“I’m glad of it, Dick; I hope you can plead ‘Not guilty’ to all the rest; only remember Jesus said, ‘Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer.’ And then there’s the ‘new commandment’ Christ gave us, ‘Love one another.’”
“There’s—I—you know, the other one, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ and I—I have taken things, little things, sometimes,” said Dick, hurriedly.
“O Dicky Vance! To think Satan could make a brave, kind-hearted boy like you into a thief. How does he pay you? By making you real happy and giving you lots of fun? At the circus the other day, for instance.”
“I should have had a good time if I hadn’t got in with those fellows.”
“But it’s just ‘those fellows’ Satan will always keep you with.”
“We had a tip-top time the other day; we played truant,” said Dick, eagerly. “We went fishing away up by the Crossing, and there didn’t a single bad thing happen. I don’t like stories where every bad boy gets drowned or something.”
“Nor I, either; but did you feel all right? Didn’t you have to keep looking round to see if anybody was coming, and go ever so far out of your way for fear of meeting some one?”
“Why, how did you know?” exclaimed Dick, in surprise.
“I didn’t; I only know it’s the way Satan’s servants mostly do. I shouldn’t think a boy like you would fancy that,—sneakin’ round, afraid to look in folks’ faces. Now, ain’t you ten times happier the days you learn all your lessons and mind the rules, than you was then?”
“I don’t try that often enough to know,” said Dick, laughing and coloring at the same time. “I’ve thought more’n once I would turn square round and keep right up to the mark; but it’s a plaguy bother to toe a straight crack.”