 CHAPTER 1 It was raining drearily, and but few people were abroad, that is, few comparatively speaking, though the streets seemed full of hurrying dripping mortals. In the large dry-good store business was by no means so brisk as on sunny days, and one of the younger clerks, whose station was near a window looking out upon the thoroughfare, had time to stand gazing at passers-by. They did not seem to interest him particularly, or else they puzzled him. His young, handsome face wore a thoughtful look, almost a troubled expression about his eyes, which seemed to be gazing beyond the passers-by. Just across the aisle from him, a lady, seated in one of the easy chairs set for the accommodation of shoppers, waited and watched him, a young and pretty woman tastefully even elegantly dressed, yet her costume was quite in keeping with the stormy day. The young man's face seemed to have special interest for her, though he apparently was unaware of her existence. A close observer would have discovered that she was watching him with deeply interested eyes. Whatever served to hold the thoughts of the young man apparently grew in perplexity, but the troubled look continually deepened. At last, forgetting the possible listener, he addressed the dripping clouds perhaps, at least he was looking at them. I don't know how to do it, but something ought to be done. It is worse than folly to expect good from the way that things are now managed. Esther would have known just what and how, and how interested she would have been. I tried to do her work and to redeem the time, but the simple truth is I don't know how, and nobody else seems to. These sentences were not given all at once, but murmured from time to time at his unsympathetic audience outside. Patter, patter, drip, drip, drip. Steady, uncompromising business. It was all the answer the clouds bout saved him. With the listener inside it was different. The interested look changed to an eager one. She left her seat and moved toward the absorbed young man, breaking in on his reverie with the clearest of voices. I beg your pardon, but are you thinking of your sister? You are Mr. Reed, I believe. I have heard of your sister's life and of her beautiful death, through a dear friend of my husband who loved Esther. I have always wanted to know more about her. I wanted to get acquainted with you, so I might ask you things about her. I am waiting now for my husband to come and introduce us, but perhaps it isn't necessary. Do you know who I am? It is Mrs. Roberts, I believe, the young man said, struggling with his astonishment and embarrassment. Yes, and you are Mr. Alfred Reed. Well, now we know each other without any further ceremony. Will you tell me a little about your sister, Mr. Reed? You are thinking of her just now. I was missing her just now, said he, trying to smile. As I very often am, I was a little fellow when she died, but the older I grow, the more difficult I find it to see how the world can spare her. She was so full of plans for work, and there are so few like her. It may be that she is working still in the person of her brother. He shook his head energetically, though his face flushed. No, I can only blunder vaguely overwork that I know she, with her energetic ways and quick wits, could have done and done well. It happens that she was especially interested in a class of people of whom I know something. They need help, and I don't know how to help them. It seems to me that she could have done it. Will you tell me who the people are? It is a set of boys for whom nobody cares, he said, speaking sadly. It hardly seems possible that there could ever have been a time when anybody cared for them, though I suppose their mothers did when they were little fellows. Thus spoke the ignorant young man, ignorant of the depths to which sin will sink human nature, but rich in the memory of mother love. I think of my sister Esther in connection with them, he said speaking apologetically, because she was peculiarly interested in wild young fellows like them. She thought they might be reached, that there might be ways invented for reaching them, such as had not been yet. She had plans, and they were good ones. I thought so then, little fellow that I was, and I think so now, only nobody is at work carrying them out, and I wonder sometimes if Esther could have been needed in heaven half as much as she is needed on earth. She used to talk to me a great deal about what might be done. I think now that she wanted to put me in the way of taking up some of the work that she would have done, but she mistook her material. I can't do it. Are you sure? You are young yet, and besides, you may be doing more than you think. Couldn't I help? What is there that needs doing for these particular young men? Everything, he said excitedly. If you should see them, you would get a faint idea of it. They come occasionally down to the Sabbath school at the south end. In fact, they come quite frequently, though I'm sure I can't see why. It certainly isn't for any good that they get. Their actions, Mrs. Roberts, surpass anything that I ever imagined. Who is their teacher? That would be a difficult question to answer. They have a different teacher every Sabbath. No one is willing to undertake the class twice. They have tried all the teachers who attend regularly, and several who have volunteered for once and never would attempt it a second time. Just now there is no one who will make a venture. Have you tried? He shook his head emphatically. I know at least so much. Why, Mrs. Roberts, some of them are as old as I, and indeed I think one or two are older. No, we have secured the best teachers that we could for them, but each one has been a failure. I suppose they must go. Go where? He shrugged his shoulders. What an awful question. Where will they go, Mrs. Roberts, if we let them slip now? He was tremendously in earnest. One could not help feeling that he had studied the possibilities and felt the danger. Suppose I try to help. Shall I come and take that class next Sabbath? This simple, directly put question brought the young man suddenly from the heights of his excitement into visible embarrassment. He looked down on the small fair lady, reaching hardly to his shoulder, attired in that unmistakable way which bespeaks the lady of wealth and culture, and could imagine nothing more incongruous than to have her seated before that class of swearing, spitting, fighting boys. Not that her wealth or her culture was an objection, but she looked so utterly unlike what he imagined their teacher must be. She was so small, so frail, so fair and sweet, and ignorant of the ways of the great wicked world, and especially of those great wicked boys. What could he say to her? He was so manifestly embarrassed that the small lady laughed. You think I cannot do it, she said, almost gaily. He hastened to answer her. Indeed, you have no idea of the sort of class it is. I have given you no conception of it. I cannot. You would think yourself before a set of uncaged animals. Yes, and in case of failure I should only be where the others are who have tried and failed. If you will introduce me and your superintendent will let me, I mean to try, and that will relieve you of the dilemma of being entirely without a teacher for them. Young Reed had nothing to say. He thought the attempt a piece of folly, a worse than useless experiment. But how was he to say that to the wife of his employer? That gentleman appeared just then, making haste. I was unavoidably detained, he explained. I feared you would