"No, he loves them you see. Do you suppose if my Winny and my boys should go wrong, and not mind a word I say, I could give 'em up and say, 'Let them go then?' No indeed! I'd stick to 'em till the very last minute, and I'd coax 'em, and pray over 'em day and night—and my love, why it's just nothing by the side of his. Why he says himself that his love is greater than the love of a woman; so you see he sticks to 'em all, and wants every one of them."
Tode resolved this thought in his mind for a little, then gave vent to his new idea.
"Then I should think folks ought to be coaxing 'em, folks that love him, I mean. If he loves all the people and wants them, and is trying to get them, why then I should think all his folks ought to be trying, too."
"That's it!" said the old lady, eagerly. "That's it exactly. He tells us so in the Bible time and time again. 'Let him that heareth say come.' Now you and me have heard, and according to that it's our business to go right to work, and say 'come' the very first time we get a chance. But, deary me! I do believe in my heart that's half the trouble, folks won't do it; his own folks, too, that have heard, and have got one of the mansions waiting for 'em. He's given them all work to do helping to fill the others, and half the time they let it go, and tend to their own work, and leave him to do the coaxing all alone."
"Mother," interrupted Winny, impatiently drumming on the corner of the Bible, "I thought you said it was bedtime. I could have learned two grammar lessons in this time."
The mother gave a gentle little sigh.
"Well, deary, so it is," she said. "We'll just have a word of prayer, and then we'll go."
Tode in his little room took his favorite position, a seat on the side of the bed, and lost himself in thought. Great strides the boy had taken in knowledge since tea time. Wonderful truths had been revealed to him. Some faint idea of the wickedness of this world began to dawn upon him. All his life hitherto had been spent in the depths, and it would seem that if he were acquainted with anything it must be with wickedness, yet a new revelation of it had come to him. "Ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life." He did not know that there was such a verse in the Bible; but now he knew the fact, and it gave this boy, who had come out of a cellar rum-hole, and had mingled during his entire life with just such people as swarm around cellar rum-holes, a more distinct idea of the total depravity of this world than he had ever dreamed of before. It gave him a solemn old feeling. He felt less like whistling and more like going very eagerly to work than he ever had before.
"There's work to do," he said to himself. "He's got a mansion ready for me it seems. I won't ever want other folk's nice homes any more as long as I live, 'cause it seems I've got a grander one after all than they can even think of; but then there's other mansions, and he wants people to come and fill them, and he let's us help." Then his voice took a more joyful ring, like that of a strong brave boy ready for work. "There's work to do, plenty of it, and I'll help—I'll help fill some of them."
"The poor homeless boy," said the warm-hearted little mother down stairs. "Deary me, my heart does just go out to him. And to think that he owns one of them mansions, and never knew it! Well, now, he shan't ever want for a home feeling on this earth if I can help it. I do believe he's one of the Lord's own, and we must feel honored, Winny dear, because we're called to help him. Don't you think he's a good warm-hearted boy, deary?"