 Preface of 87 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. 87 by Pansy Preface Class of 87, Greeting Dear classmates, having journeyed through the years together and accomplished the four years course of reading, as we are now about to part company, I come to you with the promised book dedicated to our class. I have taken great pleasure in writing it, and hope most earnestly that it will be to you a pleasant souvenir of our alma mater. Perhaps just here is the appropriate place in which to thank many hundreds of you for the helpful letters which you sent to aid me in the preparation of our book. That they were decided helps, you the writers, have only to read the book to be convinced. For the incidents found therein were taken from your own letters, which contained statements of facts. I have simply grouped within a few lives the actual experiences of many. It was my earnest desire to write a book for the 87s, which should, in a slight degree at least, illustrate the manner in which helping hands might be extended by members of the CLSC, reaching lives where they least expected, and setting in motion influences which should tell for eternity. It is not the least of my pleasures that, in writing this book, I have been able to leave the region of plain fiction and revel in the realm of facts. It is delightful to be able to say to you that wherever you may chance to find suggestive hints through the book as to ways of helping, you may understand that it is not theory but practice, not what might possibly be done, but what has been done by members of the CLSC of 87. Though, in order to make the dates of my story symmetrical, I have been obliged to remove many of the doings of the 87s back into the past, thus apparently giving the honor to the classes of 84, 85, and 86, which properly belong to the 87s, but this you will understand. And now, trusting that we who gather in the classic groves of the Mother Shatakwa may have the honor of passing through the Golden Gate together, and hoping and praying that not only we who gather there, but all the great company of those faithful ones who must of necessity abide at home may meet one day and pass under the flowery arches of our Father's love through the Golden Gate of the Celestial City to go no more out forever, I subscribe myself, yours in the Master's service and reward, Pansy. They were both barefooted, and to all intents and purposes, bareheaded. She carried in her hand a much-faded, little old-fashioned sunbonnet, the strings of which had been chewed a little, and then smoothed out, as though the chewer were penitent. He tossed carelessly from hand to hand, or occasionally pitched a long way ahead of him, a much-soiled, much-torn, nearly rimless straw hat. Her dress was of faded pink calico, and was rapidly growing too short as to sleeves as well as skirt. It was clean, that is, comparatively, but the elbows were much-patched with material which had not faded, and the effect was marked. As to the boy's attire, perhaps the least said about it the better, that he was outgrowing it in all directions, that it tore on the slightest provocation, and that there was no careful hand to patch and sponge and brush for him were self-evident truths. However, neither of these, to judge by their faces, took much thought for clothes. They sauntered along the sometimes sandy, sometimes grassy lakeshore, stopping quite often to dig with their bare toes attractive-looking holes in the damp sand, or to shy a pebble at a darting fish. Between times they talked, grave, old-fashioned talk some of it, revealing by the very words in which they expressed themselves that already some of the shadows of life's stern realities had fallen on them. Yet some of the talk was childish in the extreme, indicating the constant babbling forth of youth and light-heartedness, despite the weight of some burdens. It's pretty here, the girl said, stopping suddenly to look up to the very top of one of the grand old trees, stretching her neck back and shading her brown eyes from the sun's rays, and looking up and up beyond the trees into the blue sky, dotted here and there with delicate, filmy clouds. I think it is just lovely through here, and I think this is a lovely day. It always is nice on my birthday. Isn't that queer? Mother says she doesn't ever remember my having a rainy birthday. They had left the lake now, and climbed one of the hills, where the trees were tall and so close together that their branches interlocked, forming lovely arches for the sun to glorify. It is very nice, the boy said, simply, in answer to his companion, but whether he meant the place or the birthday, or the fact of there always being sunshine on that day, he did not explain. The little girl was full of the thought. This is my birthday walk, you know. Isn't it nice that you could take it with me, and that we could come way out here to the spot I like the best? Mother won't let me come alone. She is afraid of bears or snakes or something. I ain't afraid, with fine superiority lighting up her great brown eyes. But then she is a woman, you know, and women always get afraid of things. I wonder why? Dreamy silence for half a minute, while she tries to settle this problem, then she is off again. Oh, win! We had a talk this morning, mother and I, a kind of birthday talk. Mother said when she was a little girl she liked the woods and the trees and everything just as I do. And she meant to study and learn all about them. Out of books, you know, but she couldn't. Grandfather got very poor, and then he got sick, and then he died, and then grandmother died, and there was nothing but trouble mother said for years and years. Oh, wouldn't it be dreadful to have one's mother and father? Oh, poor win, I am so sorry, I didn't think. And it was mean of me, I ought to think. Never mind, said the boy, struggling with a sort of choking feeling which he did not himself understand. I don't remember any mother at all, but I do father just a little. Go on, I like to hear about it. Well, I'll skip all the hard and tell you when mother was twenty-two years old. That was her happy day, she said. She was married to father the day she was twenty-two. But, dear me, I wouldn't like to be married as mother was, just in a kitchen with her old calico dress on, and no cake or anything, and nobody to kiss her and cry. I told her I thought somebody always cried about brides. I read it in a storybook once. But she laughed at me, and said there was nobody to cry over her, only herself, and she did a little for joy. She was so glad to go away from that place. They didn't belong to her, and they didn't care for her any of them. I'd have been glad, too, to go with father, you know. Mother said when I was twenty-two she would give me a happy day if she could, a regular feast day. I said maybe I would be married on that day just as she was, and she laughed again, and said then she would do the crying maybe. Isn't it queer to think that if I live one of these days I'll be twenty-two? That's a long way off, fine. Not so very. I counted it up with mother this morning. Mother's birthday and mine come the same time. Isn't that nice? Mother is forty years old today. Mustn't it seem strange to be forty years old? I'll tell you what year I will be twenty-two. It will be eighteen-hundred and eighty-seven. Then we'll write it, said the boy, on this old tree. And he took from a ragged pocket a battered and bruised jackknife with two broken blades, and with much patience and care cut into the jagged bark of one of the great trees, the inscription, Vine, twenty-two, eighteen-eighty-seven. It is a good many years to wait, said Vine reflectively. It looks more when it is printed out. I wonder what mother will do to celebrate it. I told her I wanted a cake and some baked potatoes. And, when, I said I wanted you to come to tea. Oh, that reminds me! It is very queer. I forgot it. I'm going to have a little bit of a tea-party to-night. No cake! Shaking her head gravely. Because eggs are so dear, you know, but the potatoes will be lovely. I picked them out myself and washed them before I came away. Nice big ones, all of a size, and you are to come to supper-win this very night!" I can't, said the boy gloomily. It was almost as much as my head was worth to get off for this walk. I've worked like sixty ever since daylight, before daylight for that matter, to get this chance, and if I'm not home before milking time I wouldn't give much for my skin. Oh, poor Win! I say it is too mean for anything! And the brown eyes blazed. And you can't come to my birthday after all, when there's a potato picked out for you and washed and everything, and mother has a little treat in a dish. I don't know what it is, but it will be nice. Oh, Win! Couldn't you, wouldn't they let you just for my birthday? The boy gravely shook his head. They don't care a thing about birthdays, and they'd rather disappoint me than not any time. His face was growing hard over the thought. Stern lines about the mouth, and an angry sullenness in his eyes. But Vine's brown eyes were brimming with tears, and seeing this he instantly turned comforter. Never mind, Viney, it won't be so very long to wait. I'll come to the other supper. No, Mr. Josiah grigs in all the world can keep me from it. Just think, Viney, I'll be twenty-six years old. A great tall man, said Vine, as tall as father. Oh, how funny to think of! And she laughed out gleefully. At eight years of age tears and laughter may come very close together. But I don't want to wait. And already the voice was growing tremulous again. I might not like you nearly so well, you see. Perhaps I might even be afraid of you. Will you wear a collar that stands up all around, do you suppose, like deacon's locoms? Oh, and will you have whiskers over your face? And I'll call you Mr. Winter, I suppose, or Mr. Kelland. That is the way they do. Oh, Vine, how funny to think of it all! I could never say Mr. Kelland. Do you believe I could? Vine, why did your mother give you such a queer name? My mother was wondering about it the other day. She said she never heard of anybody named Winter before. Father named me. Said the boy, a tender sadness spreading over his face, such as always came when he spoke the names Father and Mother. He said Mother dreaded the long winter so much, and she never lived to see it. She thought so much about it that he gave me the name, because it make him think of her, and because she escaped. This last was added in an undertone, as though it were a thought beyond little Vine. She was considering the matter, though, with her head dropped a little to one side like a canary bird's. It was a pretty thoughtful way she had. I like winter, she said at last. I like the snow, it's so white, and the cold and everything. The evenings are so nice and long, and it is warm and pleasant in our kitchen. And sometimes we roast apples, and a few times I popped some corn. Then I like to go to school through the snow and to slide downhill. Oh, Vine, won't you and I have fun together next winter? The boy