"Israel loved Joseph so much that as a particular proof of his parental regard (James Moore, stop putting that stick in your brother's eye) he prepared a variegated garment known as a 'coat of many colors.' (John Mink, take that marble out of your throat, or you'll swallow it.) The bestowal of this beautiful gift (Mary Dunn, put your ticket away, and, Sally Harris, let her hair alone) awakened feelings akin to envy and bitterness in (Jane Sloper must not borrow her cousin's bonnet in Sunday-school) the bosoms of his perverted brethren. (Hugh Fraley will leave those strings at home, and, William Grove, stop climbing over the bench.) Alas! what sorrow can evil and disobedient sons, too little conscious (Dicky Taylor, bring that insect to me) of the sacrifices and prayerful struggles of their venerable parents (no, Henry, not another drink), call down upon their already care-burdened minds!"
Of course I felt sure that Miss Pepper was in earnest and meant to do good, but I suspected that she had not what my uncle called "a gift" with children, and I saw how much harder it made it for Bessie, who really was a natural teacher, and who contrived to rule with a steady but gracious firmness, and to win with a sweet simplicity that explained itself to the minds of little ones.
I wondered not a little at her infatuation on the Pepper question when I saw how contrary their ways and influence were. There were plenty of nice, interesting little girls among the two hundred, and some very well-behaved boys too; but Bessie set herself to win the unruly, and it was a lesson to thoughtless me to see her do it. One terrible little soul, with a thin, wiry body and tight-cropped head, fell into a conflict with a square-set, hard-faced boy, and they rolled under the seats together just as Miss Pepper had succeeded in raising the ill-used Joseph out of the pit with words of three syllables. Bessie went to the rescue, and separated and inverted the combatants, only the soles of whose boots had been visible a moment before. She sat down with them, and although I could not hear her words, I saw that they were slowly smoothing the angry creases of both the thin and the square face.
"Then let him stop a-callin' me 'Skinny,'" was the last outbreak of the injured lean one, and his antagonist confessed--
"I won't say nothin' to you no more if you stop grinning 'Flathead' at me."
Before Miss Pepper had succeeded in describing the paraphernalia of Eastern travel and the approach of the Ishmaelites, the two were induced to shake hands silently across their gentle mediatrix, whose face suddenly grew radiant with the sweetest blush I ever saw as the door opened and a new feature was added to the scene.
I do not mean to detract from the good impulses or high motives of my dear girl when I say that this was the key that opened the subject to me, and made it bright and plain. It wore the form of a truly good and good-looking young gentleman, who had just enough of the clergyman in his appearance to show that he honored his holy calling above all things. He gave Bessie a glance that set my heart at rest--for I naturally felt anxious that the blush and brightness and other signs should not be thrown away on an unappreciative object--and then he went right into his work. Oh dear! what a difference! One could not imagine, without seeing for one's self, what a beautiful sympathy could do with material that a hard, dry purpose could only irritate. Of course he bowed to me, and met Miss Pepper like an old friend, and then he began, and in beginning caught every single wandering mind, and held it with that mysterious fascination which individualizes, and convinces each one that he is the particular soul addressed.
He had been spending the hour of his absence from us in the chamber of a little fellow, one of our number, who had been terribly hurt by the machinery of a factory in which he worked. He took every one of us there with him, awakening our liveliest interest, and making us anxious to be helpful to every suffering fellow-creature. Some of us had to cry a little at the kind remembrances the poor crushed child sent us, and we felt quite self-reproachful that we had not thought more of him, and been quieter and more orderly in every way. Then, without any dry, hard preaching, he planted that lesson, left it to take root without digging it up again with personal exhortation, and told us something else. Surely no one could have better divined just what we wanted to know, and just how we would have liked it related. Love first of all; then cheerfulness, simplicity, and a strong, earnest enthusiasm that made attention compulsory and the attraction irresistible.
I do not believe I ever felt better satisfied in my life than when he closed and the orderly dismission began: then he turned to Bessie, and I saw that my friend had found the mission of heart-and soul-work, and was being drawn heavenward by the hand she loved. Such a timid tenderness as pervaded his every look and word! such a sweet consciousness as lighted hers! I laughed at my folly about Tom, and felt that I should be delighted to see him at Haines', and introduce him to the dear, good clergyman whom Bessie had the good sense to appreciate.
The Rev. Charles Pepper was the nephew of Miss Mary. I soon changed my prejudiced opinion of that lady into a clearer view of her merits. She was the Paul that planted: being a woman of wealth and strong religious bias, she had built the mission chapel, gathered together the children and taught them, while her good nephew added the superintendence of the school to his church duties in a different quarter.