“Wait a minute, and I’ll bring you your camp-chair, Tiny,” said Johnny, and he raced to the porch for Tiny’s small chair, while Jim pulled off the coat which he had put on as a mark of respect to Mrs. Leslie, whom he hoped to see before the evening was over, and went valiantly to work with the spade.
“What nice big spadefuls you make!” Tiny said, after watching him a while. “When I dig, it ’most all slides off while I am picking up the spade.”
“That’s because you are not quite so strong as I am,” said Jim, smiling, and turning over an extra large spadeful by way of proving his statement.
The two little gardens were thoroughly dug by the time that it was too dark to work any more, and Johnny had hoed and raked Tiny’s smooth, while Jim was digging his. Then they went into the playroom, and Mrs. Leslie brought them a lamp to light up the lesson.
“We will have a little singing first,” she said, opening the organ. “Tiny and I will sing the evening hymn, and you must listen, Jim, and try to catch the tune.”
Jim listened, and by the time they reached the Doxology, he had joined them, and went through the tune without a mistake, seeming even to know the words. His voice was a very sweet tenor, and Tiny exclaimed delightedly,—
“It will be just as easy as anything to teach him to sing, mamma!”
“I’d have come in sooner,” said Jim, looking very much pleased, “but that last verse was the only one I knew. I went to Sunday-school a few times when I was a little boy, and that verse came back to me as soon as you began to sing it.”