shivered and frowned. I hate winter, he said fiercely. It is so awfully cold everywhere. The coldest place in the world is our attic. You can't possibly get close enough over you to keep from shivering. At least I can't, with the clothes I get hold of. If I were manager of the bed clothes, I'd try for it. Mother comes and tucks me in, said Vine, surveying him with thoughtful gravity, and then I'm always warm, where at the boy laughed almost fiercely. Mrs. Josiah Griggs doesn't, he said with a toss of his head and a flush on his face. The troubled thought which Vine had been considering for some minutes now came to the surface in hesitating speech. When is she? I mean, isn't she? Well, is she good to you? Whispered those last words as though the possibilities they contained were dreadful to think of. Oh, good enough! said Winter with another toss of his head. I don't have much to do with her, nor she with me, only to scold. But I get used to that. She doesn't do any tucking up or that sort of thing, and I don't want her to. I'd kick all the bed clothes off in a hurry that she tucked. Yes, said Vine a little hesitatingly. I suppose so, because you are a boy. It isn't that. It's because—well, because I wouldn't want her to do things that were any like mothers, you know, when she isn't mother, and never can be, and nobody ever wants her to be. Vine nodded. She could readily understand that a boy would not care to have Mrs. Josiah griggs for his mother. Winter returned to the subject of books. I don't know about next winter. I don't believe I'm to go to school. I heard them talking the other day. Mr. Josiah and Mrs. Josiah planning work for me which sounded as though it was to take all my time. I don't see where the school is to get put in. Oh, but—said Vine in dismay. That would be horrid. Why, every boy goes to school in winter. Didn't they promise to you? Yes, of course. Three months of schooling every year. But promises don't signify. Who's to complain if they don't keep them? Nobody cares, but a boy without friends, and they don't care how much I complain. I don't know as it matters. School doesn't amount to much with me, Vine. When a fellow has to work up to the minute for starting, and set to work the minute he gets back, and hasn't books that he ought to study, and gets behind with all his classes, and doesn't understand things, and hasn't time to stop and ask questions, why school is a kind of a humbug? Except for giving you rides at recess, and taking you home on the sled at night, I don't know but I'd as soon be at work. But over this decision Vine shook her shapely brown head violently. Oh, no, that wouldn't do at all. Because you are going to be a man, and I want you to be a real smart man. I'm to call you Mr. Kelland, you know, and every little bit of study helps a little. I couldn't call you Mr. Kelland unless you were a smart man. Now could I? The boy burst into a merry laugh, the first real outburst of boyishness which there had been. Why not? he said. Aren't people who haven't been to school ever called Mr.? Vine shook her head again. Oh, no, no indeed. They say win or wind or old wind when your hair begins to get gray. I wouldn't allow it win. This is my name for you while you are a boy, but I wouldn't want to say old wind ever. The brightness faded from the boy's face. Don't call me wind, he said. I hate that name. There is something about your little name for me which sounds pleasant. It makes me feel once in a while as though I should win something yet, though everything is against me. But wind. Every hateful boy I know yells it out at the beginning or end of some ugly speech, and Mrs. Josiah never pretends to call me anything else. As they talked they wandered on through the thickly matted carpet of brush and twigs and came out now upon a little clearing where the grass was greener and a view of the lake could be had glimmering through the great old trees. Here stood two men gazing about them with an air of interest. I should think this would be a good sight, one said, as the children came into view. I should like to put up a building for them just in this angle. Do you suppose it will really amount to putting up buildings? asked the other. Why, of course it will. The association is already formed and some capital secured. The people who are pushing it command influence and money. Oh, I have no doubt of its eventual success. It's a camp meeting, said Vine, nudging her companion's elbow, to call attention to the talk. One day we were coming to it, but Father was too busy. Mother can't walk so far. I'd like to come. It's such a pretty place. But camp meetings don't have anything nice for children, do they? No, said Winter. Nothing but sermons that I ever heard of. But I don't know much about them. Mr. Griggs wouldn't let me come, because he doesn't believe in encouraging laziness and late hours. I wonder what they are talking about it now for. It's over for this year. Maybe they are going to build a church or something, and work at it this winter. It would be fun to come out here once in a while and watch them. Wouldn't it win? Let's ask them what they are going to build. Do you know who they are? Never saw them before. Well, never mind. You can step right up to them and talk, just as though you knew them. Men always do that. Father talked with a man all the way home from the pasture the other night, and when I asked who he was, he said he never saw him before. The boy laughed good-humoredly. You have a great idea of making a man of me haven't you, little vine? All right. I'll help it along when I can. Here goes. And the two moved toward the gentlemen. End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of 87 by Pansy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 2. March, I said. Well, sir, said the elder of the two gentlemen, greeting the young people with a genial smile. Have you come to locate a lot for yourself? These grounds are all to be marked off into building lots one of these days, and streets and avenues cut through to the lake, and all sorts of fine things are to be done. First come, first served. You can have your choice now. I'm not quite ready to build yet, the boy answered, in a merry and yet respectful tone. What is going to be done, sir? Is it building for the camp meeting? No, it's something new under the sun. There's to be a meeting here, but I believe they don't call it a camp meeting. If I were going to name it, I should say it might be a school, a sort of play school for summertime. A great many things are to be done which do not belong to camp meeting. That is certain. I heard of illuminations, and concerts, and fireworks even planned for. I really can't tell you just what it is, but it is something which will be pleasant for young folks and old folks, and will be pretty sure to bring them here in quite respectable crowds. I shouldn't wonder if the day were to come when we should see a couple of thousand people in these woods. And is there to be a building put up here, sir? Well, that depends on whether the managers of the thing are people of taste, the young man answered with a genial smile. It is the place above all others which I would select for some sort of building, wouldn't you? It is the prettiest spot anywhere around, said Vine, clasping her hands together in a sort of little ecstasy of delight, and forgetting the presence of strangers, as she seemed to take in anew the beauty spread around her. Both gentlemen turned and looked at her. So it is, little lady, said the one who had done the most of the talking, the very nicest place in these woods. You are a lady of taste I perceive. Suppose you select a lot at once, and let me put you up a building. Come now, there is nothing like being energetic in these matters. Vine laughed gleefully. I should like it, she said. A little house, large enough for Dolly and me. Oh, and a room for you-win to come and visit us, and a room for father and mother. Exactly, said the would-be builder. Quite a house, and I am at your service entirely. I have one building here already contracted for, and I would just as soon look after another at the same time. But by this time Vine's face had grown thoughtful. And will there be meetings here for little girls? She asked, with a curious mixture of childhood and womanhood in tone and manner, which was very winning. Especially calculated for little girls, I should say. In fact, the entire scheme seems to be for the benefit of little girls and little boys, and bigger boys and girls, of course, it would not do to leave them out. No, said Vine gravely. Then, after a pause, it is very nice. I like to see buildings going up and people doing things. It is a long time since anything has been done, it seems to me. I am just as tired of our little old house, and nothing going on, as I can be. I wished we lived nearer, so I could run here and watch it all getting ready. Wouldn't it be nice? All this was addressed to Winter. She had dropped the grown people out of her thoughts. He, on his part, was examining the position of the sun with a look of apprehension on his face, and the quick words he spoke did not answer her question. Vine, I must hurry home just as fast as I can. Look where the sun has traveled. I did not know it was so late. Can you skip over the ground very fast? Yes, indeed, affirmed Vine, tying on her sunbonnet and holding out her small brown hand to be grasped in wind's larger one, preparatory to a skip. The two gentlemen looked after her as she went flying down the hill, being skillfully jumped over the rough places by her watchful companion. That's a bright little creature, said the younger gentleman, a regular little woman of business. She would build a house tomorrow if she had her way and employ me as an architect. The boy has a good face, said the elder gentleman. Yes, rather, a little sullen perhaps, at least there are shaded lines to it. The girl now is open-faced and bright. Well, Edwards, you think you will not locate your lot today? Meanwhile, the two children lost no time in conversation but made all speed. The boy frequently cast apprehensive glances sunward, and several times made the remark that he had no notion it was so late. As for Vine, it took all her breath to keep pace with his rapid strides and to be ready for his frequent jumps over obstructions. At a point where two roads forked, they paused for a few seconds, the boy speaking rapidly. I'm sorry I can't go with you, Vine, but you see how it is. That old son has gone and left me. I must rush with all my might, and then maybe not get there in time. I'm sorry about the potato, too. There isn't a fellow in the world who would like to eat it so well as I, but it will have to wait. When you are twenty-two, you know it is to be ready. Oh, dear! said the little girl, with a half laugh, half sigh. Think of waiting fourteen years for a potato. I hope we'll eat bushels of them together before that time. The very first night that you can come in, I mean to ask Mother to let us have some. Goodbye! The last word was shouted, for Winter had