CHAPTER II
They stood in the gallery of one of New York’s most famous art stores; seven stalwart boys—young men, perhaps, you would call them—all with an attempt at “dress up,” and with them Margaret Manning, slender and grave and sweet. They were chaperoned by Mrs. Ketchum, a charming little woman who knew a great deal about social laws and customs, and always spoke of things by their latest names, if possible, and who took the lead in most of the talk by virtue of her position in society and her supposed knowledge of art. There were also Mrs. Brown, a plain woman who felt deeply the responsibility of the occasion, and Mr. Talcut, a little man who was shrewd in business and who came along to see that they did not get cheated. These constituted the committee to select a present for the home-returning superintendent of the Forest Hill Mission Sunday-school. It was a large committee and rather too heterogeneous to come to a quick decision, but its size had seemed necessary. Margaret Manning was on it, of course. That had been a settled thing from the beginning. There would not have been any such present, probably, if Margaret had not suggested it and helped to raise the money till their fund went away up above their highest hopes.
The seven boys were in her Sunday-school class, and no one of them could get the consent of himself to make so momentous a decision for the rest of the class without the other six to help. Not that these seven were her entire class by any means, but the class had elected to send seven from their own number, so seven had come. Strictly speaking, only one was on the committee, but he depended upon the advice of the other six to aid him.
“Now, Mr. Thorpe,” said Mrs. Ketchum in her easy, familiar manner, “we want something fine, you know. It’s to hang in his ‘den.’ His mother has just been refitting his den, and we thought it would be quite appropriate for us to get him a fine picture for the wall.”
The preliminaries had been gone through with. Mr. Thorpe knew the Stanley family slightly, and was therefore somewhat fitted to help in the selection of a picture that would suit the taste of one of its members. He had led them to the end of the large, well-lighted room, placed before them an easel, and motioned them to sit down.
The seven boys, however, were not accustomed to such things, and they remained standing, listening and looking with all their ears and eyes. Somehow, as Mrs. Ketchum stated matters, they did not feel quite as much to belong to this committee as before. What, for instance, could Mrs. Ketchum mean by Mr. Stanley’s “den”? They had dim visions of Daniel and the lions, and the man who fell among thieves, but they had not time to reflect over this, for Mr. Thorpe was bringing forward pictures.
“As it’s a Sunday-school superintendent, perhaps something religious would be appropriate. You might look at these first, anyway,” and he put before them a large etching whose wonder and beauty held them silent as they gazed. It was a new picture of the Lord’s Supper by a great artist, and the influence of the picture was so great that for a few moments they looked and forgot their own affairs. The faces were so marvelously portrayed that they could but know each disciple, and felt that the hand which had drawn the Master’s face must have been inspired.
“It is more expensive than you wanted to buy, but still it is a fine thing and worth the money, and perhaps as it is for a church, I might make a reduction, that is, somewhat, if you like it better than anything else.”
Mrs. Ketchum lowered her lorgnette with a dissatisfied expression, though her face and voice were duly appreciative. She really knew a fine thing when she saw it.
“It is wonderful, and you are very kind, Mr. Thorpe; but do you not think that perhaps it is a little, just a little, well—gloomy—that is, solemn—well—for a den, you know?” and she laughed uneasily.
Mr. Thorpe was accustomed to being all things to all men. With an easy manner he laughed understandingly.
“Yes? Well, I thought so myself, but then I didn’t know how you would feel about it. It would seem hardly appropriate, now you think of it, for a room where men go to smoke and talk. Well, just all of you step around this side of the room, please, and I’ll show you another style of picture.”
They followed obediently, Mrs. Ketchum murmuring something more about the inappropriateness of the picture for a den, and the seven boys making the best of their way among the easels and over Mrs. Ketchum’s train. All but Margaret Manning. She lingered as if transfixed before the picture. Perhaps she had not even heard what Mrs. Ketchum had said. Two of the boys hoped so in whispers to one another.
“Say, Joe,” he whispered in a low grumble, “I forgot all about Mr. Stanley’s smoking. She——” with a nod toward the silent, pre-occupied woman still standing in front of the picture, “she won’t like that. Maybe he don’t do it any more. I don’t reckon ’twould be hard fer him to quit.”
Every one of those seven boys had given up the use of tobacco to please their teacher, Miss Manning.
Other pictures were forthcoming. There were landscapes and seascapes, flowers and animals, children and wood nymphs, dancing in extraordinary attitudes. The boys wondered that so many pictures could be made. They wondered and looked and grew weary with the unusual sight, and wished to go home and get rested, and did not in the least know which they liked. They were bewildered. Where was Miss Manning? She would tell them which to choose, for their part of the choice was a very important part to them, and in their own minds they were the principal part of the committee.
“SHE LINGERED AS IF TRANSFIXED BEFORE THE PICTURE.”