grow weary of waiting. Ah, Reed! My wife has introduced herself, I see. Is he the young man you were speaking of, Mrs. Roberts? The very young man, Esther Reed's brother, he doesn't know how glad I am to have met him. Someday when we are better acquainted, and you trust me more fully, I am going to tell you how I became so deeply interested in your dear sister. Meantime this little matter should be definitely settled. Mr. Roberts, I have invited myself to take a class tomorrow down at the south end mission. Have you indeed? Mr. Roberts spoke heartily and seemed to my no means dismayed, only a trifle perplexed as to details. How can we manage it, Flossie? My prison class takes me in an opposite direction at the same hour, you know. Yes, I thought of that. I proposed to ask Mr. Reed to call for me and show me the way, and vouch for my good intentions after I reached there. Do you suppose he will do it? She looked smilingly from her husband to young Reed, and both waited for his answer. I obeyed directions, he said, bowing respectfully to Mr. Roberts. Am I to have the honor of being detailed for that service tomorrow? So Mrs. Roberts says, was the good humored reply, and then the merchant took his wife away to their waiting carriage that had drawn up before the door, leaving Alfred Reed if the truth must be told in a fume. Much she knows what she is talking about, he said, jerking certain boxes out of their places on the shelves, and then banging them back again, seeming to suppose that he was by this process putting his department in order for closing. A little bit of a dressed-up doll. They will tear her into ribbons metaphorically, if not literally, before this time tomorrow. She thinks because she is the wife of Evan Roberts, the great merchant, she can go anywhere and do anything, and that people will respect her. She has never had anything to do with a set of fellows who care less than nothing about money and position, except to be ten times more insolent and outrageous in their conduct than they would if she had less of it. I shall feel like a born idiot in presenting this pretty little doll to teach that class. Mr. Durant will think I have lost what few wits I had. What can possess the woman to want to try? It is just because she has no conception of what she is about. But Mr. Roberts must know. I wonder what he means by permitting it. In very much the same state of mind did our young man pilot his new and unsought for recruit into the crowded mission rooms of the South End on the following Sabbath afternoon. She looked not one witt less able to compete with the terrors which awaited the teacher of the formidable class. Her dress was simplicity itself, according to Mrs. Roberts' ideas of simplicity. Yet, from the row of ostrich tips that bobbed and knotted at each other, all around the front of her velvet hat, to the buttons of her neat fitting boots, she seemed to bring a new atmosphere to the room. Yesterday's rain was over and the pleasant south windows were aglow with sunshine. As Mrs. Roberts sat down, the sunbeams came and played about her face, and she seemed in keeping with them and with nothing else around her. The superintendent bestowed curious glances on her during the opening exercises. He had seen the shadow on young Reed's face when he seated her and had found time to question. Whom have we here? Mrs. Evan Roberts, she wants to try the vacant class. I did not ask her, Mr. Durant. She invited herself. Mr. Durant looked over at her and tried to keep his eyes from smiling. She looks very diminutive in every way for such an undertaking. It will frighten her out before she commences, will they not? I presume so, but I didn't know what to do. She wanted to come and I could not tell her she must not. No, of course, the occasion is too rare to lose. Very few people ask the privilege of trying that class. There is no teacher for them today, and your Mrs. Roberts must learn by experience that some things are more difficult than others. I will let her try it. Meantime, the boys of the dreaded class were studying the new face. She was the only person not already seated before a class, and they naturally judged that she was to be their next victim. They looked at her and then at one another, and winked and coughed and sneezed, and nudged elbows and giggled outright every one of them. Meantime chewing tobacco with all their might, and expectorating freely wherever he judged it would be most offensive. Alfred Reed watched them inwardly groaning. Being used to their faces, he could plainly read that they anticipated a richer time than usual, and rejoiced greatly over the youth and beauty of their victim. But young Reed was not the only one who watched. Mrs. Roberts, without seeming to be aware of their presence, lost not a wriggle or a nudge. She was studying her material, and it must be confessed that they startled her not a little. They represented a different type of humanity from her Chautauqua boys, or her boys in the Old Church at home, rather an advanced stage of both those types. When Mr. Durand came toward her, the look on his face was not reassuring, it so plainly said that he expected a failure, and was sorry for her as well as for himself. However, with as good grace as he could assume, he led her to the seat prepared for the teacher, and gave her a formal introduction. Boys, this is Mrs. Roberts, who is willing to try to teach you today. I wish you would show her that you know how to behave yourselves. Mrs. Roberts wished that he had left her to introduce herself, or that he had said almost anything rather than what he did. The mischievous gleam in several pairs of eyes said that they meant to show her something that they considered far more interesting than that. Many were the sympathetic glances that were bestowed on the young and pretty lady as she went to her task. As for Alfred Reed, there was more than sympathy in his face. He was vexed with the young volunteer and vexed with himself. He told himself savagely that this is what came of his silly habit of thinking aloud. If only he had kept his anxieties about that class to himself, Mrs. Roberts would never have heard of it and been tempted to put herself in such a ridiculous position, and if this episode did not break him of the habit, he did not know what would. He was presently, however, given a class of small boys, with enough of original and acquired depravity about them to keep him intensely employed and the entire school settled to work. Settled, that is, so far as the class of boys in the corner would permit the use of that term, they had not settled in the least. Two of them indulged in a louder burst of laughter than before, just as Mrs. Roberts took her seat, yet her face was in no wise ruffled. Good afternoon, she said, with as much courtesy as she would have used in addressing gentlemen. I wonder if you know that I am a stranger in this great city. You are almost the first acquaintances that I am making among the young people, and I have a fancy that I would like to have you all for my friends. Suppose we enter into a compact to be excellent and faithful friends to one another. What do you say? What were they to say? They were slightly taken back, surprised into listening quietly to the close of the strange sentence, and then giving no answer beyond violent nudges and aside looks. What did she mean? Was she chaffing them? This was unlike the opening of any lesson. It certainly could not be the first question on the lesson paper, nor did it sound like certain well-meant admonitions