Tip went home in a tumult. What could he do? He had never written a composition in his life, having made it a point to run away from school on composition-day; but running away was done with now. It didn't seem possible that he could write anything: certainly not in such a new, queer way as Mr. Burrows wished them to.
Supper and wood-splitting were hurried over for that evening, and Tip took his way very early to the seat under the elm-tree down by the pond. He wanted to think, to see how he should meet this new trouble; it was a real trouble to him, for he had set out to do just right, and he saw no way of getting out of this duty, and thought he saw no way of doing it.
"There is no place on the road so dark but this lamp will light you through, if you give it a chance."
This is what Mr. Holbrook had said when he gave Tip his Bible. And Tip had thought of his words very often, had already proved them true more than once; but he didn't see how it could help him now.
He took it out, and slowly turned the leaves; it couldn't write his composition for him, that was certain. But oh, the bright thought that came to Tip just then! Why not find his acrostic in the Bible, and write it out? among so many, many verses, he would be sure to find what he wanted. But then, how very queer it would be for him, Tip Lewis, to copy anything from the Bible! What would the boys think? What would Bob Turner say? Still, what else could he do? Besides his spelling-book and a worn arithmetic, it was the only book that he had in the world.
"I don't care," he said suddenly, after a few moments of troubled thought. "I guess I ain't ashamed of my Bible,—it's the only thing I've got that I needn't be ashamed of. I'll do it. The boys have got to know that I've turned over a new leaf. I wish they did; the sooner they know it the better. I say, my lamp shall help me out of this scrape, that's as true as can be; it helps me whenever I give it a chance."
He fumbled in his pocket and drew out an old stump of a pencil. The next thing was a piece of paper; he dived his hand down into another pocket, producing a rusty knife, pieces of string, a chestnut or two, and, finally, a crumpled piece of paper on which Bob Turner had scrawled what he called a likeness of Mr. Burrows, and given to Tip for a keepsake. He spread it out on a flat stone which lay near him, and began his work.
A long, slow work it was for Tip. Hours of that day, and the next, and the next, every day, until the fading light drove him home, did he sit under the elm-tree turning the leaves of his Bible, poring over its contents, writing words carefully now and then on his bit of paper. Remember it was new work to him.
At last, one evening, the sun went down in the bright red west, the stars shone out in all their twinkling, sparkling glory, the shadows began to fall thick and fast around the old tree, when Tip, with a little sigh of relief, folded the precious piece of paper, laid it carefully away in his Bible, and turned his steps homeward. His acrostic was finished, and into his heart had crept some of the beauty of those precious words, which he had found for the first time. Words they were which would go with him through all his life, and sweetly comfort some dark and weary hours.
The school-books were all piled neatly on the desks that Friday afternoon; the shades were dropped to shut out the low afternoon sun; and forty boys were still and expectant. The acrostics lay in a great white heap on Mr. Burrows' desk, not a name written on any of them. Mr. Burrows was to read, and the boys were to have the pleasure of spelling out the names of the owners as he read.