TODE'S REAL ESTATE.
Y next evening business had fairly commenced. The first day's sales were encouraging in the extreme, the more so that Tode had rescued two boys from the vortex on his left, and persuaded them into taking a cup of his excellent coffee instead of something stronger. Among the accomplishments that he acquired at the Euclid House was the art of making delicious coffee, an art which bid fair to do him good service now. He set a very inviting looking table. A very coarse, but delightfully clean white cloth, hid the roughness and imperfections of the dry-goods box; and his stock of crockery, consisting of three cups and saucers, three large plates, and three pie plates, purchased at the auction rooms, were disposed of with all the skill which his native tact and his apprenticeship at the Euclid House had taught him. After mature deliberation he had bargained for and rolled back the barrel, made it stationary with the help of a nail or two, and mounting it was ready for customers. He had them, too—one especially, whose appearance filled him with great satisfaction. With the incoming of the four o'clock train Mr. Stephens appeared, stopped in surprise on seeing his new acquaintance, asked numerous questions, and finally remarked that he had been gone all day, and might as well take his lunch there and go directly to the store. So Tode had the very great pleasure of seeing him drink two cups of his coffee, eat three of his cakes, and lay down fifty cents in payment thereof. Never was there a more satisfied boy than he, when at dusk he packed his cakes into a basket procured for the purpose, covered them carefully with the table-cloth, tucked the coffee-pot in at one end, and marched whistling away toward home. He had been gone since quite early in the morning, had procured his own breakfast and dinner, according to previous arrangement, but was going home to tea.
It is doubtful if there will ever anything look nicer to Tode than did that little clean room, and that little square table, with its bit of a white patched table-cloth, and its three plates and three knives, and its loaf of bread, and its very little lump of butter; a little black teakettle puffed and steamed its welcome, and a very funny little old brown ware teapot stood waiting on the hearth. There was that in this poor homeless boy's nature that took this picture in, and he felt it to his very heart. It was better a hundred times than the glitter and grandeur of the Euclid House, for didn't he know perfectly well that the little brown teapot on the hearth was waiting for him, and had anything ever waited for him before?
"Now we are all ready," chirped the old lady, cheerily, as Tode set down his basket and took off his cap. "Come Winny," and straightway there appeared from the little room of the kitchen a new character in this story of Tode's life, one whom the boy had never heard of before, and at whom he stared as startled as if she had suddenly blown up to them, fairy-like, from out the wide mouth of the black teakettle.
"This is my Winny," explained she of the frill cap. "This is Jim's and Rick's sister. Dear me! I don't believe I ever thought to tell you they had a sister. She was to school when you was bobbing back and forth yesterday and to-day, and she was to bed when you came home last night."
"Well she's here now," interrupted Winny. "Ready to be looked at, which she's likely to be, I should think. Let's have tea."
Tode had been very uncertain as to whether he liked this new revelation of the family; but one word in the mother's sentence smoothed his face, and he sat down opposite the great gray eyes of the grave, self-possessed looking Winny with a satisfied air.
"Now," said the mother, looking kindly on him, "I've always asked a blessing myself at my table, because Jim and Rick they don't neither of 'em lean that way, but if you would do it I think it would be all right and nice."
Tode looked bewildered a moment; then adopted the very wise and straightforward course of saying:
"I don't know what 'asking a blessing' means."
"Don't you, now? Why it's to say a little prayer to God before you eat—just to thank him, you know."
A little gleam of satisfaction shone in Tode's eyes.
"Do good people do that?" he asked.
"Why, yes—all the folks I ever lived with when I was a girl. Deacon Small's family, and Esquire Edward's family, and all, used to."
"Every time they eat?"
"Every single time."
"That's nice," said Tode, heartily. Whereat the gray eyes opposite looked wonderingly at him. "I like that. Now, what do they say?"
"Oh they just pray a little simple word—just to say thank you to the Lord, you know."
