“He will like it all the better for being so hard, I do believe,” replied Mrs. Leslie, and this proved to be true. When Jim had wrestled for half an hour with a stump which looked like a collection of buffaloes’ heads, he sat down to his lesson with calm satisfaction; no one could say that he had not earned it.
Mrs. Leslie had been very much pleased by his consent to share the Sunday evening talk—for it could scarcely be called a lesson—without offering to do anything in return, and, although he had always been respectfully attentive, she had noticed a growing interest and earnestness, since Taffy’s death, which made her feel very glad and hopeful.
She could not help thinking, to-day, as she glanced at Jim, of the great change in his appearance. He had bought a cheap, but neat and well-fitting suit of dark clothes, and he still wore the little black necktie. This suit he kept strictly for Sundays, except that he always brought the coat on his lesson evenings, and put it on when his chopping was done. He was very careful, now, to be clean and neat, even when he wore his old clothes.
Extraordinary patches and darns had taken the place of rents and holes, about which, formerly, he had neither thought nor cared. His face had always been honest and cheerful, and a new gentleness made it, now, very pleasant to look at. And he was growing tall. He had always been somewhat taller than Johnny, and now he overtopped him by a head, a fact which gave Johnny no satisfaction whatever. Mrs. Leslie bade Jim goodbye at the gate, with an allusion to their meeting in the evening, and he assured her that he was coming.
“Something is troubling Jim,” she said to the children, as they all went upstairs, “and I want very much, if I can do it without asking impertinent questions, to find out what it is. Perhaps we could help him.”
“You could, mamma dear,” said Johnny, “even if Tiny and I couldn’t. Jim’s queer; he doesn’t like to talk things out, the way I do—and I’ll tell you what, Tiny, I think you and I had better leave Jim alone with mamma a little while, when we’ve finished talking about our verses. He’d be much more apt to tell her if there were nobody else there.”
Mrs. Leslie kissed her boy very lovingly. He was growing in the grace of unselfishness and thoughtfulness for others, in a way that warmed her heart.
Jim brought a great bunch of wild roses to Mrs. Leslie, when he came that evening, and she thanked him warmly.
“I did not think they had come yet,” she said, “and I never feel as if summer were really here to stay until the roses come. Where did you find them, dear?”