not waited until the close of her sentence. He was already climbing the hill up which his road led, and he shouted back the, Goodbye! as he reached the top and broke into a run. The little girl looked after him until his fleet feet were lost in the distance, then turned and sped away in the opposite direction. An hour afterwards she was arranging some much-chipped plates on a coarse worn tablecloth, setting them skillfully in a way to hide the worn places as much as possible, and talking with a middle-aged woman, who sewed swiftly in the waning light. The room was a small kitchen. The woodwork worn, the furniture as scanty as could well be imagined, yet there was something pleasant about it all. The small cook's-dove was in order, the singing kettle was bright, the little kitchen table had been freshly scrubbed, as had the floor, and a general air of holiday attire pervaded the room, at least so it seemed to vine. She sighed a little as she took it all in. You make everything so nice, mother, and then Wynn couldn't come. Wasn't it too bad? He felt sorry, I can tell you. I guess they never have baked potatoes nor anything else nice and pleasant where he lives. Oh, mother, I told him about our talk this morning, and he said he'd be sure to come for supper the day I was twenty-two. Wouldn't it be real queer if he should? And we are to have baked potatoes and something nice, some treat, you know, for a surprise. I wonder what the treat is for tonight. It doesn't seem as though I could wait. Do you suppose father will be late tonight? Oh, mother, they are going to have something new down at the point. Houses and things, and a big meeting next summer for children. Won't that be nice? For children, repeated the mother, as Vine paused to take breath, also to determine, with her head dropped a little to one side, whether the applesauce should stand at just that angle or a little more to the center. Well, of course, it's for grown people, too, but the man said there would be things especially for children. Why, they have a camp meeting there every summer, child. Oh, but this isn't a camp meeting. Isn't a bit like one. The man said so. He said they would have concerts and fireworks and animals, you know. I guess he said animals. I don't quite remember. It is going to be very nice. Don't you suppose father could take me once in a while? Now it was the mother's turn to sigh. I don't know, Viney. She said gently, the swift needle pausing a moment while she looked at the child. I'm afraid there isn't much chance for father to take you anywhere in a good while, or do any of the things he would like to do. Poor father is having a hard time. There has been trouble since you went away. Old Brindle is dead. Old Brindle dead, repeated Vine, in a voice which was full of anxiety and alarm, and she sat down the little sauce plates she was bringing without regard to whether they were in just the best position or not. White mother, how did it happen? Who told you? Does father know? Father came himself and told me on his way to the upper lot. She got hurt in the new wire fence below the meadow, so badly hurt that they had to kill the poor creature in mercy. I wasn't going to tell you, Vine dear, today, because it was your birthday. But then I thought father would not be likely to feel very gay, and if you understood the reason, you wouldn't wonder over it. Vine sat down on a low chair, which was her special property, wrapped her two hands in her neat work apron in a queer little old-fashioned way she had, and looked mournfully before her. What are we going to do? She said at last. Mother, how can we get along without Brindle? The mother shook her head and sewed swiftly again without speaking for some minutes. Then she said, I don't know, Vine, I am sure. It is of no use to borrow trouble, and I suppose we shall get along somehow. We always have, but the winter looked hard enough before this. Vine sighed again. There is a great deal of trouble in the world, she said gravely. I thought a little while ago when had it all, and here it is spread around. But we haven't as much as he's got. Just think mother, he has nobody who truly cares whether he has pleasant times or not. Yes, the mother said, that was trouble, and it was very sensible in Vine to remember that she was better off than some other people. And she must be as pleasant as she could when father came, and not mind if he looked a little sober. They would manage somehow, perhaps something new would happen tomorrow, something pleasant. Who could tell? Yes, said Vine. Maybe it will have to do with the new things down at the point. What if father could get work there, steady work, and they would pay him real well so that he wouldn't need old Brindle, wouldn't that be nice? The mother shook her head again, but she smiled on the child and felt comforted. She hardly knew why. And the potatoes were done to a nicety, and Vine knelt on the clean floor and took them out one by one with careful hand, giving each a little scientific squeeze before she plumped it into the dish. And the father's step was heard outside, and they planned to be happy and keep the birthday feast. It was just at this moment that Winter Kelland set down two pails of foaming milk in Mrs. Griggs's kitchen, and waited to lift them one at a time for Mrs. Griggs to strain. There was an ominous frown on that lady's face. She had been waiting twelve minutes and sixteen seconds by the great solemn kitchen clock, which reached from floor to ceiling and spoke in measured tick-tock tones and never made mistakes. Winter said not a word, neither did she. In fact, not a word had she spoken since he reached the door, breathless with haste an hour before, and said, in most apologetic tones, oh, I am so sorry to be ten minutes late. I will hurry with all my might." Then he had seized the pails and vanished. No word from Mrs. Griggs, neither then nor now. What did it mean? Winter lifted the pails, then carried them emptied to the sink, and pumped cold water into them, then brought armful after armful of nicely split wood, and piled the box high, carefully brushing up the little dirt he had made by the operation. And stood at last before the fire, waiting for orders, his chores all well done, though he had been ten minutes late. In the meantime Mr. Josiah had come in, and taken his seat in the corner behind the stove, weakly newspaper in hand. Josiah, said Mrs. Griggs in warning tone, while Winter waited, having spoken only to ask respectfully if there was anything else he could do, and having received no answer. Josiah laid down his newspaper, slowly took off his glasses, folded them, dropped them into a leather case, placed the case in his pocket, and fixed a pair of cold eyes on Winter. Are you through? Yes, sir, I have the chores all done as usual. Have you locked the old barn and fastened the doors for the night? Yes, sir, I have done everything. What time did you get home tonight? I was ten minutes late, sir. I was up on the hill in the woods, and the sun was hidden by the trees, and I did not know it was so late. But I ran every step of the way, and was just ten minutes behind time. A very conscientious and punctual boy! The sun ought to have waited for you. I am surprised at it for going down at the right time, when you didn't know it was going. No reply from Winter, only a slight deepening of the glow on his cheeks, which haste and exercise had produced. Is there anything ready for me to work at just now, sir? He asked at last, seeing Mr. Griggs resolved apparently to gaze at him and say nothing. Yes, sir, there is. You may march up to the attic and take off your jacket, and I'll walk up after you and see if I can teach you that being ten minutes late is not being punctual, and that you are to come home at the minute you are told whether the sun sets at an hour to suit you or not. But Mr. Griggs, march, I said. I don't want any words. You've got plenty of words any time. What you lack is action. The spot glowed fiery red on Winter's cheeks now, but he turned without another word, and, opening the door leading to his attic room, ran swiftly up the steep steps, followed by the slower Mr. Griggs. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of 87 by Pansy. This Librabox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3. In Search of Home The stars were just gathering thick in the sky when the back door of Mr. Josiah Griggs's house opened softly and a boy with the traditional bundle in his hand, not, however, tied up in an old pocket handkerchief, but done very clumsily in stiff brown paper, came out, looked about him cautiously for a moment, closed the door as softly as he had opened it, and struck off at a brisk pace down the road. At last he had carried out the threat so often made to himself and deliberately planned to run away. You are not to suppose that he was the usual boy who had been reading dime novels and planned to run away after their pattern as the most interesting thing he could do with his life. Dime novels were as scarce in Mr. Griggs's house as were all other sorts of reading. I am not sure that young Kelland had ever even seen one, nor if he had would his tastes at that time have lean in their direction. The simple fact is that his life had been so hard and loveless in every respect since he went from the country poor house to Mr. Griggs's home, that the wonder was he had not run from it long before. If the actual truth could be reached I am inclined to think it would have been found to be little vines influence which had held him until this time. But tonight's punishment had been the drop too much for him. It was not that it had been so very severe, though the blows with the strong leather strap were hard enough and had fallen in rapid succession. Mr. Griggs growing more vexed every moment because of the lad's stubbornness as he mentally named winter's stern determination not to cry out if the pain killed him. Still it was not the pain but what he had conceived to be the bitter injustice of the whole thing which smarted in winter's heart and made him finally resolve to endure no more. Why should Mr. Griggs declare that, unless he, who had no watch, no way of telling the time saved by guessing at it, were back from his long worked-for half-holiday at exactly five o'clock he should be whipped? What harm was done to anyone by his being ten minutes later than that? His work was as carefully done as usual, nothing had suffered, and he had explained and expressed his sorrow for the mistaken time. Would any decent man have whipped me for it? This was the question which winter had muttered to himself as, left in the darkness and ordered to bed supperless, he had gone swiftly about, not undressing, but gathering the few poor clothes he possessed and making them into that disreputable-looking bundle. This done he had time for reflection, because it would never do to start so long as Mrs. Griggs's candle was flashing from kitchen to pantry, throwing gleams of light across the roadway. Mrs. Griggs's eyes were sharp. It was not easy to evade them. Reflection in this case did no particular good. I am not sure that it so much as entered Winterkellen's mind that there was anything morally wrong in the step which he had decided to take. He considered himself in no wise bound to Josiah Griggs. True, he had been taken by him from the poor house, and certain conditions had been entered into between the authorities and himself. Just what those conditions were, Winter never knew nor cared. He had been grateful to the people in the country house for keeping his dreary childhood from starvation. He had been more than grateful to poor old half-witted mother Dorkin's, one of the poppers, who used to pat him on the head and now and then tuck a bit of red shawl about him, which she wore on her shoulders. Once she sat down on a box by his bed and said, They say prayers when they go to bed, good little boys do, who live in houses. This is what they say. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray thee, Lord. I forget the rest, but that is long enough for you, Winnie. You don't live in houses, you know. Say it every night. That's a good boy." And then she had put her withered old face down to his, and done what I suppose would have made you shudder, kissed the boy on his round, hard, not overclean cheek with her skinny lips. Winter had loved mother Dorkin's, and he had said those half-lines over and over many a night after that, and he had cried bitter tears on the day when they carried mother Dorkin's away in her rough box to that portion of the burial ground set apart for poppers. But being grateful to the authorities for keeping him from freezing and starving when he was a little boy, and weeping bitter tears over the rough coffin of his one friend, in no sense bound Winter Kelland to endure any more of Mr. and Mrs. Griggs than he chose, and, at least, so reasoned the untaught boy. Mr. Griggs was to give him food and clothes, and a certain amount of schooling, in return for his work each day. Very well. Now suppose he chose to give up the food and clothing, and the schooling, and do no more of the work each day. Was that not perfectly fair and square? It did not once enter the boy's mind that it was not. Then why did he run away? Why not walk away in broad daylight, having said to Mr. Griggs that he had grown weary of his side of the bargain, and wanted to try another side of the world? There was one simple reason. Winter Kelland knew, none knew better than he, that the food which Mr. Griggs furnished him was poor in quality and meager in quantity, and the clothes were cast off garments of his own, and he also knew that the work he did was such as would have to be paid fair wages for to a hired boy, wages enough to get him the books he needed, and a pair of second-hand boots besides. He knew all about it, for he was on sufficient terms of intimacy with two hired boys in the neighborhood to have learned these facts long ago. What was more probable, in view of this, than that Mr. Griggs should be unwilling to close his side of the bargain, and should have ways and means of compelling him to stay until he was a man. Not that Winter imagined he could have any right to do this, but, as he had told Vine, who was there to complain for him? You see the process of reasoning? He had simply resolved to do what he had half resolved upon many times before, take matters into his own hands, and support himself without any of Mr. Griggs's old clothes. Certainly he had earned the clothes he wore, and the clothes he carried in his brown paper bundle. He was more than sure of this. But, to be strictly honest, he had, after standing for full five minutes with a half-worn jacket in his hand, the newest article he possessed, hung it back again on the nail with a little sigh and an outspoken, No, I won't take that. They might not think I had earned it. I have five times over. But they might not think so. They might even call it stealing. Here the boy's lip had curled derisively. I'll leave it for the next boy who sleeps up here. I hope he won't be colder than I have been, and he'll earn the jacket without any doubt before he has been here very long. And now, despite the full hour which he had for reflection, he has closed the back gate for the last time, and walked swiftly away from the house which has been supposed to be his home for two years. At the slope of the hill he pauses and takes a long, lingering look at a clump of trees, behind which he knows stands a little red house, in the back room of which at this moment his one friend, little Vine, is quietly sleeping. Poor little Vine, he murmurs. I'm afraid she'll be awfully disappointed, and there's no knowing what they will say about me. She'll hear it. I wouldn't go off if I could help it, just for the sake of her rides this winter. But I don't believe they meant me to go to school, and if I did, there would be no time for anything. No, I'd better do it this time. But I wish I could have seen Vine and had a little talk with her first. I wonder if the potato was good. My potato. Poor little Vine. Never mind, I can't help it now. She'll get over it. They'll tell her some stuff about me, and she will be ashamed that she took a walk with me. I don't care. I'm done with this part of the world for ever. Now I'm gone. And he broke into a run in the opposite direction from the little red house. I haven't presented him in a very flattering light, now have I? Oh, dear me, no. I don't pretend to justify him, as if one could justify all the doings of boys of twelve, even when they are sheltered by Christian homes and watched over by careful fathers and mothers. Yes, I know all about the unwisdom of writing stories of boys who run away from places where they ought to stay, who try to shake off proper restraint and strike out in the world for themselves. It is a dangerous precedent, an unwise beginning, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred can have and ought to have only a bad ending. I know all that, but what is going to be done? I want to write Winterkellen's story just as it is, and he was bound out to Mr. Josiah Griggs until he was twenty-one, though that part he did not understand, and he did run away. An unwise beginning? You need not fear that Winterkellen will ever advise it from his experience. It would certainly be hard to have a worse time than he endured in the years which immediately followed this beginning. Many a time he actually wished for his bed in Mr. Griggs's attic and his place at Mrs. Griggs's kitchen table. Nevertheless, the fact remains that he ran away. Neither do I wish to be understood as picturing Mr. and Mrs. Griggs as monsters of cruelty. They were not. I do not think it entered the minds of either of them that they were ever cruel. They were hard and cold and cross and unlovely in all possible ways toward the homeless, friendless boy. Yet neither of them imagined that such was the case. They did not love him, certainly. Bless your absurd heart. Is it to be supposed that love is included in the indentures of a bound boy? Why, of course, the Bible says, Love thy neighbor as thyself. But then, that is not to be taken literally. It means—why, it means—well, now, of course, it is absurd to say one can love a boy from the poor house. Besides, Winterkellen wasn't their neighbor. Enough to eat? Oh, of course he had. Boys were enormous eaters. Trust them for getting enough anywhere. What if the potatoes were generally cold? Whoever knew a boy to care whether things were cold or hot? Suppose his meat was the tag ends, too tough for chopping. Boys had good teeth and enormous digestive organs. Lonesome eating alone in the back kitchen, potatoes in a tin basin, and meat in the spider in which it was fried? Stuff and nonsense. Why, the boy was brought up in the poor house. Oh, they did not by any means intend to be unkind. Even the vigorous whippings which Mr. Griggs bestowed on the slightest provocation, and Mrs. Griggs rarely rested until she had found provocation, were given under the dim idea that all boys had to be whipped, that it was part of a man's duty, if he was to bring up a boy, to be ready with the rod in season and out of season. Of course boys must be found fault with, and scolded and threatened, and the threats persistently carried out. How else were they to be made industrious and honest and manly? Such was Mr. Griggs's honest creed. Such had really in his own home been his bringing up to a great degree. Shades of tenderness, which belonged to fatherhood and motherhood, had occasionally, it is true, fallen to his lot, and he remembered them now with a smile, as excusable weaknesses which belonged more especially to mothers. Of course Mrs. Griggs was not Winterkellen's mother, nor was he his father, yet they must try to do their duty by him, and honestly, in their hard curious way they did it. Mr. Griggs did it better than his wife, for he, though severe, meant to be just. But the boy, with his quick wittedness, his keen insight into meannesses and motives, and his sassy tongue and sassier smile, often angered the woman until she felt that she could not endure him, could not be patient with him, even if it were her duty to be, and she never imagined that it was. Patience often spoiled boys, so she thought. What they needed was discipline. She had no boy, poor Mrs. Griggs, you are not to blame her too severely. She knew nothing of the weaknesses of motherhood. So now we have our boy, with all his follies and weaknesses and honest mistakes, launched on the world for himself, and Mrs. Josiah Griggs is left behind to deplore it. She does not give him credit for honesty. Winter is right in some of his calculations. Mrs. Josiah talks, she calls the boy, ungrateful, false, mean, sneaking, all the choice words which she can recall from her repertoire of language. In the early twilight of the Monday afternoon which followed, for I have also to own that it was on a Saturday night when winter started on his travels, surely a well-intentioned boy might have waited till Monday night. But I ought to say an excuse, or at least an explanation, that his manner of spending the Sabbath in Mr. Griggs's home would not have seemed to him any more religious, had he known anything about religion, than to tramp over the fields in search of a new life. On the Monday afternoon following, therefore, came Vine home from the country's schoolhouse where she daily trudged, where she fondly hoped, as soon as the winter term sat in, to trudge back and forth part of the way with her one friend among the boys, and dropped a broken-hearted heap in her little chair in front of the one where her mother sat and sewed, and placed her little dinner-basket on the floor and her head in her mother's lap, and sobbed as though her heart would break. No brindle-cow or other common trouble to account for such tears as these. To the alarmed mother's questions she finally sobs forth her tale of woe. He's gone, mother, run away. He went Saturday night, and nobody knows where he is. And Mrs. Griggs says such hateful, hateful things. She says he stole himself, as if she owned him. Mean old thing. She says he was sly and a cheat, and oh, I don't know all her mean bad words. I hate her, mother. Elvina, says the startled mother, her voice full of astonishment, sorrow, and reproof. Well, but, mother, it is too dreadful. Win never did anything mean, and he was just as honest. He wouldn't look in his book in the spelling class when all the others did, because he said he would not cheat if he never got to the head. And the other boys laughed at him and called him goody-goody. And now she says all horrid things. How can I help hating her? And how can I get along without win? He was my win. He was going to help me through the snow. And we were going to roast apples and everything. Oh, mother, mother, what shall I do? Another little maiden heart broken over another boy's mistaken sense of independence. What matters it that he, at this moment, sits on a stone thirty miles away and wishes he were bringing home the milk for Mrs. Griggs to strain? Vine does not know it, and he will never bring home the milk for Mrs. Griggs to strain again. