Teddy's Button Part 6

'Please, sir, I don't understand.'

'Sit down here, by me, and let me try to explain it to you. If you are going to try to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, you will find that you will have two Teddies to deal with--a good one and a bad one. The bad one is your enemy. Now, you told me you were angry with that little girl. Are you angry still?'

'I've forgotten all about her. I--I don't love her.'

'The bad Teddy in you doesn't like her, but the good Teddy will. Now you must fight against the bad Teddy, and overcome him. Jesus will help you; you can't fight without Him.'

'I think I know,' said Teddy thoughtfully. 'Last week some fellow said, "Come and get some apples from the Park orchard." I wanted to, dreadful.

That was my bad self, but I thought it would be stealing, and I didn't go. That was my good self, wasn't it?'

'Quite right! Keep close to your Captain. Our Officer always leads, and remember--"Forward! no quarter to the enemy!"'

Then gazing abstractedly out into the garden, Mr. Upton added, as if to himself, 'But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.... Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank G.o.d through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of G.o.d, but with the flesh the law of sin.'

The next day when at dinner, for it was generally at meal-times Teddy chose to make his observations, he looked round the table appealingly,--

'What's the very ugliest name that could be given a boy?'

'Sakes alive!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed his grandmother. 'And who may you be wanting to christen?'

'It isn't for a baby; a boy about as old as me. What do you think's an ugly name?'

'I don't think any name is very ugly,' his mother said. 'If you like a person, their name always seems to fit. I knew two boys named Tobiah and Eli. I didn't like the names at first, though they are Bible ones, but when I got to know and like the boys I liked the names.'

'I want a much more hideous name,' a.s.serted Teddy; 'some name that would describe a very wicked person.'

'I hope you are not going to call any one by it,' observed his grandmother suspiciously.

Teddy lifted his blue eyes up to her solemnly. 'I expect I'll find one for myself,' he said; and nothing more could be got out of him.

After dinner, a half-holiday having been given the school-children, Teddy stole out to the woods. When out of sight he began a brisk conversation with himself, as was his wont; and it may give us an insight into his busy brain if we listen.

'Blackey might do, or Goggles, or Grubby, or n.i.g.g.e.r, or Toad. I want to have some name, else I shan't be able to talk to him so well. I wish mother had helped me; it's very differcult. I can't seem to think of a name quite ugly enough. I expect p'raps Mr. Upton could tell me. I'll wait and ask him. I hope I shan't have to wait long, for I want it all settled, so that I can begin to fight properly with him. Now I've got to find Nancy. Mr. Upton said I was to be friends with her, and I've got to hold up my banner of love over her. I hope she'll like it. She's a horrid--Aha, that's my enemy just going to speak! A horrid girl, you were going to say, were you? Now you just get out. Nancy is a very nice girl--at least, she soon will be. I'll try and think her nice, I will.

I've got to fight you, enemy, if you say such things. Why, I do 'clare, there she is climbing that tree!'

Teddy's conversation came to an end, and he stared with open mouth and eyes at the nimble way Nancy was climbing up an old beech-tree. He gave a shrill whistle, which made the little girl look round. Not a bit disconcerted was she.

'Aha, it's the stupid little b.u.t.ton-boy. You can't catch me!'

It was a challenge. Instantly Teddy stripped off his jacket, and darted to the tree. She had got a good start, and even he caught his breath in wonder at her rapid ascent, and the fearless way in which she seemed to plant her small feet on the most fragile-looking branches. Up they went, panting with the exercise; but at length she could go no further, and seating herself on a comfortable bough she looked mischievously down at him.

'You couldn't catch me; you don't know how to climb! My father taught me.

I can go up the rigging as far as any sailor boy, and this is my ship, but I'll let you sit down by me if you behave yourself.'

Teddy swung himself across a bough opposite her, and was silent for a moment. Each child was trying to recover breath, and Teddy was considering how to make peace. He did it in his own quaint fashion.

'I think we're pretty close to heaven,' he remarked presently, lifting his soft blue eyes to the clear sky above. 'I wonder if that's the reason birds in their nests agree? The angels can't like to hear quallering so close to them.'

'I'm not going to quarrel, and you didn't say that word right'

'What word?'

'Quarrering.' And Nancy's tone was emphatic, though a doubt stole into her own mind as to whether her p.r.o.nunciation was correct. But Teddy was too intent upon pulling something out of his pocket to notice her correction. He slowly unrolled a large white pocket-handkerchief, tied it carefully to a twig, which he broke off from an adjoining branch, and then held it up in front of her.

'I did it myself this morning,' he said with pride. 'I asked Uncle Jake for one of his best handkerchiefs. He gave it to me last night, and I did it with a pen and ink before breakfast. Can you read it?

Nancy looked at the straggling, uneven black letters that occupied the whole width across.

'Love?' she said curiously; 'what does that mean?'

'It's my banner of love that I'm going to carry for my Captain. It means I've got to love even you.'

Nancy's red lips pouted. 'I don't want you to love me,' she said.

'I've got to do it.'

'How are you going to do it?'

'I'm--I'm not quite sure. I'm never going to be angry with you. And it's very hard--'

Here a deep-drawn sigh broke from him. 'It's _very_ hard, but I've got to tell you I'm sorry I wouldn't let you cross the bridge first, and I'm sorry I said I hated you in church.'

Nancy's bright dark eyes peered inquisitively into the dreamy blue ones opposite her.

'Are you really sorry?' she said.

'I think I am, at least part of me is; my enemy isn't, but I am.'

This was beyond Nancy's comprehension.

'And you'll never get angry, or set those horrid boys at me any more?'

'No, I never will.'

Here a big rosy-cheeked apple was produced hastily out of the other pocket, and presented as a peace offering.

It was taken in silence; then as Nancy's white little teeth met in it she said, with one of her beaming smiles, 'And have I got to love you?'

'I think you had better, because it will make it easier.'

'Well, I will then, if you'll do one thing.'

'What is it?'

'Give me that old b.u.t.ton of yours.'

Teddy fairly gasped at this audacity.

'Give you father's b.u.t.ton!' he cried; 'never, never, never! I'd rather be shot dead, or drownded dead, or hung dead, or chopped into little tiny bits! I'll _never_ give it up! It's going to be on my coats and waistcoats till I'm a hundred, and then it will be buried in my grave with me. Suppose I lost my b.u.t.ton, do you know what I would do?'