to try to improve the opportunity and learn all that they could. With each of these commencement they were entirely familiar, but this was something new. Do you agree to the compact? She asked, while they waited, her face bright with smiles. Don't know about that, said one of whom she very soon discovered occupied the position of a ring leader. As a general thing we like to be kind of careful about our friendships. We might strike something that wasn't quite the thing with people in our position. You can't be too careful in a big city, you know. It is impossible to give you an idea of the impishness with which this impudent answer was jerked out to the great amusement of the others who laughed immoderately. It suited Mrs. Roberts to treat the reply with perfect seriousness and composure. That is very true, she said courteously, but at the same time I ventured to hope that since you know nothing ill of me as yet you will receive me into a sort of conditional friendship with the understanding that I remain your friend until I am guilty of some conduct that ought to justify you in deserting me. I am sure you cannot object to that, and now if we are to be friends we should know each other's names. I am Mrs. Evan Roberts and I live at number 76 East 55th Street. I shall be glad to see you at my house whenever you would like to call on me. Now will one of you be kind enough to introduce himself and the class? Perhaps you will introduce me to your friends? She looked directly at the ring leader. Certainly, certainly, mum, he replied briskly. This is Mr. Carrot Pumpkins at your service, mum. This fellow on my left, I mean. Rather a queer name, I daresay you think. It all came of his being fond of sitting astride of a pumpkin when he was a little shaver, and of his hair being exactly the color of carrots, as you can see for yourself. And this fellow on my right is Mr. Champion Char, so called because he can make the biggest run on tobacco of any of the set, taking him day in and day out. That fellow at your elbow is Slippery Jim. We don't call him Mr. because he doesn't stay long enough in one place to have it tacked on to him. He is such a slippery scamp that an eel is nowhere compared to him. During this rapid flow of words, the listeners, who evidently admired their leader, became so convulsed with laughter as to lose all vestige of respectability, and Mr. Durant's disturbed face appeared in view. Boys, this is perfectly disgraceful, he said, speaking in sharp and highly excited tones. Perfectly disgraceful. I don't know why you wish to come here to disturb us in this way, sabbath after sabbath. But we have really endured enough. There is a policeman at the foot of the stairs, and he can easily call others to his help. So now if you wish to remain here, you must behave yourselves. During the deliverance of this sentence, some of the boys gave mimic groans, one of them whistled, and others kept up a running comment. A policeman? Oh, good, that's little Duffer, I know. We've seen him before. Wouldn't mind giving him a chase today just for exercise, you know, Mum? I say, boys, let's cut and run the whole caboodle of us. We can jump these seats at one bound and take the little woman along on our shoulders for a ride, shall we do it? This from the leader, who in time came to be known as Nimble Dick. Bah, no, said a third. Let's stick it out and see what she's got to say. She's a new party. Besides, we can't give her the slip in that way. We're friends of hers, you know. Mrs. Roberts, said the distressed Mr. Durant in a not very good undertone. I think you will have to give it up. They are worse than usual this morning. We have endured much from them, and I must say that my patience is exhausted. Will you not take the seat at the other end of the room? Not unless they wish me to. The people who had known Flossie shively well would have detected a curious little quiver in her voice, which meant that she was making a strong effort at self-control, but a stranger would hardly have observed it. Do you wish me to go away, young gentleman? The scamps, thus appealed to, looked at one another again, as if in doubt what to say. This again was new ground to them. Policemen they were accustomed to. At last, Nimble Dick made answer. No, I'm bound if we do. It comes the nearest to looking like a lark of anything that we have had in a long time. I say, parson, go off about your business and let us alone. We was having a good time getting acquainted till you came and spoiled it. We'll be as sober as nine deacons at a prayer meeting. And look out how you insult this young woman. She's a friend of ours, and we're bound to protect her. No asking of her to change her seat, she's going to sit right here to the end of the chapter. Mr. Durant looked his willingness to summon the police at once, but Mrs. Robert's voice, evenly poised now, took up the story. Thank you, then I will stay. And since it is getting late, suppose we lose no more time. There was something about which I wanted to tell you. But a few evenings ago I attended a gathering where I saw some very singular things. A gentleman in the party was tied with a strong rope, hands and feet, as firmly as two men could tie him. People who knew how to tie knots, and they did their best. Yet while we stood looking at him, he shook his hand free and held it out to them. How do you think it was done? Sham knots, said one. No, for my husband was one of the gentlemen who tied him, and he assured me that he tied the rope as firmly as he could. Besides, more wonderful things than that were done. I tied my own handkerchief into at least a dozen very hard knots, and gave it to him, and I saw him put it in a glass of water, then seize it and shake it out, and the knots were gone. I saw him take two clean glasses and pour water from a pitcher into one, and it seemed to turn instantly to wine. Then he poured that glass of wine into the other empty glass, and immediately it turned back to water or seemed to. Dozens of other strange things he did. I should really like to tell you about them all. I will at some other time. But just now I think you would like to know how he did them. How he did them? As if you could tell. Can you tell? Pitch in, Mom, I'd like to hear that part myself. These were some of the eager answers. Had the little teacher, under the embarrassments of the occasion, taken leave of her senses? Actually she was bending forward, opened Bible-turned-face downward on her knee, engaged in describing in somewhat minute detail the explanations of certain slight-of-hand performances which she had recently seen. What idea of the sacredness of the office of teacher and the salinity of the truce to be taught had she? The boys were listening, their heads bent forward all around her. What of that? They would have listened equally well to a graphically told story of a Fourth Avenue riot and been equally benefited, you think? They did not know just when the speaker slipped from the events of last week to the events of more than three thousand years ago. Indeed, so ignorant were they of all past history that they were not even aware that she went back into the past. For odd they knew she might have gone on Wednesday of last week to see the man who could untie knots by magic, and on Thursday to see the man who could drop canes on the ground that would appear to turn into wriggling serpents. But there was one statement that proved too much for their credulity. You could not imagine what occurred next, said the bright-faced teacher. The cane or rod that