"NO-ACCOUNT JOHNNY."
BY M. E. SANGSTER.
"No-Account Johnny" had had a hard time all his life. He was a poor boy, so homely, and dirty, and ragged, so nearly idiotic, that few people would look at him twice. He lived with a French dyer, who had taught him how to stir the vats at a certain time every day, and who gave him in return enough corn-bread and bacon to keep him alive. A damp, ill-smelling cellar was the place where he spent his days, and his nights were passed in an equally repulsive attic. To dodge a blow, to tell a lie, to eat, to sleep, to be glad in a vague sort of way when the sun shone on him warmly, these were all the accomplishments of poor "No-Account Johnny" Long.
Christmas, with its green boughs and its gifts, went by, and brought no gift to him. He did wish, as he heard the other boys tooting away on their tin horns, that he had one; but as he could not get one by wishing, he contented himself with turning somersaults on the pavement. By an unfortunate miscalculation, he lay bruised and unconscious at the foot of the cellar-steps.
Aunt Lizzie, the washerwoman, at the end of the court, took him home to her poor little house, and took care of him till he was well again, for in the fall he had broken his arm. Her children went to Sunday-school, and one of them brought his teacher to see Johnny.
"Well, my poor little fellow," said the gentleman, looking with pity on the thin face, clean now, through Aunt Lizzie's care, "I see you are sick; what's your name?"
"No-Account Johnny!"
"Johnny! well, Johnny, do you know that Jesus loves you?"
"Never hearn tell of the Mister, I'm no account. Reckon He don't know me! Missis says I'm no account nohow!"
"But that is a mistake, my boy. You are of great account. You have a soul that can never die. Did you never know that?"
"No," shaking his head; "I don't un'erstand, Mister."
"Was anybody ever good to you, Johnny?"
"Nobody but Aunt Liz. Aunt Liz been good."
"Well, Jesus is better than Aunt Liz. Jesus is God. He died for you! He lives up there among the stars! He loves you, poor No-Account Johnny. Think of that."
The teacher went away. At the door old Aunt Lizzie thanked him for coming, but said:
"It's of no use, sir, to teach that boy. He a'nt right here," tapping her forehead.
"Ah! Aunt Lizzie, our blessed Jesus can make him understand," said Mr. Allen, as he went away.
After a few weeks Johnny was able to go back to the dyeing establishment. The first Sabbath after, however, he lost his place, for he refused to work, and astonished his master by saying that he was going to Sunday-school. Thither he went, and walking up to Mr. Allen said:
"Here I am! Tell me more 'bout Jesus; I've found out a heap since you told me 'bout Him, and I'm going to be Jesus Christ's Johnny now. No-Account Johnny's gone off altogether."
Nobody could tell how it happened, but that magic word, "Jesus," had done wonders for the little heathen. "He loves me," he had said to himself again and again, and then he had listened, with that unlocked heart, to every word he heard about Jesus, and had learned a great deal. "No-Account Johnny" became one of the best scholars in the little mission-school.