"And do you want me to do it?"
"Well, I think it would be nice and proper like, if you felt like it."
Reverently Tode closed his eyes, and reverently and simply did he offer his thanksgiving.
"O Lord, we thank you for this bread and butter and tea."
Then he commenced at once on the subject of his thoughts. Conversation addressed to Winny.
"Do you go to school?"
"Yes."
"What kind of a place is school?"
"Nice enough place if you want to learn, stupid if you don't."
"Do you want to learn?"
"Some."
"Well, what do you learn?"
"Reading, spelling, writing, geography, arithmetic, and grammar."
"My! What are all them things?"
"Don't you know what reading is?"
"Yes, I know them first three; but what's the long words?"
"Well, geography is about the earth."
"Earth? What do you mean, dirt?"
"Some—and some water, and some hills, and rivers, and cities, and mountains."
"But you can see all them things."
"Well, it tells you more than you can see."
"And what's t'other?"
"Arithmetic is about figures. What are you asking me so many questions for?—didn't you ever go to school?"
"Never did in all my life, not an hour. Now go on about the figures."
"Well, all about them—how to add and multiply, and subtract and divide, and fractions."
"Never heard of one of 'em," said Tode, with a little sigh. "What be they all for?"
"Why so you can buy things and sell them, and keep accounts, and everything."
"Then I ought to know 'em, 'cause that's what I'm doing. Do you know 'em?"
"I'm studying arithmetic, and I'm as far as fractions."
"Will you show 'em to me?"
"Mother," said Winny, turning despairing eyes on the attentive old lady, "he's such a funny boy. I don't know what to make of him."
"He wants to study and learn, deary, don't you see?"
"I think that's just as nice as can be," she added, turning to Tode. "Winny, she's a great scholar, keeps to the head of her class all the time, most, and she studies evenings, and you could get out your book, and she would show you all about things, couldn't you, deary?"
"I don't care," said Winny, listlessly. "Yes, I might if he wants to learn, and if he won't bother me too much."
Tode's cheeks were all aglow. He had awakened lately to the fact that there was a great deal in this world that he didn't understand, that he wanted to know about; and without a doubt but that this wise-eyed girl knew it all, and that he should learn it all, and that he should learn it from her in a little while. He went to work with alacrity. Examination came first—that is, it came after the dishes were washed. Then Tode displayed his reading powers, which really were remarkable when one considered that he could hardly tell himself how he happened to learn, but which sank into insignificance by the side of Winny's clear-toned, correct, careful reading. Tode listened in amazement and delight.
"That sounds just like mine," he said at last, drawing in his breath as she finished.
In return for which graceful compliment, which had the merit of being an unconscious one, Winny condescended to compliment him on the manner in which his letters, large and small, were gotten up.
"They ought to be nice," Tode explained, "the way I worked at 'em! It took me a week off and on, to make that K crook in and out, and up and down, as it ought to. Dora Hastings, she told me about 'em, and made the patterns. You don't know Dora Hastings, do you?"
"No, I never heard of her; but these are not patterns, they are copies; and there is no such word as ''em,' which you keep using so much. Our teachers told us so to-day."
"What's the reason there isn't?"
"Well, because there isn't; it's 'them' and not ''em' at all. And you use a great many words that they wouldn't allow you to if you went to school."
"Well then," said Tode, with unfailing good nature, "don't you let me say 'em then—no, I mean 'them.' You're the school misses, and I'm your school. Go on about the other things."
It was a busy evening. Arithmetic, except so much as had been required to count his small income, proved to be a sealed book to Tode; but the energy with which he began at the beginning, and tried to learn every word in it, was quite soothing to the heart of the young teacher.
The little mother sat at the end of the table, and sewed industriously on the clothes that she had washed and ironed during the day; but when a queer little old clock in the corner struck nine, she bit off her thread and fastened her needle on the yellow cushion, and interrupted the students.
