John Wesley, Jr. Part 5

J.W. felt none of his old shrinking from such talk, especially since the Inst.i.tute, and yet he had the healthy boy's reluctance to discuss himself in company. But this was interesting him, outside himself.

He turned to the pastor. "That's what I meant when I told you what Phil said. I'm all for the church, and church people and church ways; why shouldn't I be? I've never known anything else. I remember well the one thing I didn't like when it first came along; and that was the new sort of Christmas celebration Dad and the others planned when I was ten or eleven. You know what Christmas means to such kids, and I guess we were all selfish together, because we didn't use our heads. Well, the Sunday school proposed that instead of us all getting something we should all give something. It looked pretty cheap to us little fellows at first, and our teacher had all he could do to hold us in line. But let me tell you, every boy was for it when the time came. We found that we could have as much fun giving things away as we could grabbing things, and, anyway, n.o.body really cared for those mosquito net stockings filled with nuts and candy and one orange. It was only the idea of getting something for nothing. That first 'giving Christmas,' I remember, our cla.s.s dressed up as delivery boys, and we came on the platform with enough groceries for a small truck load, that we had bought with our own money.

The orphanage got 'em next day. And one cla.s.s was dusty millers, carrying sacks of flour, and another put on a stunt of searching for Captain Kidd's treasure, and they found a keg of shining coins (new pennies, they were)--more than a thousand of 'em. Everything went to the orphanage, or the hospital; and then when the Board of Sunday Schools began to get us interested in other Sunday schools and in missions--I remember a scheme they call a 'Partnership Plan' that was great; I don't know what happened to it--I got right into the game every time."

"How do you happen to know so much about the Board of Sunday Schools, J.W.?" asked Mr. Drury.

"Oh, that's easy. You know how it is in our Sunday school: they don't make one or two of us young fellows serve as librarians and secretaries and such and miss all the cla.s.s work: they have more help, and we all get into cla.s.s for the lesson. Well, two years ago Dad told me you had nominated me for something at the annual Sunday school meeting. It was only a sort of a.s.sistant secretary's job, but very soon I began to catch on, and I've seen a lot of the letters and leaflets that come from the Board in Chicago. Well, let me tell you that Board of Sunday Schools is a whale of a machine. Why, it's the whole church at work to make better Sunday schools, and more of 'em. They have Sunday school workers in all sorts of wild places, and Sunday school missionaries in foreign lands.

Yes, and last year I happened to meet one of their secretaries, at your house, you may remember. But you'd never think he was just a secretary, he was so keen and wide awake. He knew the Boy Scouts from A to Z, and that got me, 'cause I'm not so old that I've forgotten my scouting. And he knew baseball, and boys' books, and all that. Don't you think, Brother Drury, if more of the fellows knew what the real Sunday school work is they would take to it like colts to a bran mash?"

"They couldn't help it," said the pastor. "And you may have noticed that your father and the other people of our Sunday School Board are trying to get them to find out some of the things you have found out. For instance, you know what the two organized cla.s.ses of high-school freshmen are doing, and the other organized cla.s.ses. Seems to me their members are finding out that Sunday school is something big and fine."

"That they are," Mrs. Farwell agreed, "and you mustn't forget my wonderful cla.s.s of young married women, and the men's cla.s.s of nearly a hundred. I think our Sunday school has really begun to change the ideas of a lot of people. Just think how little trouble we have now with what Graded Lessons we have, and how happy all our teachers are because they have the helps they need for just the sort of pupils that are in their cla.s.ses."

"That's so," said J.W., Sr. "I don't suppose even old Brother Barnacle, 'sot' as he is, would vote to go back to the times when the superintendent reviewed the lesson the same way the teachers taught it, from a printed list of questions. Seems as if I can hear Henry J. Locke yet--his farm joins ours down by the creek--when he conducted the reviewing at Deep Creek. He would hold his quarterly at arm's length to favor his eyes, and then look up from it to the school and shoot the question at everybody, 'And what did Peter do _then_, HEY?' He sure did come out strong on Peter; but I'll say this for him, that he never skipped a question from start to finish."

All three laughed a little over Henry J. Locke, and then the pastor said he mustn't stay much longer. But he did want to back up J.W.'s belief that what Phil Khamis had said was true of everybody--we are all debtors.

"Look at this young J.W. here, will you," he said to the father and mother, for once letting himself go, "with a name he's proud of, and a home life that many a Fifth Avenue and Lake Sh.o.r.e Drive family would be glad to pay a million for, if such goods were on sale in the stores. I'm going to tell him something he already knows. Young man," and there was a gleam in the pastor's eye that was not all to the credit of the work he was praising, "you owe a big debt to the Sunday school. I'm not jealous for the church, or for any other part of it, but by your own admission the Sunday school has had a lot to do with your education.

Very well; remember it is a part of what Phil said, and what you are because of the Sunday school you have become by the goodness of Christian people. I don't think you'll forget it, seeing that you have two of that sort of people in your own home all the time."