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of 87 by Pansy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4. Practicing He sat at this moment on a stone, though by no means the one he occupied when you last heard from him. That, you remember, was but thirty miles away from Vine and Mrs. Josiah Griggs and all the familiar surroundings of home life. More than a thousand weary miles stretch between this stone and that, and the time which intervened could be counted even by years. In point of fact it was Vine's birthday again, and she had attained the ripe age of eleven years, and the boy-win was so far changed that he had not thought of it nor of her once that day. There were other changes than this. Three hard years had Winter Kelland tramped over the world. He was much wiser in some respects than when he first tramped away. I am not going to try to tell you the story of those three years. It would be unpleasant reading, and I do not know that it would accomplish anything to linger over the details. Cold and frost and snow. Heat and weariness and discomfort of every sort. Hunger and rags and wretchedness. These words pretty regularly distributed through the months would about make up the story. No, it had not been a pleasant thing to shift for himself. A thousand times during the years Winter Kelland had discovered a fact which he needed to learn, that, after all, was told, he had not been so very badly off in the home of Josiah Griggs. Not so uncomfortably situated, but that he might have been, and had been, in worse condition many a time since. He had not planned it in this way. Boys who run away from home never plan it as it works out. He had meant to be very industrious, very energetic, and to accomplish, long before this time, results which would fill the mind of Josiah Griggs with amazement and regret should he ever come to know the facts. Regret, of course, over his own irreparable loss. But matters had refused to shape themselves in a line with this daydream. Work had been hard to find. Boys who were unskilled in every sort of work, and who wanted, with their unskilled hands, to earn a good living, were plenty. Mind, I do not say that the condition of things into which he presently fell was a necessity. Even after a boy has run away, provided he does it as ignorantly and honestly as Winter Kelland did, he may have self-respect and perseverance enough to overcome obstacles and come out ahead. I admit that they generally do know such thing, but it is possible. At first Winter had been lofty. He had resolved to choose his work. He hated farms and cows and milking and rinsing milk-pales and all the hundred other duties connected with this life as he knew it. He would have no more of farm life. He had a chance to hire out to a blacksmith, but he hated that business even worse than he did farming. So, while he was engaged in being large in his ideas, the days passed and his clothes grew shorter for him and grew ragged and soiled, and he grew hungry and grimy looking, and became by no means such a specimen as one would be in haste to hire. Then, the worst, the very worst of it all, was that the inevitable curse of such a sort of life fell upon him. For a time he rather liked it, the being his own master, the getting up at whatever hour he pleased, without the trouble of dressing, and without a responsibility weighing upon him. It was interesting to pass through new towns and cities, to see strange sights and wonder over crowds of strange people, to chop a little wood here for a dinner, and fill a tub or two with water in another place for a supper. The life had all the charm of novelty and constant excitement. The day began with wondering what queer thing he would see or hear or do before it closed. What town should he reach today? Who would give him a lift on the road with ox-team or mule or noble span of greys? He had tried all kinds. What matter if his clothes were growing very ragged and very short? Nobody knew him, and he would get a chance by and by to earn some better ones. So the days passed, and the varying sameness of the life began at last to Paul, and the dislike of it grew upon him until he hated it. And he awakened one morning to the thought that he was by no means Winter Kellend, a boy who worked for Mr. Griggs and had a name and a place in the village, and was knotted to occasionally by well-dressed boys who went to the district school with him and was waited on in stores promptly and willingly because he represented Mr. Griggs, a man who could and did pay his bills. Confronting his position squarely and calling it by its right name, he was just a tramp, and by this time he hated it fiercely, and was ragged and foot sore and miserable, and had reached the place where he saw no way out. Yet there was much even now that the homeless boy had to be grateful for if he had only known it. His very friendlessness, combined with his youth, had preserved him from many snares which Satan sets for unwary feet. The brightly lighted saloons had tempted him many a time, but he was too entirely without money or place or influence to be harbored within them. Later on the low-down grog shops had tempted him on cold nights with their smell of warmth, but by this time he was ragged and at best nothing but a boy without money or home, and they would have none of him. In fact it had just happened, as we say, that none of Satan's emissaries had found use for him, and he had escaped many things. But for this he had not enough knowledge to be grateful, so as he sits, this lovely autumn day, on a stone which has been warmed by the afternoon sun, and munches, almost dog-fashion, a bit of hard bread which has been handed out to him from the kitchen in the rear, he is so ragged, so filthy and haggard-looking, that Mrs. Josiah Griggs would not have recognized him. Neither, I am afraid, would little vine, and there is not a hint on his face that he has anything in life or ever has had for which to be grateful. Perched on the fence at a little distance from him, hands in his pockets and whistling softly, is a young fellow of about his own age, or possibly a trifle older, a young fellow of an entirely different world from his. His scotch suit of mixed brown fits his trim form as though it had been made, as it has, by a first-class tailor. His linen collar is spotless and shining, and the bright neck-tie at his throat is arranged with careless grace. There dangles from the upper pocket a chain which he fingers at intervals, when he can spare his hands from his pockets, with the easy indifference of one who has been long accustomed to a watched chain. Neither does he consult the excellent watch which it guards, often enough to indicate fresh possession. They, too, are typical boys. If the one represents the great homeless, friendless, unwashed world, the other is a fit presentment of the well-to-do, cultured, happy American home. Though the well-dressed boy is whistling, it is done with an absent-minded air, as though the familiar words, my country, tis of thee, had very little place in his thoughts. In fact, he broke off in the midst of a line with something quite irrelevant to it. I suppose you are rather hungry? I suppose I am. This reply winter made, after indulging in a somewhat prolonged stare at the questioner. Then he took another enormous bite of the hard bread. What part of the world do you live in? All parts, and nowhere in particular, I don't live at all. What do you do, then? Tramp. Do you like that sort of thing? What sort of thing? Why, tramping, and not living at all? Supposing I didn't. Why, then, I wouldn't do it if I were you. Do you always stop doing the things you don't like? Generally speaking, yes, unless I ought to like them, and then I set about doing it. But I shouldn't suppose there was any particular question of conscience about keeping on with your occupation. Why, you must be fifteen or so. What if I am? Nothing, only if that's the case, in another year you'll be sixteen, you know, and that sort of thing will keep going on until you'll wake up one morning and find yourself a man and not be quite ready for it. Why'll I need to be any more ready for that than I am to be a boy in a tramp? Oh, because you'll have a man's life to live, a chance to vote you see and help settle questions, and somebody to take care of, most men do, and it takes a good deal of getting ready, I should think. I wouldn't like the kind of life you're living, it might do very well for a lark, but to keep on wearing such clothes and eating dry pieces of bread instead of having a place at a table and living like folks wouldn't be my idea of a good time. And you think all a fellow has to do when he doesn't like old clothes and dry crusts, is just to put on some good clothes and sit down like other folks to nice tables, eh? Very well, I'm agreed. Bring on your clothes and I'll wear them, and I've no objection in life to roast beef and plum pudding. Then, as I said before, if I were you, I'd plan for them, there to be had for the working, you know. Are they? Show me a place where they pay for a job of work in roast beef and plum pudding, and I'm your fellow, I'll do the work in a jiffy. Oh, you know what I mean! It isn't the one job, nor twenty jobs, it is getting ready for things, studying and working your way up, and getting your place in the world, getting where you can manage the plum pudding business for yourself instead of taking what other people choose to give you. I say, said Winter, bestowing a long grave stare on the speaker. What business do your grandchildren follow? You must have several of them. You are well on toward a hundred years old yourself, aren't you? If his intention was to silence the boy by making him angry, he failed. A good-natured laugh was the only reply. Then, after a moment's silence, the boy on the fence spoke again, pleasantly but gravely. I should think you would want to be studying. There's a look in your eyes somehow, which makes me