"Now, deary, let's put away our work. You've made a first-rate beginning, but it's time now to read your piece of a chapter, and then we'll have a word of prayer and get to our beds, so we can all be up bright and early in the morning."
Tode closed his book promptly, and looked on with eager satisfaction while Winny produced an old worn, much-used Bible—a whole Bible! and composedly turned over its pages with the air of one who was quite accustomed to handle the wonderful book.
"Where shall I read to-night, mother?" she asked.
"Well, deary, suppose you read what John says about the many mansions that they're getting ready for us."
"John didn't say it, mother," answered Winny, gravely. "Jesus said it himself."
"Yes, deary, but John heard him say it, and wrote it down for us."
So Tode listened, and heard for the first time in his life these blessed words:
"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."
Thus on, through the beautiful verses, until this:
"And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do."
"There, deary," said Winny's mother, "that will do. I want to stop there and think about it. Whenever I get more than usual trouble in my heart about Rick and Jim, I want to hear this chapter down to there, 'Whatsoever ye shall ask,' and it gives me a lift, like, and then I pray away."
Could you imagine how you should feel if you had learned to love the Lord, and were as old as Tode was, and then should hear those words for the first time?
The tears were following each other down his cheeks, and dropping on his hand.
"Who does he mean?" he asked, eagerly. "Whose mansions be they that he's getting ready?"
"Why, bless you, one of them is mine, and there'll be one ready for everybody who loves him."
Tode's voice sank to a husky whisper.
"Do you think there's one getting ready for me?"
"There's no kind of doubt about it, not if you love the Lord Jesus. I suppose as soon as ever you made up your mind to love him the Lord said, 'Now I must get a place ready for Tode, for he's decided that he wants to come up here with me.'"
Wiser brains than Tode's would doubtless have smiled at the old lady's original and perhaps untheological way of interpreting the truth; but he drank it in, and drew nearer to the true meaning of it than perhaps he would had it been learnedly explained.
"I never thought about it before in my life," he said, gravely. "And so that's heaven? And there ain't any trouble there I heard Mr. Birge say once in his preaching."
"Not a speck of trouble of any shape nor kind, nor nobody's wicked nor cross, and no bottles there, Tode, not a bottle."
"How do you know?"
"'Cause it says so right out, sharp and plain. 'No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.' That's Bible words, and you and I know that where there's bottles, and folks give them to their neighbors, why there'll be drunkards."
Tode nodded his head in solemn assent. Yes, he knew that better perhaps than his teacher. Then he asked:
"And what more about heaven?"
"Oh deary me! there's verses and verses about streets of gold, and harps, and thrones, and singing. Oh my! such singing as you never dreamed about, and we to be the singers, you know; and I couldn't begin to tell you about it all; and you never heard any of them verses? Well now, I am beat. Well I always pick 'em all out and read 'em Sunday. I like to make Sunday a kind of a holiday, you know, so I read 'em and study 'em, and try to picture it all out; but then you see I can't, because the Bible says that eyes haven't seen nor ears heard, and we can't begin to guess at the fine things prepared for us."
"Well now," broke in Tode, his lips hurrying to tell the thought that had been filling his mind for some minutes, "why don't everybody go there? I heard about that awful place where some folks go. Mr. Birge told about it in some of his preaching. Now what's that for? Why don't they all go to heaven?"
The little old lady heaved a deep sigh.
"Sure enough, why don't they?" she said at last. "And the curious part of it is, that it's just because they won't. They don't have to pay for it; they don't have to go away off after it; they don't have to die for it, because they've got to die anyhow; and they know it's dreadful to die all alone; and they know that every single thing that the Lord Jesus wants of them is to love him, and give him a chance to help them—and the long and short of it is, they won't do it."
"That's awful silly," ejaculated Tode.