the first man had dropped actually opened its mouth and swallowed the other rods that seemed to be serpents and was left there alone in its triumph. Oh, Bosh, said Nimble Dick, contempt expressed in the very curve of his nose. That's too steep. I don't believe a word of it. These fellows can do lots of queer things. I've seen them perform myself, but they never made a live thing yet. I've heard folks that know say so. Precisely what I wanted to reach, said Mrs. Roberts with animation. You are right, they never did, and you have discovered just the difference between them and the one man of whom I have been telling you. He worked by the power of God. He distinctly stated that he did, and that God really turned his rod into a serpent and allowed it to swallow the imitations of life and then turned it back again into a rod to show that nothing was beyond his power. Did you see the thing done, questioned a young skeptic, running his tongue into his cheek in a skillful way and distorting his whole face with a disagreeable leer? He began to suspect that he was being cheated into listening to a Bible story. Mrs. Roberts was prompt with her answer. Oh no, I did not. Neither did I see the great fire that you had in this city about a year ago. At that time I was a thousand miles away, and it so happens that I have never talked with any person who did see it. Yet I know there was a great fire and many buildings were burned and lives lost. It has been proved to me. Oh well, said skeptic number two, while number one retired into silence to speculate over this answer. Fires are common enough things. Anybody can know that they happen, but it ain't such a common affair to see a stick turn into a serpent and swallow up other serpents. I've seen them fellows make things that looked like snakes myself. I could most swear to it I'd seen them wriggle, but they never did know swallowing. That is, they did not give unmistakable signs that they were alive. But do you think it too strange a thing for God to do? Surely He can make life. How is it that you are here breathing, talking, thinking, if there is no power anywhere to make life? Oh, I came from a tadpole, said the boastful young scientist, putting his thumbs under his arms and affecting an air of great wisdom. I know all about that. I was there and see the things wriggle. Evolution staring her in the face in a corner class in a mission school, a class that had been gathered from the slums. Mrs. Roberts did not know that these are the very places in which to find it in all its coarseness, yet she made haste to meet the boy on his own ground. Very well, if you choose to take that view of it. Was not the tadpole alive? Where did the life come from? You insist that the story I have been telling you is untrue because you know that none of these sleight-of-hand performers have ever, or can ever, make actual life. That it is an impossible thing for human beings to do. Yet when I tell you that God did it, you refuse the statement. How are you going to account for life? If, in its very lowest forms, it cannot be made by men who have given all their time to the study of the marvelous, how is it that it is everywhere about us unless I am correct and there is a power that can produce life? Not a boy among them had heard the term evolution, knew anything about the survival of the fittest. They were entirely ignorant of protoplasm or bioplasm. Yet not but one of them had caught the meaning of some of these terms as they had been translated for them into the vernacular of the city's slums. Not one in the class but perceived that their champion arguer had been met on his own ground and vanquished. Not with an outburst of horror, he had not even been informed that he was irreverent. Nimble Dick delighted in making each teacher tell him this. He had merely been replied to in the calmest of argumentative tones and called upon to account for the facts in his own statements and had been unable to do so. The crowd broke into a derisive laugh and were noisy it is true and brought troubled frowns to the face of their superintendent and made the flush on Alfred Reed's face deepen. Yet if both these anxious watchers had known it, it was worthy of note that the laugh had been at the expense of one of their number and not at their teacher. Well, go on, interposed the youngest and quietest of the group. Tell us more about your old fellow with his serpents. Did they stay swallowed and what did it all amount to anyhow? Thus challenged Mrs. Roberts gave her whole heart to the business of giving, in as dramatic a manner as she could, the closing scenes in the act performed in Egypt so long ago, carefully avoiding any reference to time and mentioning known names using only modern terms and an exceedingly simple conversational form of language. She was, however, presently interrupted with a question. When did all this happen and why don't somebody do something like it nowadays? Ignoring the first question, Mrs. Roberts adroitly gave herself to the second. Why don't you find your pleasure in tumbling around on the floor, playing with a bright colored marble or two as you did when a child? The world was in its childhood when God taught the people in this way. He has given them just as wonderful lessons since, but lessons more suited to men and women who have learned to think and reason. We don't like to be always treated as children. Whether they really dimly understood the meaning or not is possibly doubtful, yet it appealed to their sense of dignity in so indirect a way that they did not themselves realize what inclined them to quiet for a moment while she finished her sentence earnestly. In the midst of the quiet the closing bell rang and the seven young scamps seemed at once to take into their hearts seven other spirits worse than themselves and behaved abominably during the closing exercises and tumbled out of the door over each other in the wildest fashion the moment the signal was given, halting only to say in the person of their leader, you be on hand next Sunday we like your yarn's first rate. Mrs. Roberts with glowing cheeks and eyes behind which there were unshed tears made her way to the desk where Mr. Durant was standing and spoke quickly. There is a difference between others who have tried it and myself, Mr. Durant, the sentence in Mr. Reed's account that gave me courage was, everyone has failed so far, people are unwilling to take a class a second time, I have failed but I want to try again. End of Chapter 2, Recording by Tricia G Chapter 3 of Esther Reed Yet Speaking Though they rushed out with even more noise than usual every boy of them knew that the noise was to cover a certain sense of shame-facedness because they had actually been beguiled into listening quietly for a few minutes to earnest words. Directly they had reached the privacy of the street they became quieter. I say boys, said Nimble Dick, is that an awful green one or a new kind? Knew, I should say, replied one of the younger boys. She ain't like anything that's been in that room since we got acquainted with it. I don't know her style myself. What do you take it she meant by that stuff about being friends and telling us where she lived and all that? Don't know what she meant, but she ain't green, you may bet your head on that. I'll tell you what I think boys, I believe she knows what she is about every time. What this sage conclusion amounted to, one not acquainted with the dialect of the street might have been at a loss to understand, but the rest of the party received it in grave