“I’m sorry now I ever believed Asa was bound to fall back again into his old ways, Dick. But Dan keeps on saying mean things about him, because once, you know, Asa stole something he valued a heap, and Dan has never quite forgotten it. After what you heard I reckon he will win out, and for one I’m going to help him all I can. The poor fellow needs friends to back him, just as Mr. Holwell said.”
“That sounds just like you, Leslie,” remarked Dick, slapping his chum heartily on the back at the same time. “And I’m with you every time. We may be of some help to poor lonely Asa; and anyway he’ll feel stronger if he sees that we believe in him.”
“Well, here’s where I have to say good night, Dick,” the other remarked, a few minutes later.
“It’s early still, Leslie. Why not come with me over to Mr. Nocker’s house. He’ll be expecting me after the meeting.”
“Hello! what’s in the wind now?” demanded Leslie, with a vein of boyish curiosity in his voice.
“Oh! nothing much,” came the answer. “I promised to let the deacon know how the meeting turned out, that’s all. You remember he’s taking a whole lot of interest nowadays in everything that concerns boys, and especially the fellows belonging to the Juniors of the Y. M. C. A.”
“That’s right; he is for a fact,” said Leslie, with a laugh. “It is one of the latter-day miracles, my folks say. Time wasn’t so long ago when Deacon Nocker seemed just to despise all boys. I guess it was because he made a foozle of bringing up his own son, who got in trouble, ran away from home, and left a wife and child when he died.”
“Well, we had something to do with making the old gentleman fall in love with his own grandson,” chuckled Dick in turn. “For that, it seems he’s never forgiven us, for he keeps trying to do us favors right along.”
They continued walking, and presently turned in at a gate. The grounds belonging to Deacon Nocker’s place were quite extensive. He was the richest storekeeper in Cliffwood, and had been a surly old fellow until recently, when a marvelous change for the better had come over him.
The deacon himself let them in, and his thin face was wreathed with a smile as they shook hands heartily with him. People used formerly to say that it felt like touching a snake to grasp the deacon’s cold hand. But that was when his heart was chilly too. Nowadays he was smiling all the day long, and really there was a vigor in the way he squeezed an outstretched hand that amazed his fellow townsmen.