At the Black Rocks Part 11

"I don't know about allowing you to stay here, sir, unless you become a member of the cla.s.s and answer my questions, Dave."

Annie was relieved of the presence of this inspector; for a gentleman at the head of a cla.s.s opposite, noticing a big boy among Annie's flock of little fellows, kindly invited Dave to sit with his older lads.

"I am Mr. Tolman," said the gentleman. "Make yourself at home among the boys."

"Thank you, sir," said Dave; and his sister, with a roguish smile, bowed him out of her cla.s.s.

That Sunday was an eventful day to Little Mew. It was pleasant any way to be near this young lady, who seemed to him to be some beautiful being from a sphere above the human kind in which he moved. And then Bart was interested in the subject Annie presented. She talked about heaven and its people. She talked about G.o.d; but she did not make him that far-off being that Bart thought he must be, so that the louder people prayed the quicker they would bring him. She told how near he was, all about us, so that we could seem to hear his voice in the pleasant wind, and feel his touch in the soft, warm sunshine.

"But--but," said Bart, "he seems to be behind a curtain. I don't see him."

And then the teacher, her voice to Bart's ear playing a sweeter tune than ever, told how G.o.d took away the curtain; how he came in the Lord Jesus Christ; that the Saviour was the divine expression of G.o.d's love; and men could see that love going about their streets, coming into their homes, healing their sick, and then hanging on the cross that the world might be brought to G.o.d. Bart had been told all this before, but somehow it never got so near him.

"What she says somehow gets into me," thought Bart, looking up into the teacher's face. He thought he would like to ask her one question when he was alone with her. The school was dismissed, and Bart lingered that he might walk away with the teacher.

"Could I ask you about something?" he said, trotting at her side and lifting his queer, oldish face towards her.

"Certainly; ask all the questions you want. I can't say that I can answer them, but there's no harm in asking them."

"Well, what am I in this world for?"

He said it so abruptly that it amused Annie.

"What are you in this world for?"

"Yes'm. I don't seem to amount to much."

Bart eagerly watched the face above him, that had suddenly grown serious; for Annie was thinking of the little fellow's home--of its unattractiveness, of the two old people there that seemed so uninteresting, especially the grandfather, who, as Annie recalled him, seemed to be only a compound of a whining voice, a gloomy face, a bad cough, and a clumsy cane. Then she recalled the slighting way in which she heard people speak of this odd little fellow, who seemed to be a figure out of place in life's problem; one who seemed to run into life's misfortunes, not waiting that they might run into him--one ill-adjusted and awry. Well, what should she say? She thought in silence. Then she stopped him, and looked down into his face.

Bart never forgot it. It was as if all of heaven's beautiful angels she had told about that day were looking at him through her face, and all of heaven's beautiful voices were speaking in her tones.

"Bart," she said, "the great reason why you are in this world is because--G.o.d loves you."

What? He wanted to think that over.

"Because what?" he said.

"Why, Bart," she said, "G.o.d is a Father--a great, dear Father."

Bart began to think he was; but he had been getting his idea of G.o.d through gran'sir's style of religion, and G.o.d seemed more like a judge or a big police-officer--catching up people and always marching them off to punishment.

"G.o.d is a great, dear Father," the tuneful voice was saying, "and he wants somebody to love him; and the more people he makes, the more there are to love him, or should be, and so he made you. But oh, if we don't love him, it disappoints and grieves him!"

"Does it?" said Bart, thoughtfully, soberly.

"When you are at home--alone, upstairs--you tell G.o.d how you feel about it, just as you would tell your mother--"

"Or teacher," thought Bart.

"As you would tell your mother if she were on the earth."

That day, all alone hi his diminutive chamber, kneeling by a little bed whose clothing was all too scanty in cold weather, a boy told G.o.d he wanted to love him. When Bart rose from his knees he said to himself, "Now, I must try to love other people."

He went downstairs. Gran'sir was lying on a hard old lounge, making believe that he was trying to read his Bible, and at the same time he was very sleepy. Bart hesitated, and then said,--

"Gran'sir, don't you--you--want me to get you a pillow and put under your head?"

"Oh, that's a nice little boy!" said the weary old grandfather, when his head dropped on the soft pillow now covering the hard arm of the lounge.

"And, gran'sir, I ain't much on readin'; but perhaps, if you'd let me, I might read something, you know."

"Oh, that's a dear little feller," said gran'sir, closing his eyes, so old and tired. He had been trying to read about Jacob and the angels at Beth-el; but the lounge was so tough that the feature of the story gran'sir seemed to appreciate most sensibly was that Jacob slept on a pillow of stones. I can't say how much of the story, as Bart read it, gran'sir heard that day, for he was soon as much lost to the outside world as tired Jacob was. He had, though, a beautiful dream, he afterwards told granny. Yes; in his sleep he seemed to see the ladder with its shining, silver rounds, climbing the sky, and on them were so many angels, oh, so many angels!

"And, granny," whispered gran'sir, "I was a little startled, for one of them angels seemed to have Bartie's face. I hope nothin' is goin' to happen, for I am beginnin' to think we should miss that little chap ever so much."

V.

_THE LIGHTHOUSE._

"You say this is your last Sunday at Shipton. Sorry! We shall miss you in the cla.s.s," said Dave's new Sunday-school acquaintance, Mr. Tolman.

"Thank you, sir," replied Dave; "but as this is only my second Sunday in your cla.s.s, you won't miss me much."

"Oh yes, we shall. See here, David. There is going to be some company at my house to-morrow night. Bring your sister round to tea."

Dave and Annie were at Mr. Tolman's the evening of the next day; and who was it Dave saw trying to shrink into one corner? A stout, fat man, altogether too big for the corner.

"He looks natural," thought Dave.

At this point the man saw Dave. He had been looking very lonely, but his face now brightened as if he had suddenly seen an old and valued acquaintance.

"Think you don't remember me!" he said, advancing toward Dave, and extending a large brown hand shaped something like a flounder. Dave thought at once of a lighthouse, a sand-bar, and an old schooner halting on the bar.

"Oh, the light-keeper, Mr. Tolman!" cried Dave. "You here?"

"It is my uncle from Black Rocks," said the younger Mr. Tolman, stepping up to this party of two. "Uncle Toby doesn't get off very often from the light, and we thought he ought to have a little vacation, and come and see his relatives."

"My nephew James is very good," said Mr. Toby Tolman. "The last time I saw you," he added, addressing Dave, "I put you on board that tug-boat."

Dave dropped his head.

"Oh, you needn't be ashamed of that affair. I didn't think at the time you could be the cause of the mischief, and I've been told since who it was that was to blame for it."

Dave raised his head.