The Knights of the White Shield Part 25

"Let us go and see Mr. Walton," suggested Miss Barry.

"It would be the very thing," declared Aunt Stanshy.

Very soon Aunt Stanshy, Miss Barry, Sid, and Charlie started for the minister's. On the way, Juggie and Tony were secured as new members of the column, and thus augmented, this eager temperance band appeared at Mr.

Walton's door. Ushered into the study, Miss Barry told her errand.

"We need a temperance meeting very much, and we will have it at St.

John's, and I want you boys--the club, Miss Barry--to do the most of the singing," said Mr. Walton.

"We will," said Sid. "I know I can speak for them."

"And Miss Barry will teach them what to sing, perhaps?" asked Mr. Walton.

"Yes sir," replied Miss Barry.

"I'll have my choir to help, but I expect the 'Up-the-Ladder Club' to do the most."

The boys were eager in their interest. To encourage them, Miss Barry said, "I'll make a little blue cross to go inside each white shield. A little blue cross--that is a temperance sign--will look pretty on the white silk."

"There, there, won't they be proud of it?" said Aunt Stanshy.

"Of course we will," declared Sid. "Knights, we must give three cheers for teacher when we get to her door."

During this conversation they were pa.s.sing down the street, and when Miss Barry's door was reached, be a.s.sured that three hearty cheers were given for her.

"Now three for temperance!" cried Sid. Then they cheered for temperance.

"I feel that my boys are, indeed, mounting the ladder of the true and n.o.ble," was Miss Barry's thought, as from her window she saw the ardent young knights pa.s.s away.

The next day Aunt Stanshy met Miss Barry. "Miss--Miss--Barry," said Aunt Stanshy, nervously clutching her companion's shawl, "we must--pray for our meeting."

"O, we will, we will!"

There were earnest prayers going to G.o.d in behalf of that meeting. As step after step might be proposed, prayer went up from the altar of those two women's hearts especially, beseeching G.o.d to recognize and bless each step that might be taken. O in what a cloud of prayer that enterprise was enveloped!

Aunt Stanshy and Miss Barry were talking about the meeting one day.

"I wish, Miss Barry, we could make sure that every body would go to the meeting. Will Dr. Tilton go?"

"That's what I am wondering about, and Will Somers?"

Aunt Stanshy shook her head sadly: "He says, No."

"They must be there," said Miss Barry, "and--and--we must set a trap for them."

"A trap?"

"I'll ask my uncle to help the choir sing, and--of course, he wont refuse.

I don't suppose he cares to come to the meeting because he needs it, but if others go he won't want to be left out, and if he can sing, that will give him a chance to attend. He is my uncle, you know."

The "trap" for Dr. Tilton worked successfully. He scorned the idea that he might need the meeting. This he said to himself. However, he would help the choir sing, he said, to his niece. But a trap for Will Somers! Who could make that?

"Won't you come to the meeting to hear us sing?" asked Charlie, with a sad face.

"O, you don't want me, Charlie," replied Will. "O, I can't go."

Aunt Stanshy made no remark. She sat silently, busily thinking, while Charlie and Will talked about the meeting. Aunt Stanshy was making a "trap."

The day before that appointed for the temperance meeting, she went to her pastor.

"Mr. Walton, the meeting will begin at half past seven. If--if--say about quarter after seven--you should let Charlie and the other boys go down to the church door and sing one or two of their pieces, it might draw folks in."

"Why, that's a good idea, and I wish you would ask them."

At a quarter after seven the next night the White Shields, each carrying a neat cross of blue on his badge, appeared at the church door and began to sing. It was the night when Dr. Tilton was accustomed to close his store earlier than usual, if customers did not appear; and at a quarter after seven Will Somers was accustomed that night to pa.s.s the church door on his way home. Would he fall into the trap that Aunt Stanshy had ingeniously set for him? The club began to sing their hymns. There was the touching plea containing the lines:

"O what are you going to do, brother?

Say, what are you going to do?

You have thought of some useful labor, But what is the end in view?"

Tony sang this. It seemed that night as if some of Italy's sweet singers must have lent him their notes. The people began to gather about the club.

Aunt Stanshy was there on the watch, eager to see if Will Somers might be coming down the street. Tony's voice warbled away. Now it was an exultant note that he touched, and then his voice sank to a plaintive appeal:

"Is your heart in the Saviour's keeping?

Remember, he died for you; Then what are you going to do, brother?

Say, what are you going to do?"

As Tony sang, there was a young man leaning against the fence adjoining the church door. It was somebody listlessly leaning, lifting to the light of the street lamp a face on which rested the shadow of a great sadness.

"It's he!" said Aunt Stanshy, excitedly.

Charlie heard her. He guessed that it was some one out on the sidewalk whom she had discovered, and he stretched his small head beyond the ring of singers, anxiously looking out into the shadows. His sharp eye saw that form leaning against the fence. He could not wait until the song was finished. He ran out upon the sidewalk, and Aunt Stanshy followed.

"Do come, do come," pleaded Charlie, as he seized Will's hand and gently drew him toward the church.

"Yes, yes," said Aunt Stanshy, "We all want you."

And Will Somers irresolutely yielded to the gentle hands that were drawing him, and entered the church.

What a meeting that was!

"Never seed the beat of it in my life," said Simes Badger, who was off duty at the lighthouse that night, and having attended the meeting, reported it soon after to a band of his old cronies. "Why, when the pledge was offered that meetin', it seemed as if every man, woman, and child would go for it at once. No matter if they was as innocent of liquor as a baby a day old; they jest walked up and took that pledge. And Dr. Tilton, he couldn't stand it, and he hopped down and he jined the pledge. And his clerk, that Will Somers, he did write his name handsome. O, it was a meetin', I tell ye!"

Yes, it was a memorable evening. Dr. Tilton and Will Somers kept their word faithfully, and society recognized the fact and liberally patronized the doctor's store, afterward.

"Got a new 'pothecary in our town," said Simes Badger. "At any rate, he's good as new, and new things draw. A 'pothecary can do amazin' sight of harm if he aint jest the right sort of man in his business."

Society, outside the store, recognized the new life that Dr. Tilton and Will had begun. They were received cordially by their old friends. The club gathered about Will, treating him after the fashion of the old enthusiastic friendship.