And then, with a fine naturalness the little group knelt by the chairs, and two of the four, he who was pastor of the whole flock and he who with simple dignity was priest in his own household, gave thanks to G.o.d for the manifold goodness of Christian people, of which they were all partakers every day.

As he went home, Walter Drury thought of the long days that stretched out ahead before he could see the outcomes of the great Experiment, but this night had seen a good night's work done in the laboratory, and he was content.

One tale of the past had been much in J.W.'s thought that night, but nothing on earth could have induced him to talk about it, especially since the happenings at the Inst.i.tute. Only one other person knew all of its inwardness, though the preacher guessed most of the secret pretty shrewdly, and everybody was familiar with its outcome.

It was the story of Marty Shenk's conversion.

These two had been David and Jonathan from their little boy days, no less friends because they were so unlike; Marty, a quiet, brooding, knowledge-hungry youngster, and J.W. matter-of-fact, taking things as they came and asking few questions, but always the leader in games and mischief; each the other's champion against all comers.

Marty's father, tenant-farmer on the Farwell farm, was steady enough and dependable, but never one to get ahead much. Before the Farwells moved to town he had rarely stayed on the same farm more than a year or two, but, as he said, "J.W. Farwell was different, and anybody who wanted to be decent could get along with him." So, for many Sat.u.r.days and vacations of boyhood years J.W. and Marty had roamed the countryside, and were letter-perfect in their boy-knowledge of the old farm.

Marty came in to high school from the farm, and often he stayed with J.W. over the weekend. His school work was uneven--ahead in mathematics, and the sciences, and something below the average in other studies.

That, however, has no place in this story.

Of course he and J.W. were thick as thieves. Except when cla.s.s work made temporary separations necessary, they lived the high-school life together. That meant also, for these two, the social life of the church, which occasionally paid special attention to the students.

So you might find them at Epworth League socials, Sunday school cla.s.s doings, in the Sunday school orchestra--violin and b-flat cornet respectively--and, most significant of all in its effect on all the later years, they went through Win-My-Chum week together. The hand of the pastor was in that, too.

Marty was not a Christian. J.W. had been a church member for years, and early in his course he had faced and accepted all that being a Christian seemed to mean to a high-school boy.

There had been hard places to get over; some of the boys and girls were merciless in their unconscious tests of his religion. Some were openly scornful, and others sought by indirect and furtive means to break his influence in the school. For he had no small gift of leadership, and he cared a good deal that it should count for the decencies of high-school life. By senior year the sort of trouble that a Christian boy encounters in school was almost all ended, but it had been more through his dogged resistance to opposition than because of any special zest in Christian service.

And then came the announcement of Win-My-Chum week, with J.W.

confronted by two stubborn facts. He had only one real chum, and that chum was not a Christian. Pastor Drury had let fall a remark, a month before the Week, to the effect that any Christian who had a chum could dodge Win-My-Chum week, but he couldn't dodge his chum. When the week was past, the chum would still be on hand.

Think as he would, there was no honest way of escape from whatever those facts might require of him, so J.W., long accustomed to go ahead and take what came, had known himself bound by the obligations of this matter also, days and days before the activities of Win-My-Chum week began.

The two were out one Sat.u.r.day on the north road. They had been up to the woods on Barker's Hill for nuts, and with good success. The day was warm, the way was long, and there was no hurry. When they came to the roadside at the wood's edge they sat on a fallen tree and talked. At least Marty did. For J.W. was not himself.

It was his chance, and he knew it. But a thousand impulses leaped to life within him to make him put off what he knew he ought to say. The fear of being misunderstood--even by Marty--the knowledge that Marty, in the qualities by which boys judge and are judged, was quite as "good" as himself; and, above all, his sense of total unfitness to be a pattern of the Christian life to anybody, filled him with an uneasiness that actually hurt.

And Marty soon discovered that something was amiss. Willing as he was to do his full share of the talking, he became aware that except for inarticulate commonplaces he was having to do it all.

"What's the matter with you all at once, J.W.?" he asked. "You're not taken suddenly sick, are you? You were all right when we were among the trees. _Are_ you sick?"

J.W. laughed shortly. "No, old man, I'm not sick. But I'm up against a new game, for me, and I'm not in training."

"Sounds interesting," said Marty, "but sort of mysterious. Is it anything I can do team-work on?"

"It surely is, but first I've got to say something, and I want you to promise that you won't think I'm putting on, or b.u.t.ting in, because I'm not; nothing like it. Will you?"

"Will I promise?" said Marty, much bewildered. "Course I'll promise not to think anything about you that you don't want me to think, but I must say I don't know within a thousand miles what you're driving at. Out with it, and even if you're the train bandit who held up the Cannonball or if you've plotted to kidnap the Board of Education, I'll never tell."

Marty's quizzical humor was not making J.W.'s enterprise any easier. He had always supposed that what the leaflets called "personal evangelism"

had to be done in a spirit of solemnity. But how was he to acquire the proper frame of mind? And certainly there was nothing solemn about Marty just now. Yet the thing had gone too far; it was too late to retreat. He tried to think how Mr. Drury would do it, but saw only that if it was Mr. Dairy's business he would go straight to the center of it.

