“Yes, so we will,” gasped Andy, with shining eyes.
Sam continued: he told of selling the coat off his back, sooner than give up his precious opportunities for studying and improving his mind.
Here Bill gave Andy a nudge, and whispered desperately,
“I’m goin’ the whole forty, Andy; what’s a selfish old lark of nuts and candy, I’d like to know, for a well fed cove like me? I’ll help Sam the whole figger,—cookies if I won’t!”
“Feel as if I’d been a pig all my life,” whimpered Andy, as Sam went on with his piteous story of painful perseverance and hard endurance. All at once Bill began edging off the settee, but he stopped to whisper again,
“Say, Andy, I’m going home as tight as ever I can leg it after that other ten cents; be back in a minute;” and before Andy could reply he was off: in a few moments he was back again, but where was Andy?
A moment later Andy entered softly, and taking his seat by Bill, opened his hand, in which was his last ten cent piece.
But it might have done one real good to have seen the peculiar shine in the eyes of the generous boys, as their willing offerings rattled down into the well-filled box which was passed around for the collection at the close of the meeting.
And after all, that was not the best of it, for on the way home, instead of the “selfish lark” so cheerfully given up, the boys had a good sensible talk, in which they agreed that it was shameful, the way in which they had neglected their studies, and here was a poor colored boy, who had suffered “all a feller could suffer and pull through,”—as Andy remarked with boy-like earnestness,—for the knowledge they, in their favored freedom from care and privation, had hardly thought worth possessing, much less toiling for.
Bill and Andy’s parents silently wondered what had come over their boys, that all at once they grew so thoughtful and studious; but the boys knew what had come over them, and they also knew why it was that whenever they earned any money, a part was saved out from the rest for charitable purposes.