silence and nods of the head, as though it were a thought that needed careful investigation. In common parlance, Jerry Tompkins had expressed the opinion that Mrs. Roberts had some point to gain in being so uncommonly polite and attentive to them, and they were curious to know what the motive could possibly be. They considered the important question in silence until they reached the next corner, then Nimble Dick, tossing back his head as one who had thrown up an obstruous problem and would have none of it, said, Well, what next? We've got through with that fun today. What are you going to do, boys? Say we go around to Pokes and see what is going on there. To this proposition there was eager agreement from all the parties save one, he maintained a somewhat moody silence. What say, Dirk, the leader said, addressing him, are you ready for Pokes? No, I don't think I'll go around just now. What, then, if you've got something better on hand, why don't you let a fellow know? We're not dying for Pokes' place. I haven't got a thing on hand, only I don't care about going there. Where, then? Nowhere. Nowhere, mean place, too cold weather to stop in the streets. There'll be a good fire at Pokes. You come along, don't go to getting the salts, it ain't becoming, just after you've been to Sunday school. But the young fellow persisted in gloomily refusing to join them, and persistently they began to tease in what they meant to be a good-natured way. Dirk's struck, said one, that yellow-haired party has got him by the throat. I saw her looking at him most uncommon sharp when she was telling that biggest story of hers about the serpent that swallowed. Dirk, he thinks, he's been swallowed by one of them. He feels it choking in his throat. No, said another, that ain't it. Dirk's are going to get pious, that's his last dodge. I've seen the spell coming on for some time. Didn't you see him pick up that there Bible and lay it on the seat the other Sunday after Jerry's elbow knocked it off by mistake? I've been scared about Dirk ever since, and now he won't go to Pokes. It's a bad sign. I say, Dirk, maybe there's going to be a prayer meeting down your way, and you wouldn't mind letting us come? They expected him to laugh, but his face grew blacker than before, and at last he said in very significant tones, You better hold up there, Scrawly, if you don't want to try the depths of that gutter. Leave him be, said Nimble Dick quickly. He's going into one of his tantrums. When he begins like that, there's no end to the fighting that's in him, and I don't want to row now, it's too early in the day. Besides, I know something that's better, fun. You fellows come along with me and let him go. As this was said in a sort of undertone as Dirk strode on ahead, and when at another corner he dashed down it, leaving them all, there was no call after him. He was free to go where he would, and for reasons that he himself could not have explained, he chose that it should be home, that is, the place which he called home. It might not meet your ideas of what a spot's own name should be. The road to it led through one of the meanest portions of the city. Each foot of the way the houses seemed to grow more squalid-looking, and the streets filthier. The particular alley down which he dived at last was narrower and blacker than any yet past, and the cellar door which he pushed open led him into the meanest-looking house in the row, a long, low, dark room. In one corner there was the remnant of a stove, braced up by bricks and stones, but no fire was burning therein, though the day was cold. Furniture there was none, unless the usual rickety table and two broken chairs could be called by that name. The door was a jar that led to an inner cellar, and a glimpse of piles of offensive-looking rags that were called bedclothes by the family might have given you an idea of what their home life was, as hardly any other phase of it can. The rags were not all in the further cellar, however. A gay patchwork quilt, or at least one that had once been gay, but from which bits of black cotton now oozed in every direction, seemed to have curled itself in a heap against the one window. However, it moved soon after Dirk opened the door and showed itself to be more than a quilt. Inside was a young girl, the quilt wrapped around her closely, drawn up about her face and head, as if she would hide all but her eyes within, and try to get rid of shivering. You home, she said, her tones expressing surprise, but at the same time indifference. What is it for? Because I wanted to come. Hasn't a fellow got a right to come home if he wants to? Of course, and it's such a lovely home, and you are so fond of it, no one need wonder at your coming in the middle of the day. The sentence was sarcastic enough, but the tones were hardly so. They expressed too much indifference, even for sarcasm. Dirk surveyed her thoughtfully. He seemed to have no answer ready. In fact, his face wore almost a startled air, and really the thought which presented itself for consideration was startling. Something about the face of the girl, done up so grotesquely in her ragged quilt, suggested the lady who had been his teacher at the mission. Could one find a sharper contrast than existed between these two? Yet Dirk as he looked could not get away from it. What are you staring at? the girl asked, presently growing uneasy over the fixedness of his gaze. Do you see anything uncommon about me? Where's mother? he asked, dropping his eyes and turning from her. In there asleep. You didn't talk quite so loud. It won't hurt her to get a bit of rest. She sat up till morning poking at your old coat. Dirk looked down at it thoughtfully. There had been an attempt to make it decent, although the setting of the patches showed an unpractised hand, and they were of a strikingly different colour from the coat itself. You might have done it for her then in the day time, he said briefly, and added, Where's father? The girl shrugged her shoulders. How should I know? Where is he most of the time? You know more about it than I do, or ought to. You live on the street. He gave her an answer which seemed to surprise her. I say, Mart, what is the use in being so horrid cross all the time? You are so good-natured, she said, and everything is so nice and pleasant around me, it is a wonder that I should ever be cross. That's all lost, Mart, for I never said I was good-natured, nor thought I was, and if I don't know just how hateful things are, I should like to know who does. But after all, what good does it do to Snarl? Why couldn't you and me say a good-natured word once in a while just for a change? Try it, she said. I wish you would. I am so tired of things as they are now that most any change would be fine, but I'll risk your doing much in that line, it isn't in you. What was there in this cross girl to remind anyone in his senses of Mrs. Evan Roberts? Yet even as she spoke that last ungracious sentence, she turned a little so that a slant beam of sunshine, one of the few that ever found its way into this dreary room, laid a streak of light just across her hair, yellowing it until it was almost the shade that he had noted in the lady at the mission, and he thought of her again and wondered curiously whether, if Mart were dressed in the shining black dress and fur wraps and feather-decked bonnet that the lady had worn, she would really resemble her. How would Mart look dressed up, he wondered, even decently dressed, as the girls were whom he met on the streets? He had never seen her in anything