think you might be a good scholar. What if I could? Maybe I'm looking for a situation this minute, a professor I may be for anything you know, professor of rags and tags. The laugh with which the words ended had a bitter note. After a moment he said, in a somewhat more serious tone, I look like going to school, don't I? No, you don't, but what I'm saying is that I would if I were you. How do you know you would? It's easy for you to talk. Look at you and then look at me. Does it take much of a scholar to see the difference between us? How do you know what you would do if you hadn't your father's gate-post to sit on and clothes and watches of your father's buying to wear? That is true, said the boy frankly. I've got my father to depend on, but then boys who haven't fathers, nor good clothes nor anything, do get to be scholars and accomplish something. I suppose I've no right to say I would do it if I were in your place, but I can tell you it seems to me just as though I would. How would you set about it? Why, I'd work. I'd hire out somewhere to do anything, dig or weed or split wood or clean out stables or anything there was to do, and I'd ask to be paid in second-hand clothes until I had earned enough to dress myself decently, and by that time I would have made myself so useful that they couldn't get along without me. And I'd agree to work for my board and the school books I needed, and then I'd go to the district school. Just so, how much do your board and clothes cost in a year, and how much work do you do before and after school? The boy on the gate laughed again. Oh, it is different with me, he said pleasantly. I owned that at first, I do precious little, and my board costs considerable to say nothing of my clothes. But then I have a feeling that I would do if there were any occasion. More than that I know fellows who are doing it. Where I was last August there was a boy younger than you, I should say, and he worked for his board and went to school a couple of hours every day and studied by a torchlight in the evening. And he was smart, I tell you. He wore very common-looking, patched clothes, and I happen to know he often went without his supper because he was in too much of a hurry to go home and get it. But he stood at the head of his class and people talked about him with respect. Went to school in August? said Winter. Yes, sir, went to a school in August. It was a summer school on purpose for busy people. You could go to it and have your lesson, and then go away and study when you liked, or when you could. And this boy, Porter his name was, had plenty to do besides studying and had worked hard all his life. He was an orphan, and he hadn't had a very comfortable life in any way. He used to tell me a few things occasionally. But he is going to make a man. I heard more than once of the gentlemen who were interested in the summer school say they would like to keep watch of him and see where he came out. He'll find his place in the world, one of them said. There's always room at the top, you know, and he is bound for the top. Well, said Winter, gravely picking up a few crumbs of bread which had fallen on the rock, and putting them into his mouth. I wish him success, I'm sure. I hope and trust he'll reach the top. As for me, I'm bound for the bottom. I've suspected it for a long time, and this morning I begin to feel sure of it. I'm sorry I can't promise to take your advice. It's a real pity, because I haven't met so kind and grandfatherly a man in a long while. Out of respect to your age and gray hairs, I ought to listen to you, but I'm afraid I can't. You see, I know more about some things than you do. The world has changed since you were young. The people to whom you can make yourself so necessary that they can't get along without you are all dead. More is the pity. But I've proved it over and over again that there isn't a living being to whom I'm necessary, and if you had been looking on at my life for the past year as I have been, you'd know that there ain't a more unnecessary animal than I am on this side of the earth. I'm even unnecessary to myself, and when it comes to that a fellow has got to a pretty pass, you know, or you would know if you weren't so venerable and the world had not grown wicked since your time. There is one thing, said the other, speaking slowly, fixing his eyes steadily on the tramp as though trying to decide whether or not to speak. There's more than one thing, there's a thousand at least. But what's the one that has tumbled on top of your brains just now? End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Opportunity It was some minutes before he received his answer. In the meantime the boy on the fence took his hands out of his pockets and ran the fingers of his left one through his curly hair in a way he had when perplexed or a trifle embarrassed. Should he or should he not? Would this fellow, who seemed to have no sort of desire to get away from his present position, understand? But on the other hand, whether he was understood or not, was he not bound to pass the word along? Suppose the boy should laugh. When he made that promise to himself, no, to God, under the trees in the starlight, did he reserve a chance to keep silence if he was afraid somebody would laugh or even sneer? Under the trees, how vividly he remembered that August evening. Starlight? More stars it seemed to him than had ever before twinkled down on the old earth. Very tall trees casting their shadows, making weird motions on the grass, beckoning somebody somewhere. So it had seemed to him. Very near him, arranged on a rude stand, had burned a fire of pine nuts, now dying down into almost extinction, then suddenly bursting forth again to illumine so much of the world as the flames could reach. Illumining for the boy the face of one man, a face which he felt he could never forget. There was something grand in it. He was no student of human nature, this boy, and did not understand the subtle power which drew and held him toward that face. He understood the voice better, the great, glorious voice which rolled out such a volume of melody as reached away beyond the tops of the tall trees, away beyond moon and stars, even up to the door of heaven. A joyful voice and yet a solemn one, strong, brave, solemn words always set to the music which he sang. This boy, who was not supposed to be particularly emotional, felt his nerves thrill with a peculiar sensation, and his breath seemed to come in throbs when he heard one moonlight night, just as he reached the top of the hill and was about to plunge down toward the torch-lighted grove, the strong voice roll out the words, All for Jesus, all for Jesus, all my being's ransomed powers. It was not new sentiment to him, he had been reared in a Christian home, had been a member of the visible Church of Christ for three years, had been told in Sabbath school and from the pulpit and by his mother's voice, times without number, that all his strength and time and talents belonged to the Lord, that he was bound to give an account for the way in which he employed every power he possessed. Yet when he heard those words sung by that glorious voice, he stopped and drew in his breath and shivered as if with sudden chill, and the meaning of the words took hold of him for the first time. All my being's ransomed powers? Who did it? Who gave their powers of voice and motion entirely to Jesus? He made a swift circuit of his acquaintances and declared to himself that he knew not one. Did this singer, he wondered? If not, how could he dare to roll those words up the hill in such majesty as they were coming now? If they pierced the clouds as they seemed to do and reached the throne, did God see that they were only mockery? He made a sudden resolve to watch that man, to learn all about him that he could, to discover if he lived such words as these or only saying them. There had been a week of watching before the evening to which his thoughts returned as he sat on the fence, watching, all unknown to the singer, when he sang on the platform, when he strolled through the grounds, or loitering under a tree chatted with a friend, when he floated idly over the quiet lake, resting, when he sat in the crowded dining-hall at lunchtime, constantly he was under the watch of a keen-eyed boy, who was weighing his words and ways, and even his laugh, to see if they matched his song. A trying ordeal certainly for a human life, but the boy, as on the evening in question, he watched the face pale and glow again in the changeful light, acknowledged to himself with a thrill of satisfaction and a throb of almost pain, that life and song fitted wonderfully well. Satisfaction, because by this time he had made a hero of the singer, and would not have liked him to fail. Pain, because he realized as he had never done before, that he was equally bound with this grand-voiced man to have a life and profession correspond. It could be done, for this stranger was doing it. Then he must do it too. The thought oppressed him, frightened him. What a life to live! He slipped away under the trees, away from the stand and the voices, and strolled down toward the lake in the solemn starlight to think over the thought. It happened that the singer also slipped away, and strolled in the same direction, thinking his pleasant thoughts and humming softly a string from a song he had just led. Or if on joyful wing, cleaving the sky, sun, moon and stars forgot, upward I fly, still all my song shall be, nearer my God to thee, nearer to thee. And so humming he came upon the boy. He had never spoken to him, never noticed him before, but now he laid a kind hand on the young shoulder and said, That is what we want, brother, isn't it, to get nearer every day to him, you belong to him, don't you? Yes, sir, the boy said promptly enough, but his face flushed, and there came to him almost a guilty sensation. Had he really a right to say such a wonderful thing as that he belonged to God, the wonder of it had never struck him before. That is good! There was such a hearty satisfaction in the voice that the boy could not help feeling he had made his questioner glad by his answer. Then, do you know one of the very best ways of getting nearer to him? Tell others the story, point him out, be on the watch for an opportunity to introduce your friend. To his joy not duty, to speak his beauty. That is the way you want to feel. It grows on one. If you take up the resolve to pass the word along, you will find it becomes a joy. A bell had struck just then, and the singer had turned suddenly with a bright parting smile and taken long strides back toward the torch-lighted stand. And it was one of these words the boy was thinking as he sat on the fence and looked at the tramp on the stone. Was this an opportunity? At last he spoke. There's a thing to remember that you don't belong to yourself after all and are bound to do the best you can with your time and strength in everything. I don't belong to myself. They're your mistaken grandfather. If there is a thing that I have been made to