“Oh, yes!” cried Tommy.
“Well, I have tried to get them to come, and failed,” she said. “Perhaps I didn’t know the right way to approach them. Now I want you to try. I believe you will know better how to reach them than I did. You may fail, too, but at least you can try.”
“I will try,” he said, and that evening he visited all the cabins in the row, one after another. What arts he used was never known—what subtleties of flattery and promise. He met with much discouragement; for instance, he could get none of the men to consent to send to school any of the boys who were old enough to help them in the mines. But when he started to school next morning, six small children accompanied him, among them his brother Johnny. And what a welcome the teacher gave him! She seemed unable to speak for a moment, and her eyes gleamed queerly, but when she did speak, it was with words that sent a curious warmth to his heart.
That half-dozen children was only the first instalment to come from the cabins. Tommy, prizing above everything his teacher’s gratitude, kept resolutely at work, and soon the benches at the schoolroom began to assume quite a different appearance from that they had had at the opening of school; and one day when Jabez Smith came down to look the school over, he declared that it would soon be necessary to put in some new forms.
“And you were gittin’ discouraged,” he said, half jestingly, to Miss Andrews. “Didn’t I tell you t’ stick to it an’ you’d win?”
“Oh, but it wasn’t I who won!” she cried. And in a few words she told him the story of Tommy’s missionary work, and of his connection with the school.
“Which is th’ boy?” he asked quickly, when the story was finished, and she pointed out Tommy where he sat bending over his book.
Mr. Smith looked at him for some moments without speaking.
“There must be somethin’ in th’ boy, Miss Bessie,” he said at last. “We must do somethin’ fer him. When you’re ready, let me know. Mebbe I kin help.” And he went out hastily, before she could answer him.
But the words sang through her brain. “Do something for him”—of course they must do something for him; but what? The question did not long remain unanswered.