“Yes,” replied Hesper, “we all have to live and learn, and there are none of us so wise but what we can learn many things of one another. But that makes me think, Jake—why don’t you come to our evening school? We should be glad to have you.”
“Because I don’t want to,” he replied decidedly, “and what’s more, I won’t. I haven’t been to school since I licked the master, and if I should go again, it wouldn’t be three weeks before I should do the same, and that would be the end on’t.”
“But, Jake,” said Hesper, pleasantly—“I should be your teacher, and you wouldn’t lick me, would you?”
The rude boy looked up to her face with a broad grin.
“Lick you!” he repeated, while his countenance assumed an expression as though the idea was perfectly preposterous; “I would sooner cut off my right hand first—and what’s more, if I saw any fellow lift his finger against you, or even make an ugly face at you, I’d skin him as quick as I did this rabbit.”
“Then Jake,” said Hesper, “you are just the one I want, for sometimes I have a great deal of trouble, and I need a good friend to stand by me so you’ll come to-night, won’t you?”
“I don’t know about it,” said Jake, with some hesitation—“When I get among the white boys they call me a nigger, and that makes me so mad I could kill ‘em with a good will.”
“Jake,” said Hesper, as she laid her hand on his shoulder and looked him earnestly in the face, “if you’ll be my friend, I’ll be yours, and whoever treats you unkindly, it shall be all the same as if it were me. The Good Father, up there in heaven, cares nothing for the color of the skin. It is the heart alone he looks at, and therefore I shall do the same. We should all love one another in this world like brothers and sisters, Jake, so don’t turn away from me when I want to do you good, but I pray you, try my friendship a little while, and if it does not satisfy you then seek something better.”
Jake dropped his rabbit upon the ground, and looked up to her with tears in his eyes.
“Miss Hesper,” he said earnestly, “I believe you are a good angel, for nobody ever spoke so to me before. If you’ll only be kind to me and love me all the time as you do now, I’ll go to school or anywhere, and do just as you want me.”