understand ever since I was a shaver big enough to walk, it was that I did not belong to anybody else in the world. And if I don't belong to myself either, it's a pretty pass. Then, after a moment's hesitation in a slightly lower tone, I haven't got any father to belong to. That is what I wanted to tell you. It is what I meant. Of course you have God, and he is your father, you know. The tramp stared. I don't know any such thing. Wouldn't it be a queer kind of a father who would have a son tramping around the world as I'm doing? No where to sleep and nothing to eat or wear? Well, but you may not be doing as he told you. If he gives you directions that would set all these things straight and you don't obey them, you can't lay the blame on him, you know. You don't know what you are talking about. I've had no directions from anybody, and no hint that anybody in the world or any other world cared a red scent where I went or what I did or what became of me. That kind of thing may belong to fellows like you, but it does not fit here. Oh yes, it does fit! The boy jumped from the fence and stood upright. His face aglow, his embarrassment gone. He was sure about the opportunity, and a longing desire to say the right word to this desolate fellow swept over him, filling his soul with courage. It fits perfectly, and I know exactly what I am talking about. I know God loves you and would like to take care of you. He has made all the plan and given directions, and the trouble with you is you haven't looked them up. If I were you, I would turn over a new leaf and start fresh. You're young enough to catch up, and the directions are plain and easy. No, they aren't so very easy. They take pluck in patience, but they are worth doing. How do you know, trying it yourself? Yes, I am. As true as you live, I am. I make a hundred mistakes in a day, and I find plenty of things that take a fellow's pride down. But I'm trying for it, and I know what I am talking about when I tell you it is the only kind of life worth living. And as for the directions, why, they are plenty enough and easy to be understood. A fellow can't read one verse in the Bible without finding He paused suddenly, a troubled, doubtful look spreading over his face. I suppose you know how to read, he said. A queer smile hovered for a moment over the face of the young tramp. In an instant he was back in a red schoolhouse with the hum of children's voices all about him, and with vines sitting just behind the class and whispering when he sat down after reading his verse. When, that was read just lovely. I do think you are the beautifulest reader. His one accomplishment it had been, and he had not thought of it nor of the little red schoolhouse for months. His answer was brief and untruthful. Oh, I can spell out words if they aren't too long. Well, that will do. Some of them are short enough, but it takes a lifetime to practice them. There's a little book, not a Bible, but verses from it, small enough to carry in your jacket pocket. What if I should give it to you? Would you study out a verse now and then and try to find some directions in it? Couldn't promise, said the tramp, rising suddenly. I've lived without directions for so long it would come tough to work under orders. I wouldn't mind about taking the book. I could eat it, you see, if I couldn't read it. It's big enough to bring in a loaf of bread, I dare say, and maybe a herring or two for relish. The eager look died out of the face of the well-dressed boy. He turned slowly and moved toward the gate. He had tried and failed. Close to the gate he turned back again, and, drawing from his pocket a tiny book not more than two inches square, handed it to the tramp. There it is. I hope you won't sell it for bread. I hope you'll go to work and earn bread, like an honest fellow. I think a great deal of that little book, and Mary gave it to me, and she is dead. But I mean to let you have it. Maybe something will come of it. Maybe there will. If you don't want it to go for bread, why, we'll say doughnuts or pumpkin pie. I'm not particular. And with a wicked look in his eyes and a disheartening smile on his face, the boy reached out a dirty hand for the little book which was held towards him, thrust it into a dirty pocket, and slouched away. His would-be friend watched him quite down the street and around the corner. Then he opened the gate and went slowly up the walk. I tried, he said to himself. It is the first time I ever attempted to say a word to a fellow I didn't know pretty well. But some way it seemed just as though I ought. I guess I did nothing but harm, and yet I can't help feeling glad I tried. He was whistling again before he reached the door of his home. A low, sweet strain, nearer my God to thee, were the words in his mind. He was right, he said aloud, as he opened the side door. It does make one feel nearer to try. Even if it doesn't do anybody else any good, it helps a fellow on his own road. Tisn't very easy to do sometimes. It wasn't today, I know, but I mean to do more of it. As for our poor young tramp, he did no whistling. Long before he reached the corner, the smile had faded from his face, and instead it was seemed with frowns. Strange thoughts had been stirred in his heart by the words of the boy not much older than himself. The utter and hopeless difference between his lot and that of boys who belonged to sheltered homes had often pressed upon him in all its bitterness, bringing always with it a feeling of being ill-treated, of not having had a fair chance in life. He had nursed this feeling until it had grown strong within him. I am not sure that the thought had ever presented itself that he was himself to blame for his friendless, loveless life. He had meant different things when he ran away from Josiah Griggs's farmhouse. He had meant to work and study and make a man of himself. But fate had been too much for him. It was never Winter Kellan's fault but always fates. Today a mere boy, surely not more than a year older than himself, had thrust aside all such reasoning without argument, and taken it for granted that this miserable life he led was of his own choosing, and could be turned from at will. Much he knows about it, said Winter bitterly. I'd just like to change clothes with him and start him out on a tramp like the easiest of mine and see what he would think when he had brought up the third or fourth night without anything to eat and not much to wear. He'd find he needed something beside his ridiculous little book to hearten him up. What a precious muff he was to imagine I'd study this book! He laughed again bitterly, very bitterly for a boy of fifteen, as he drew out the despised little volume and held it off from him in one thumb and finger, eyeing it with disdain. What had possessed him to take the tiny book? He was not mean enough to want to exchange it for bread as he had pretended. He certainly did not want to read it. What motive had impelled him to stretch forth his hand and take what was the boy's treasure and was utterly worthless to himself? I don't know why I did it, he muttered to himself. But there was something in the young muff's eyes which made me feel as though I couldn't disappoint him by refusing his book. I wonder what the fellow's name is. With this wonder in mind he opened the volume to search for a name on the fly-leaf, but it had no fly-leaf, that had been torn away. The reading began at once, and the very first verse was, He that over cometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. CHAPTER VI. Some half-way thinking. The verse needed no spelling out, and it had a very strange effect on winter. The one tender memory of his loveless life was connected with the word father. Not that he had had a remarkable father, as the world looks at these things, he was simply an unfortunate, feeble-bodied, discouraged man, who, after struggling with poverty and disappointment of almost every kind, and with bodily pain for years, had at last breathed out his life in a country poor house. Yet winter remembered him as always kind, never merry, rarely smiling, but ever patient and low-voiced, and with a tender touch in his hand. The boy was young when the grave closed over this one friend, and all his memories of him were fitful. Certain scenes, shown vividly, a little talk about his mother, an account of the way his unusual name winter came to be chosen. The room, the spot, the attitude, the very tones of voice connected with these talks, seemed to be photographed for him, and perhaps the next half-hour or half-day would be an utter blank. All the more perhaps had he in his earlier years of loneliness cherished these special memories. Since he became a tramp they had faded, had almost gone from him indeed. It had been months since he had thought of his father. But with the verse from the little book they flashed into prominence again, and with them the resolves which the small boy, winter, had made, first in his very babyhood, to grow to be a man just as fast as he possibly could, and take such care of that father as was never given to father before. Then when the grave had intercepted that care, after the first wild grief was spent, had come to him the resolve to be a man like his father, a good, kind, brave man. The father, I have said, was in no sense remarkable in this world. Yet I fancy sometimes that, because of the way in which he bore his heart, sad life on earth, he may be considered somewhat remarkable among the angels, and his place may be high. For odd I know quite near to the throne. But to winter, in his ignorant babyhood, the father was a man to be proud of and to pattern after. That thought makes me pause to wonder whether there are not fathers living now, who, so far as their children are concerned, might not better have died and left those children holy memories softened by childhood and by death, a man to be missed and mourned. That was the position which winter's father held in his son's heart. When the first remorseful hours began to come to him, after he had awakened to the thought that he was very far away from respectability, there had mingled with it the belief that, if his father had lived, all things for him would have been different. But what could be expected of a boy without a father? Now, as he strode along through the busy street, taking no note of the life about him, the words repeated themselves to his consciousness. He that over cometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his god, and he shall be my son. God's son! To go to him saying, Father, what shall I do about this? And what would you advise as to that? Was there possibly such a relation sustained between the soul and God? Winter Kelland had not been brought up in a heathen country. He had not been a regular attendant at church, because Josiah Griggs, not being a Christian man himself, had not felt its importance. Because his wife, not being a Christian woman, had not seen any reason why they should dress a charity boy in fine clothes and send him to church where he could not understand a word of