Desperately, therefore, he plunged in.

"Well, Marty," he said, speaking now with nervous haste, "what I'm up against is this. What's the matter with your being a Christian?"

He will never forget the swift look of blank amazement that Marty turned on him, nor the slow-mounting flush that followed the first astonished start. For Marty did not answer, and turned his face away. J.W. was sure that in his blundering bluntness he had offended and probably angered his closest friend. The distress of that thought served at least to drive away all the self-consciousness which thus far had plagued him.

"Say, Marty," he pleaded, putting his hand on the other's arm, "forget it, if I've hurt your feelings. I know as well as you do that I'm not fit to talk about such things to anybody, and, honest, I meant nothing but to say what I knew I'd got to say."

Then Marty turned himself back slowly, and J.W. saw the troubled look in his eyes. In a voice that trembled despite his proud effort at control, he said, "Old man, you needn't apologize. You did surprise me, I'll admit; I wasn't looking for anything like this. It's all right, though, and I'm certainly not mad about it. But, say, J.W., let me put something up to you. Why did you never think to ask me that question before?"

"Why, it was this way," J.W. began, somewhat puzzled at the form of the question, and still thinking he must set himself right with Marty. "You know the Epworth League is planning for those special meetings soon--'Win-My-Chum Week'--and I've been asked to lead one of the meetings. But you can see that I wouldn't be ready to lead a meeting like that unless I had put this thing of being a Christian up to you, anyway. You're the only real chum I've got. Mr. Drury said something a little while ago that made it mighty plain."

"Yes," said Marty, "I can see that. But why did you never say anything to me about it when there wasn't any meeting coming? Haven't we always shared everything else, since away back? This is the one subject that you and I have kept away from in our talk of all we've ever thought about, and I was wondering why."

"Well, I don't exactly know," J.W. replied. "It may have been that it never seemed to be any of my business; that it was the preacher's business, or the Sunday school teacher's, or somebody's. And you know I've always been surer of what you really are than I have of myself. I think I was always afraid you would either make fun of me or believe I was letting on to be better than you were. But when the League got into this Win-My-Chum plan, why, the name itself was an eye-opener. And I've seen lately that a fellow's got to be a Christian, out and out, or his religion is no good. And when I heard the preacher say, not long ago, that a fellow might dodge Win-My-Chum week, but he couldn't forever dodge his chum, I knew I had to speak to you. But you're sure you're not offended?"

"Let me admit a thing to you, J.W. I've never said so before, but I've been wanting somebody to ask me to be a Christian for a long time. I was a coward about it, and wouldn't let on. I've been wanting to find out what I've got to do, but I wouldn't ask. Do you think I _could_ be a Christian?"

"I know you could be a long way better Christian than I am," J.W.

answered with unwonted feeling. "And if you did take Jesus Christ to be your Master, it would be more than just your getting religion. You would be the biggest kind of stand-by for me and for other people I know of.

It's the one thing you need to be a hundred per cent right. I'm a pretty poor Christian, myself, Marty, partly because I don't know how to think much about it, but you'd be dead in earnest to get all that there is in the Christian life, and maybe I could follow along behind. You've always helped every other way, and I've always wanted you to help me be a genuine Christian."

Marty put his hand on J.W.'s shoulder and looked him straight in the eye: "You've got me rated a lot too high," he said. "How can I help you?

But we two have been pretty good chums so far, haven't we? Well, there's a lot to settle before I can be sure I'm a Christian, but it means everything for you to think I can be of some use. And I promise you this, J.W., I'll not let up until I am a Christian, and we'll stick together all the more, when I am, us two. Is that ago?"

It was a go. J.W. was ready and far more than ready to call it a go. It had been easier than he had expected, but then it had all been so different from the vague and formal thing he had been afraid of. He could hardly believe, but he had one request to make. "I know you'll settle whatever has to be settled," he said, a bit unsteadily, "but when it's all done, and you tell people about it, as I know you will, please, Marty, don't bring me into it. Publicly, I mean. Let's just have this understanding between ourselves. I can lead my meeting now, but there's no need to say anything about me. Besides, I made a mess of it."

"It may be the best mess anybody ever stirred up for me, J.W., but I won't say anything to worry you, if the time comes for me to say anything at all. And I believe it will."

It did. Marty and the pastor had two or three long interviews. From the last of them the boy came away with a new light on his face and a new spring in his step. Evidently whatever needed to be settled, had been settled.

He kept his promise to his chum, but that did not prevent him from choosing the night when J.W. led the meeting to stand up at the first opportunity and make his straightforward confession of love and loyalty, since G.o.d had made him a sharer in the life that is in Christ. Then for a moment J.W. feared Marty might forget their agreement, but Marty said simply, "And part of the joy that is in my heart to-night is because there is a new tie, the only other one we needed, between myself and my old-time chum, the leader of this meeting."