much more becoming than the ragged quilt. He was studying her in a way that Mart did not in the least understand. She broke the spell suddenly again. Have you had any dinner? Dinner? Why no, of course not. Where would I find that sort of thing? I looked all up and down the streets and smelled plenty of it, but not a bite did I get. Where have you been? Oh, around in several places, not much of anywhere. I know where you've been, a severe light coming into her eyes. You've been down to the south end, and if I was you I'd be ashamed of myself. I know how you fellows go on down there. Sally Kelkins goes, and she told me all about it. She said she was ashamed to live on the same street with any of you, and that none of the folks in the mission knew what to do with you, and the next thing you knew you would be all marched off to the lock-up. Let them try it, muttered dick, his face growing darker. We'd make that street too hot to hold them in short order if they played at any such game as that, and I guess they know it. Well, anyhow, I wouldn't be meaner and lower down than I had to be, Dirk Coulson. It is bad enough as it is, a drunkard for a father, and we nothing more than beggars. But I'd behave myself half-way decent when I went among folks that wanted to be good to me, or else I'd stay away. Look here, you keep your preaching for them that wants to hear it, I don't. A fellow can't come home without having a row. If it isn't of one kind, it's another. I wonder I ever come home at all. Dirk was angry now, and his dark, thin face looked fierce with passion. His sister kept the curiously composed tone and manner in which she had said all her exasperating things. I wonder you do, she said. I suppose you get starved and can't help it now and then. There's some dinner I saved for you, if you want it, eat it, and then take yourself to some place that suits you better. As she spoke, she jerked open the door of a little cupboard near which she stood, and brought there from a much-cracked plate, on which lay a baked potato, with one end broken or bitten off, then carefully replaced, as if the owner might have had a second thought as to its disposal. There was also a bit of cornbread, somewhat burned, and half of a roasted apple. Meager as the fair was for a hungry boy, there was more variety than he had expected, and something in the simple preparation touched him and quieted his anger. Where did this come from, he asked, taking in the unaccustomed morsel of apple with two eager bites. I tell you, that is good. Sally Culkins gave it to me last night. She got one given to her somewhere. Just as the last bite was gone, it occurred to Dirk, first to wonder, and then to be almost certain, that his sister, having shared the apple, had saved her entire share for him. It was not the first time he had known of such an effort on her part to supply him with food. Had he thought of it sooner, he would certainly have left a bit of the dainty for her, but no thought of telling her so for an instant crossed his mind. Neither had she, on her part, the slightest idea of describing to him with what care and patience she and Sally had roasted the choice morsel before Sally's fire only last night, Sally's father being fortunately late in coming and so giving them a chance. Then she had borne hers home in a bit of paper, and carefully guarded it all day, just for this hour. Also she might have told him that she bit the end from the potato before she remembered that there would be none left for him, and then fitted it on again as best she could, and went without. She would not have told him for worlds. Why? She could not have explained why, something within her shrink from letting him know, not that she sacrificed for him, but that she cared enough for him to want to do it. Potato and cornbread were gone to the last crumb. It seemed to Dirk that there had been only enough of them to show him how hungry he was. I suppose there isn't anything more, he said wistfully, with the rising inflection indeed, but not as one who had any idea of receiving an affirmative answer. I should think there wasn't, defiance in the tone. There's a piece of bread that I kept for mother's supper, and I mean she shall have it. Well, don't bite me. I'm perfectly willing that she shall. Isn't there anything for a fire? Only some chips that I'm saving till mother has her nap out. You better go to bed yourself, then. It's awful cold here. I ain't going to stir from this corner so long as this streak of light lasts. It isn't so very often I see it that I can afford to lose it. Her brother turned and looked at her. She had gathered the folds of the ragged quilt about her again, and was crouching at the low window, and the very last gleam that the sunshine would vouchsafe them came and glimmered in her hair. There it was again that mysterious haunting resemblance. What would Mart think if he told her of it? Probably that he was trying to poke fun at her. At least he should not experiment. Yet he could not help wondering again how Mart would look if she were dressed like other people. I say, Mart, he began suddenly breaking the stillness. Let's you and I get out of this where it is warmer. Come and take a walk down on the avenue. The sun will shine yet for half an hour, and it is real warm and bright. In this quilt, she asked significantly, looking down at it. The boy's face darkened. Hasn't your shawl got out of pond yet? How should it? He flung himself angrily out of the broken chair, picked up his ragged cap, and strode angrily and noisily across the room out at the door, stumbling up the steps, like one half blind with disgust or rage, and went on swift feet down the street out of sight. And Mart, poor Mart, left thus to solitude, let the last beam of the sun go without watching, and buried her face in the ragged quilt and pride. Chapter 4 I Don't Blame Them It was not a pet name. Poor Mart Coulson would not have known what to do with a pet name. Her life had not taught her how to use such phrases. How she came to be named Martha, she did not know. But a hollow-eyed, sad-voiced woman could have told her of a country home long ago, where there were daffodils blowing in the early spring almost under the snow. Where, later, the earth was turned into sky, or the stars came down and gleamed all over her father's fields, so plentiful were the dandelions. And the breath of the clover came in at all the open windows, and the cows, her father's cows, coming home from pasture, in the tinkle of their bells were sights and sounds familiar to her ear. She sat there one summer evening in the back door, watching the glory and the peace, and studying between times her Sabbath lesson. Often and often the words came back to her in future years. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. That was one of the verses. Was it a dim memory of the words, and a sort of blind reaching out after their fulfillment, that led her to name her poor little two days old baby, Martha? The old home had vanished, the sweet scented meadows, the tinkling bells, the peace, and the plenty, were as utterly things of the past as though they had not been. Mother and father and one brother were gone, lying in grass grown neglected graves, and she, why the two days old baby's father was drunk, and had been for three weeks, a hard hateful sounding word, coarse almost. Why don't I say intoxicated? Oh, because I can't, I have no desire to find smooth sounding words with which to cover the sin of that baby's father. But the mother named her Martha. She never told her why, if indeed she herself fully knew. It was not a family name. Gradually after the fashion of the times, she sought to shorten the name, and because they had not sweet short words as pet and dear and sweet, all such belonged to happy homes, they grew to calling her Mart. And now even she herself hardly realized that she had ever owned to any other call. Poor Mart! I find myself wanting to use the adjective over and over again when I speak of her. Such a desolate, loveless life. Always a drunken father, she had never known any other. Always a sharp-toned, weary-eyed, disheartened mother, who shut her tenderness for the child within herself, as one who could not afford to show it. Then Dirk, the one brother, going astray almost as soon as he was born. What wonder from such a home? Yet Mart wondered and felt bitter over it. Why could not Dirk be like some others of whom she knew? Like Sally Kelkin's brother, for instance, who worked day and night and brought home often and often an apple or a herring, or sometimes even a picture paper for Sally. Mart was sharp-toned, all her life had taught her to be so. She spoke sharp words out of the bitterness of her heart at Dirk, and of late rarely anything but sharp words. Yet, and this was Mart's secret, hidden away as if it were something of which to be ashamed. She loved Dirk, loved him fiercely, with all the pent-up wealth of her young heart. And often, because she loved him, she was harsh and bitter towards him, though she did not herself understand why this should be. As for Dirk, he walked rapidly but for a few blocks. His dinner had been too insufficient to give him strength after the first aimless anger had subsided. Then came the question of what to do with himself. Why hadn't he gone with the fellows? More than likely some of them had contrived a way to get a dinner. Why had he persisted in sullenly leaving them all and going home? He had not the least idea why he had been impelled to go home. Now that he was fairly away from home again, he had no idea what to do with himself. A place where he could warm his feet and his hands, where he could get a bite to eat, possibly. This last would be an immense attraction, but was not a necessity, and he did not expect it. But warmth, at least, he felt he must have. Where would he find it? What place had been provided for such as he? He ought by this time to have been earning his own living, to have had a corner which he could call home earned by himself, where some of the decencies of life were gathered. Of course he ought, but the painful fact to meet just now was that he had not done his duty. He had gone astray, not so far but that there were plenty of chances to go farther, greater deeps to which he might yet reach, yet far enough to all but break any watchful mother's heart, only that his mother's heart was broken before he was born. The simple question waiting to be solved was this. Having done as poorly for himself as under the circumstances he well could, what was Dirk Coulson to do next? He had no idea. Neither, apparently, had multitudes of Christian people engaged in praying that the Father's will might be done on earth, even as it was in heaven. The young man walked six blocks down the respectable avenue, lined with pleasant homes, where the people went to church and read their Bibles and had family prayers and kept holy the Sabbath day. Not a door among them all opened and held out a winning signal to arrest his heedless feet. Not so Satan! Is he ever caught idling at his post? Just around the corner from the respectable avenue and around the corner Dirk presently turned, still uncertain what to do where to find the warmth he craved, then the winning invitations for such as he began to present themselves. Saloons and saloons and saloons, how many of them were there? Far outnumbering the churches. Pleasant they looked too, opening doors ever and anon revealing brightness and warmth within. They would like to see him inside. Of this Dirk was sure. Not that he had money, but he had something that in such places often served him well, a decided and dangerous talent for imitating any and every peculiarity of voice or manner, the chance to come under his notice. He could make the fellows in these saloons roar with laughter. If he did particularly well they were willing to order him a glass of beer or a fairly good cigar. In any case he had a chance to get warm. This was actually Dirk's only present source of income. Yet he shrank from it, he could not have told you why, but on this particular Sabbath he was averse to earning his coveted warmth in this way. He walked resolutely by two or three places where he had reason to think he might be welcomed, wondering vaguely whether there wasn't something else a fellow could do to keep himself from freezing. Oddly enough there seemed to be something about the glimmer of sunshine as he saw it in Mart's hair that kept him from halting before any of the places open to him. What if she had come out with him to take a walk? He could not have taken her into one of them. Then poor fellow he set himself to wondering where the place was, open and warmed, to which he could take Mart. There were places several of them in a large city, but Dirk knew nothing about them and he was acquainted with the saloons. He thought of another thing he had been invited to call at a house on East 55th Street. Suppose he should walk up there this very afternoon and ring the bell and say that he had come to call. What would happen then? Whereupon he laughed aloud, the fancy seemed to him so utterly preposterous, the idea of his making a call, the utter improbability of his ever seeing the inside of one of the East 55th Street mansions. Still remains that hopeless question. What should he do with himself? The sun was quite gone now and a cold wind was blowing up freshly from the north. It blew directly through Dirk's threadbare garments. He turned suddenly and slipped inside one of the worst of the many saloons, which literally lined this side of the street. He had refused to go with the boys to pokes an hour or two before and this was several grades below pokes in decency, but it was growing dark and he was cold. There was one young man who saw him dash down those cellar stairs, who stood still and looked at him, his face darkening the while with discouragement. This then was all the afternoon Sabbath school had accomplished for him. To be sure he was not disappointed at the result, it was no more than he expected, but it was so discouraging to be an eyewitness to the degradation to which these young wretches had fallen. Of course the young man was Alfred Reed and he went home and was dreary over all sorts of failures in Christian work, mission Sabbath schools especially, and their own more especially than any other. Among the early shoppers on Monday morning came Mrs. Evan Roberts. Shopping, however, seemed to be a small part of her business. She came directly to young Reed's counter and addressed him very much as though she had ceased talking with him but a moment before. Mr. Reed, what can you and I do for those boys during the week? But Alfred was at his gloomiest. I don't see that we can do anything for them at any time, he said dismally. What is an hour on Sunday set against all the rest of the time? They go from the school room to the room saloons and doddle away the rest of the day. Yesterday I met that young Coulson going into one of the worst saloons on Day Street. They are not to blame either. This lasts in a fiercer tone after a slight