Miss Manning left the great picture by and by and came over to where the others sat, looking with them at picture after picture, hearing prices and painters discussed, and the merits of this and that work of art by Mrs. Ketchum and Mr. Talcut, whose sole idea of art was expressed in the price thereof, and who knew no more about the true worth of pictures than he knew about the moon. Then she left the others and wandered back to the quiet end of the room where stood that wonderful picture. There the boys one by one drifted back to her and sat or stood about her quietly, feeling the spell of the picture themselves, understanding in part at least her mood and why she did not feel like talking. They waited respectfully with uncovered heads, half bowed, looking, feeling instinctively the sacredness of the theme of the picture. Four of them were professed Christians, and the other three were just beginning to understand what a privilege it was to follow Christ.
Untaught and uncouth as they were, they took the faces for likenesses, and Christ’s life and work on earth became at once to them a living thing that they could see and understand. They looked at John and longed to be like him, so near to the Master and to receive that look of love. They knew Peter and thought they recognized several other disciples, for the Sunday-school lessons had been of late as vivid for them as mere words can paint the life of Christ. They seemed themselves to stand within the heavy arch of stone over that table, so long ago, and to be sitting at the table, his disciples, some of them unworthy, but still there. They had been helped to this by what Miss Manning had said the first Sunday she took the class, when the lesson had been of Jesus and of some talks he had had with his disciples. She had told them that as there were just twelve of them in the class she could not help sometimes thinking of them as if they were the twelve disciples, especially as one of them was named John and another Andrew, and she wanted them to try to feel that these lessons were for them; that Jesus was sitting there in their class each Sabbath speaking these words to them and calling them to him.
The rest of the committee were coming toward them, calling to Miss Manning in merry, appealing voices. She looked up to answer, and the boys who stood near her saw that her eyes were full of tears, and more than one of them turned to hide and brush away an answering tear that seemed to come from somewhere in his throat and choke him.
“Come, Margaret,” called Mrs. Ketchum, “come and tell us which you choose. We’ve narrowed it down to three, and are pretty well decided which one of the three we like best.”
Margaret Manning arose reluctantly and followed them, the boys looking on and wondering. She looked at each of the three. One was the aforementioned nymph’s dance, another was a beautiful woman’s head, and the third was a flock of children romping with a cart and a dog and some roses. Margaret turned from them disappointed, and looked back toward the other picture.
“I don’t like any of them, Mrs. Ketchum, but the first one. Oh, I do think that is the one. Please come and look at it again.”
“Why, my dear,” fluttered Mrs. Ketchum disturbedly, “I thought we settled it that that picture was too, too—not quite appropriate for a den, you know.”
But her words were lost, for the others had gone forward under the skylight to where the grand picture stood, and were once more under the spell of those wonderful eyes of the pictured Master.
“It is a real nice picture,” spoke up Mrs. Brown. She was fond of Margaret Manning, though she did not know much about art. She had been elected from the woman’s Bible class, and had been rather overpowered by Mrs. Ketchum, but she felt that now she ought to stand up for her friend Margaret. If she wanted that picture, that picture it should be.
“How much did you say you would give us that for, Mr. Thorpe?” said the sharp little voice of Mr. Talcut.
Mr. Thorpe courteously mentioned the figures.
“That’s only ten dollars more’n we’ve got,” spoke up the hoarse voice of one of the seven unexpectedly. It was Joe, who felt that he owed his salvation to the young superintendent’s earnest efforts in his behalf.
“I say we’d better get it. Ten dollars ain’t much. We boys can go that much. I’ll go it myself somehow if the others don’t.”
“Well, really, ladies, I suppose it’s a very good bargain,” said Mr. Talcut rubbing his hands and smiling.
“Then we’ll take it,” said Joe, nodding decidedly to Mr. Thorpe; “I’ll go the other ten dollars, and the boys can help, if they like.”
“But really Margaret, my dear,” said Mrs. Ketchum quite distressed, “a den, don’t you know, is not a place for——”
But the others were all saying it was just the picture, and she was not heard. Mr. Talcut was giving the address and orders about the sending. None of them seemed to realize that Mrs. Ketchum had not given her consent, and she, poor lady, had to gracefully accept the situation.
“Well, it’s really a very fine thing, I suppose,” she said at last, somewhat hesitatingly, and putting up her lorgnette to take a critical look. “I don’t admire that style of architecture, and that table-cloth isn’t put on very gracefully; it would have been more artistic draped a little; but it’s really very fine, and quite new, you say, and of course the artist is irreproachable. I think Mr. Stanley will appreciate it.”
But she sighed a little disappointedly, and wished she had been able to coax them to take the nymphs. She would take pains to let Mr. Stanley know that this had not been her choice. The idea of having to give in to those great boors of boys! But then it had all been Margaret Manning’s fault. She was such a little fanatic. She might have known that it would not do to let her see a religious picture first.