Now it so happened, in the multiplicity of things which the new acquaintances had to talk over, that Sunday and church-going had not been discussed; and owing to the fact that Tode did not breakfast with the family, no knowledge of his intentions came to them, and no knowledge of that old command, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," came to him. True, he knew that stores and shops were closed quite generally on the Sabbath, but hotels were not, the Euclid House had never been, and Tode, without reasoning about it at all, had imbibed the idea that it was because they kept things to eat and drink. Now these were the very things which he kept, and people must eat and drink on Sundays as well as on any other days, so of course it was his duty to supply them.
So he put a clean white cloth on the dry-goods box in honor of this new bright day, arranged everything in the most tempting manner possible, and waited for customers. They came thick and fast. The Sabbath proved fair to be as busy a day at the dry-goods box as it used to be at the Euclid House. One disappointment Tode had. When he trudged down to the little house to have his great empty coffee-pot replenished, it was closed and locked.
"Course," he said, nodding approvingly, "they've gone to church. I might a known they wouldn't wash and iron and go to school Sunday. I ought to remembered and took away my coffee. Well, never mind, I'll just run around to the Coffee House and get my dish filled, and that will make it all right."
So many customers came just at tea time that he found it impossible to go home to tea, but took a cup of his own coffee and a few of his cakes, and chuckled meantime over the fact that he was the only individual who could take his supper from that dry-goods box without paying for it.
It was just as the bells were ringing for evening service that he joyfully packed his nearly emptied dishes into the basket, shook the crumbs from his little table-cloth, folded it carefully, and rejoiced over the thought that he had done an excellent day's work, and could afford to go to church. The brown house was closed again, so he left his basket under a woodpile in the alley-way, and made all possible speed for Mr. Birge's church. Even then the opening services were nearly concluded, but he was in time for the Bible text, and that text Tode never forgot in his life. The words were, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."
I can not describe to you the poor boy's bewildered astonishment as he listened and thought, and gradually began to take in something of the true meaning of those earnest words. Mr. Birge was very decided in his opinions, very plain in his utterances. Milk wagons, ice wagons, meat wagons, and the whole long catalogue of Sabbath-breaking wagons, to say nothing of row-boats and steamboats, and trains of cars, were dwelt upon with unsparing tongue—nay, he went farther than that, and expressed his unmistakable opinion of Sabbath-breaking ice-cream saloons and coffee saloons; then down to the little apple children, and candy children, and shoestring children, who haunt the Sabbath streets. Tode listened, and ran his fingers through his hair in perplexity.
"It must come in somewhere," he said to himself in some bewilderment. "I don't quite keep a coffee house, and I don't—why, yes I do, sell apples every now and then; and as to that, I suppose I keep a coffee box. What if it ain't a house? I wonder now if it ain't right? I wonder if there's lots of things that look right before you think about them, that ain't right after you've turned 'em over a spell? And I wonder how a fellow is going to know?"
Then he gave his undivided attention to the sermon again; and went home after the service was concluded, with a very thoughtful face. Jim was there making a visit, but Tode only nodded to him, and went abruptly to the little shelf behind the stove in the corner, and took down the old Bible.
"Grandma, where are the commandments put?" he asked eagerly, addressing the old lady by the title which he had bestowed on her very early in their acquaintance.
"Why they're in Exodus, in the twentieth chapter."