"Silly! Why, there ain't anything else in all this big world that anywhere near comes up to it for silliness. Why, don't you think," and here her voice took a lower and more solemn tone, and the wide cap frill trembled with earnestness. "Don't you think, there's men and women who believe that every word in that Bible over there is true, and they know there's such a verse as that we just heard, 'Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I do;' and there's tired folks who know the Bible says, 'Come unto me all ye that are weary, and I will give you rest;' and there's folks full of trouble who know it says, 'Cast thy burden on the Lord, and he will sustain thee;' and there's folks chasing up and down the world after a good time who know it says, 'In thy presence is fullness of joy,' and 'At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore;' and there's folks working night and day to be rich who know it says, 'I am the true riches,' and, 'The silver and the gold are his,' and just as true as you live they won't kneel down and ask him for any of these things! Now ain't that curious?"
"I should think he'd get kind of out of patience with them all," Tode answered, earnestly, "and say, 'Let 'em go, then, if they're determined to.'"
The old lady shook her head emphatically.
"No, he loves them you see. Do you suppose if my Winny and my boys should go wrong, and not mind a word I say, I could give 'em up and say, 'Let them go then?' No indeed! I'd stick to 'em till the very last minute, and I'd coax 'em, and pray over 'em day and night—and my love, why it's just nothing by the side of his. Why he says himself that his love is greater than the love of a woman; so you see he sticks to 'em all, and wants every one of them."
Tode resolved this thought in his mind for a little, then gave vent to his new idea.
"Then I should think folks ought to be coaxing 'em, folks that love him, I mean. If he loves all the people and wants them, and is trying to get them, why then I should think all his folks ought to be trying, too."
"That's it!" said the old lady, eagerly. "That's it exactly. He tells us so in the Bible time and time again. 'Let him that heareth say come.' Now you and me have heard, and according to that it's our business to go right to work, and say 'come' the very first time we get a chance. But, deary me! I do believe in my heart that's half the trouble, folks won't do it; his own folks, too, that have heard, and have got one of the mansions waiting for 'em. He's given them all work to do helping to fill the others, and half the time they let it go, and tend to their own work, and leave him to do the coaxing all alone."
"Mother," interrupted Winny, impatiently drumming on the corner of the Bible, "I thought you said it was bedtime. I could have learned two grammar lessons in this time."
The mother gave a gentle little sigh.
"Well, deary, so it is," she said. "We'll just have a word of prayer, and then we'll go."
Tode in his little room took his favorite position, a seat on the side of the bed, and lost himself in thought. Great strides the boy had taken in knowledge since tea time. Wonderful truths had been revealed to him. Some faint idea of the wickedness of this world began to dawn upon him. All his life hitherto had been spent in the depths, and it would seem that if he were acquainted with anything it must be with wickedness, yet a new revelation of it had come to him. "Ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life." He did not know that there was such a verse in the Bible; but now he knew the fact, and it gave this boy, who had come out of a cellar rum-hole, and had mingled during his entire life with just such people as swarm around cellar rum-holes, a more distinct idea of the total depravity of this world than he had ever dreamed of before. It gave him a solemn old feeling. He felt less like whistling and more like going very eagerly to work than he ever had before.
"There's work to do," he said to himself. "He's got a mansion ready for me it seems. I won't ever want other folk's nice homes any more as long as I live, 'cause it seems I've got a grander one after all than they can even think of; but then there's other mansions, and he wants people to come and fill them, and he let's us help." Then his voice took a more joyful ring, like that of a strong brave boy ready for work. "There's work to do, plenty of it, and I'll help—I'll help fill some of them."
"The poor homeless boy," said the warm-hearted little mother down stairs. "Deary me, my heart does just go out to him. And to think that he owns one of them mansions, and never knew it! Well, now, he shan't ever want for a home feeling on this earth if I can help it. I do believe he's one of the Lord's own, and we must feel honored, Winny dear, because we're called to help him. Don't you think he's a good warm-hearted boy, deary?"
"Oh yes," Winny said, indifferently. "But, mother, he does use such shocking grammar."
