Taken or left

by Mrs. O. F. Walton

I was in the first class—the sixth standard it would be called now; but there were no such things as standards in those days. I was old enough to leave school, mother said. A lad of fourteen ought to be earning his own bread, she told my father again and again, and father always nodded his head in assent; but he could not decide what was to be done with me. I sometimes wished he would make up his mind, and wondered why it was such a difficult matter to decide.

But I found out afterwards that our father's mind was never made up in a hurry. Mother told us once that father had taken five years to consider whether he should ask her to be his wife or not. So I need not have been surprised that he could not settle in a hurry what to do with his boys. Only I wondered sometimes, if the third boy's future was so hard to plan out, and took so many months to settle, what he would do, and how many years it would take him to decide what was to be done with his tenth boy, when the time arrived for little Jude to be started in life!

And so it came to pass that I was the eldest boy in the school. We did not go to the school nearest to our house, which would have been far more convenient, but we went to the same school father had attended when he was a boy, and which was about a mile farther into the town. It was a long walk for us, and on wet days we grumbled a good deal at having to go so far; but father knew the master well, and did not like us to leave. He was the son of father's old master, and was a really good teacher, and got us on well.

The lessons seemed very long and tedious that morning, for I was longing to be at home again with Salome. As soon as school was over, I caught up my cape and ran down the street. But I had not gone far, when I heard the master's voice calling me. I ran back to see what he wanted. He was holding a paper in his hand.

"Here, Peter," he said, "you're a trustworthy lad! I want you to do a bit of business for me. Isn't Trafalgar Street somewhere up your way?"

I told him it was only five minutes' walk from our house.

"I thought so," he said; "I want you to pay this bill for me. Do you know Betson's shop in Trafalgar Street? He is a seed merchant."

I knew it quite well.

"My wife owes him five shillings," he said; "here is the money and the bill. Get it receipted, and bring it back to me to-morrow. You need not go till after school this afternoon; you will be pressed for time now, and you must not lose your dinner. Thank you, Peter," he said, as I told him I would be sure to do it; "it will save me a long walk!"

I was very much pleased that he trusted me, and walked along with an important air. I carried the bill in one hand, and the five shillings in the other. I should have put it in my pocket, but I had stuffed it so full of nuts for Salome, which I had bought for her on my way to school, that it would hold nothing more. I thought I would put the money and bill safely away as soon as I got home.