what was being said. Still, he had occasionally gone to church and heard more and understood more than Mrs. Josiah gave him credit for—a sort of mind-knowledge, never for a moment applied to the heart or life. He had been a semi-regular attendant at Sabbath School where he enjoyed the ministrations of one of those interesting teachers who content themselves with asking, Where did he now go? How long did he stay in that country? What place did he next visit? Thus down the printed list, and, having exhausted the questions and her vitality together, fanned herself or wrapped her furs about her according to the season of the year, and conversed with her next neighbor or the librarian, and shook her head severely at her boys when they giggled louder than was discreet. Oh yes, Winter had enjoyed opportunities, and, being a bright boy, he knew a great deal more about the facts of the Bible than one would have supposed possible. But of what experimental religion was, as lived in the soul, I suppose he was really as ignorant as a sandwich islander must have been in the days long gone by. All day Winter Kelland tramped and thought. The words of the well-dressed boy had taken deeper root than he supposed, and hovered about him through the weary miles. He did not even stop for dinner. His breakfast, though the boy on the fence had spoken doubtfully of it, was much better and more generous in quantity than usually fell to Winter's share, and he was so full of his perplexed thoughts that it was drying near sunset before the pangs of hunger again roused him to the fact that he must make some plan for the night. Where was he, and what should he try to do next? The village to which he had come seemed to be large and flourishing. Many of the houses were handsome, nearly all of them neat. A stuck-up place, said Winter, looking about him with critical eye and an experience born of three years of tramping. Folks will all be too nice to care whether a fellow starves or not, so that he doesn't do it on their sidewalk. I must hunt up commoner-looking houses than these before I try for my supper. I wonder if—and there he stopped. Up to this point he had been speaking half aloud in a sort of muttering tone, a habit which he had acquired by being much alone and lonely. But the conclusion of the sentence was entirely mental. Translated it would have read, I wonder if there is really the least use in trying again for work. I gave that up long ago. Folks won't hire a rag-bag, and a fellow will have to stay in the rag-bag line until he is hired. So there seems to be nothing for it, but going on in the same way. And yet— He could not have translated the thought which hovered about that and yet. Something in the well-dressed boy's words and manner, something in the verse from that little book, seemed to have, at least partially, arrested him. He did not understand the power of the Spirit of God and the fact of his operating on human hearts. He had no knowledge of these subjects which connected his vague half-resolves with somebody's effort and somebody's prayer for him. Yet there was no denying the fact that for some reason he had been set to thinking. It was not rapid thought. It was not defined in any way. Those semi-religious and particular people who are forever harping over conversions being too sudden to last, forgetting that their criticism limits the power of the Holy Spirit, might have been quite satisfied with Winterkeland. He was by no means converted. He was so far from it that there was not even a conversion to one small advanced step in his life. He was merely dreamily inquiring of himself whether it might be possible, provided he decided to try it, to earn somewhere some decent clothes. He was moving very slowly through the street while he thought, or rather while he let his mind float in this direction. The mental effort was too feeble to justify the name of thought. A small, neat white house stood on the next corner. A woman in a trim, plain calico dress, with her hair done into the plainest and tightest little knot behind, stood at the side gate, looking up and down the street with a troubled air. Her eye rested at last on Winter. Mercy, what a rag-bag! This in undertone. Then to him. Boy, do you know anything about cows? Mine is rampaging all over the garden, doing more mischief than I can set right in a week. And bony is gone, the land knows where, chasing a cat somewhere, I suppose. That creature beats all for being busy about something that needn't be done. I've seen cows, said Winter, assuming a reflective tone, and I don't feel sure but I might get hold of yours if I wasn't so faint for want of breakfast and dinner and supper, that I don't feel equal to a snail, let alone a respectable cow. One thing Winter's vagabond life had effectually taught him. I am not sure he could have helped being impudent in tone and manner if he had tried, and it was long since he had heartily tried. Hungry are you, the woman said, surveying him? Of course, I never saw a boy who wasn't, and boys of your sort never amount to enough to be decently fed. Well, if you catch my cow and do it without making her do more mischief than she has already, I'll see to your supper. As for breakfast, you can look out for it somewhere else. Just so much resolution there was in Winter's heart. I'll catch the cow and milk her, and bring in the milk, and if she gives me a decent supper, I'll hang around here all night, and be on hand in the morning, and make myself necessary. He gave a low chuckle, as he recalled the good advice given him that morning from the fence post, then frowned and sighed. Some influence had gotten hold of the boy which he did not understand. The cow was easily reduced to order, the milk-pale stood on the stool, waiting, and Winter, going readily back to the accomplishments of his earlier boyhood, soon foamed the pail to the brim and brought it triumphantly towards the house, just as the mistress thereof, who had been called in another direction, was hurrying out to see the result of her experiment. Alas for Winter and his half-formed resolves. Startled by her sudden rush from the outer door, he sprang backward to save his milk from her onset, tripped against a treacherous root that had been overlooked, and sprawled headlong at her feet, literally soaking himself the while in the foamy milk, which streamed into each jacket pocket, into his ears, his eyes, everywhere indeed, but down his throat. Then did the wrath of the trim-looking woman burst forth. Why, in the name of common sense, did you have to meddle with the milk? Couldn't you do what you were told, without getting your dirty jacket into my milk-pail, and then spilling the whole thing over you in that fashion? You need mopping off in something besides milk, a pail of hot suds and a broom would be a good deal better. I might have known a boy couldn't do anything but mischief. Who told you to milk? Under this tirade, Winter arose, his face very red, milk in his hair and in his eyes, and streaming from his jacket. All the impudent swagger with which he had first spoken was gone. It was a fashion which he had adopted since he quite lost self-respect, and when he was excited or embarrassed it deserted him. He answered with almost the dignity he had been wont to give to Mrs. Josiah Griggs. I am very sorry about the milk. I'm used to milking, and I meant to help you and earn my supper. That old root ought to be dug up. It will do worse mischief than this some day. But it can't be helped now, and there's no use crying for spilled milk. Already he had dropped back into the impudent tone. The curious mixture in words and manner seemed to puzzle his listener. Well, she said, after giving him a prolonged stare. You are like the rest of them, only more so. Whatever folks do with boys. Give me your jacket, and I'll dry it for you at the kitchen stove and give you your supper, since I promised, though you've spilled milk enough to pay for a dozen suppers. And then do you tramp as fast as your feet can carry you. And when I apply to such a looking baggage as you for help again, I hope I may be— She was remarkable for not finishing her sentences. Winter opened his lips in a strong desire to tell her to keep her suppers, and that he did not thank her for offering to dry his jacket. But he was very hungry, and was used by this time to all sorts of treatment, and a jacket slippery with milk is a most uncomfortable thing. So at last he closed his lips over the saucy words which were struggling to come forth, drew off his jacket, and handed it to the woman without speaking. She took it between her thumb and finger, held it at arm's length, and regarded it with a disgusted and suspicious air all the way to the kitchen. Sit down there, she said, turning back as she reached the side door and pointing to the milking stool. Don't come any nearer to the house for pity's sake. Then she vanished. The boy sat down, his face more bitterly gloomy than ever. My little scheme of making myself necessary is all up. I've got to make myself scarce instead. Well, I don't care. That is just how I knew it would be. And that poor, foolish boy immediately went into a fierce state of feeling toward somebody or something he hardly knew what. Fate, he always named it in his thoughts. Hadn't he half meant to try? Hadn't he made a movement toward trying? And look what a damp and slippery scrape it had brought him into! I shan't try again, he muttered, and this seemed to him to be a sort of revenge, though who, beside himself, was injured by this line of action he did not know. Meantime Miss Hester Putnam had reached her neat kitchen, where the fire burned briskly and the kettle sang softly, and everything shone as though freshly polished that day. The ragged and dripping jacket was certainly a contrast. She held it over the square of oilcloth in front of the sink, and regarded it doubtfully. Mercy on me! What shall I do with the thing? It is nothing but one great rag, anyway. The idea of my having to touch it. It ought to be washed out. The milk will sour on it, and then it will smell worse than it does now. But I can't wash it. I would much rather put it in the fire. That is just what ought to be done with it. But I suppose it is better than nothing. There is that one which Don left, hanging in the attic, about the size—this. But dear me, this fellow isn't the sort of boy to wear Don's cast-off jackets? Still, if I've got to wash it, why then? I wonder what the pockets are stuffed with. There's a roaring fire, and I could poke the whole mess into the blaze, and open all the dampers, and have it over with. Only he might have something in the pockets. I wonder if I ought to look. Oh, dear me, what a mess that cow has got me into! And boney, I declare for it, he shall not have his supper anyhow. Well, if I must, I must. Whereupon, first taking the precaution to spread a good-sized newspaper on the floor, she turned the offending garment upside down and shook it vigorously, then stood back and looked at the little heap on the floor in undisguised dismay.