something. To Aunt Stanshy this bit of mystery only made Mr. Walton all the more interesting.
Mr. Walton thought the next day he would fish for scholars in the Grimes neighborhood, where Tony lived. Billy and Rick, or “the governor,” as the club boys more generally called him now, lived in a long, low-roofed building that had two green doors. One door led into the home where lived Simes Badger when off duty at the light house. His wife took care of Tony. In the other part of the house lived Billy and the “governor” with Jotham and Ann Grimes. Billy was the child of Jotham and Ann. The “governor’s” parents lived in Dakota, but kept him at the East for the sake of an education in its better schools. It was after dark when Mr. Walton chanced to reach the long, low-roofed house, and “rap-rap” went his vigorous knuckles against green door number one.
“Who’s there?” sang out a boyish voice within.
“Tush, tush, Tony! Wait till I come,” said Simes from his little bedroom at one side of the kitchen. He was off duty, Jotham Grimes having gone to the light-house. “It may be some sailor who wants me,” added Simes. Mr. Walton, having heard a boy’s voice, concluded its owner must still be at the door, and he announced his errand.
“It’s rather late to call, but I wanted to know if you wouldn’t like to come into our Sunday-school?”
“No, your old Sunday-school may go to the bottom of the sea,” was the gruff reply of the disappointed Simes, who did not know his caller.
Mr. Walton felt that it might be prudent at that hour to withdraw, but he did not relinquish his intention to secure Tony; and Tony finally came to school.
The boy exceedingly interested the minister. “Where have I seen that face?” asked Mr. Walton, and with bowed head he sat in his study brooding over the problem, looking intently down as if trying to make out a pearl at the bottom of the sea.