pause. I don't blame them. They have nowhere else to go and nothing to do, and it is cold on the streets and warm in the saloons. If he expected the small lady who was regarding him so steadily to take the other side of the question he was disappointed, she spoke quietly enough but with the earnestness of conviction. Those are startling facts. I do not see how one could be surprised that the results are as they are, and the practical question forces itself upon us. What are we to do under the circumstances? Mr. Reed, you have had your eyes open in regard to the subject for some time. What have you thought out? Now was Mr. Alfred Reed embarrassed? It was true that his eyes had been long open to the subject. It was true that he had given it a great deal of what he had called thought. But with those alert eyes fixed on his face, her whole manner indicating intense earnestness, he suddenly realized that all his thought had been to no purpose, had accomplished nothing, unless it had served to give him a feeling almost of irritation against the boys and their teachers who made failures, and the people who folded their hands and let things go to ruin. Here confronted him one whose hands were not folded, though they rested quietly enough on the counter before him. He began to feel that there might be latent power in them. I have nothing to say, and he said it at last with flushed face and embarrassed voice. I have thought out nothing. The whole thing seemed hopeless to me with my utter lack of resources. My sister had schemes, many of them, and they seemed to me good ones, even then. They seem better now, only I cannot carry them out. She caught at the name. Your sister, Esther Reed? Good, let us carry them out, you and I, and as many more as we can get to help us. She is at work yet, don't you see? What is that prophecy about her, that voice which the Prophet heard, you know, and I heard a voice saying unto me, Right, blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, sayeth the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them. How strangely the words sounded, repeated in her low clear voice, amid the hum of business, on every side. Alfred Reed felt singularly moved. He had been a highly strong imaginative child. He had been his sister Esther's almost constant companion, during those last months in which she was slowly fading out of sight. While Julia held steadily to her mother's side, and learned to do many helpful things, he had been stationed chief nurse in Esther's room, to see that she lacked for no tender care during the hours when others must be away from her, and those hours she had tenderly improved. He remembered to this day just how she looked, with a pink flush all over her cheeks, and a bright light in her eyes, as she talked to him of the things that she and Dr. Douglas had meant to do for boys, neglected, homeless, friendless boys. Oh, the plans they had carefully thought out, to reach after these forsaken ones. He remembered that his own cheeks had grown hot while he listened, and the blood had seemed to race like fire through his veins when she said, God wants me for something else, Alfred, but you will do my work when you get to be a man. You will find helpers, and carry it on as I wanted to do. He had made no audible answer, but he had told himself sturdily again and again that he certainly would. Yet here he was barely of age, and almost soured by disappointments. Certain well-meant attempts having proved failures, and having not found the helpers whom he had eagerly expected, the magnitude of the work impressed itself upon him more remorselessly each hour. Yet now he seemed to feel again the thrill in his veins, and he felt almost under the power of his sister's eye while those words were in his ears. They rest from their labours, and their works do follow them. Might it possibly be that this was one of the helpers of whom Esther used to talk, sent by God himself to take up her planned work and follow it out? Yet she was so utterly unlike his memory of Esther. She had seemed to him a self-reliant, strong-toned woman. Mrs. Roberts was so small and frail-looking, and so fashionably dressed, and how those boys had acted with her only yesterday. What could she possibly do? Customers came just then to change the current of his thoughts. They wanted round collars and deep collars and fissues and edges, and a hundred little irritating things. Young Reed, usually so gracious and patient, had much a do to keep from showing his annoyance over the smallness of all their wishes. In the meantime Mrs. Roberts, who had taken a seat, entered apparently with absorption into the relative merits of round or pointed collars with the young lady acquaintance. She patiently measured to discover whether the turned-down corner of one was a quarter of an inch deeper than the other or not. She gave, with due deliberation, her opinion as to whether the points were more becoming to the young lady's style of beauty than the rolling fronts, and even went to the trouble of unfastening her first to show still another style that she liked better than either, sending the disgusted Alfred to an entirely different box in search of a like pattern. As he went, his lip curled visibly. What a fool he had been to allow himself to get momentarily excited over this doll! How preposterous in him to mention his dead sister's name to her! She had already forgotten the entire matter, and was deep in the merits of collars. His first estimate of her had been the correct one. Her mind was just about as deep he believed as the tiny collar she was measuring. What a farce it was to talk to her about helping those poor fellows! She probably thought a few soup tickets and a chance for a good Christmas dinner at some of the public charity halls was the way to reach and reform them. He shouldn't help her, she mustn't expect it. Doubtless she did not. Probably she had by this time forgotten that she had suggested it. Why need she putter here about a few collars for a young lady in her own circle to wear with her morning dresses? That was just it, he told himself. It was because she was in her circle, and because the collars were to be honoured by being worn by such as she, that they became important, and the boys and their desperate needs sunk into insignificance. Well, he wished they would both go, and leave him to himself, give him a chance to rally from his momentary excitement of which he was now ashamed. At last the collars were bought, but not until the counter was strewn with different sorts, and the lady, with many bright little nothings for last words, moved off to another part of the store, and Mrs. Roberts whirled on her seat until her eyes were in full view again and said, What were some of her plans, Mr. Reed? Esther Reed Yet Speaking by Pansy Chapter 5 A Christian Home I don't suppose you can go into detail just now, she added, noting young Reed's hesitation and embarrassment, but I was wondering if you could give me some general idea of what she wanted to do or thought could be done. There were a great many things that she wanted to do, and I believe she thought they could be done, but I don't think she knew the world very well, said this aged cynic. She judged everybody from the standpoint of her own unselfishness. I remember she was not in sympathy with soup houses and dinner tickets and great public charities of that sort, or I don't know that I should say she was not in sympathy with them. I mean rather that those would not have been her ways of working. She was thinking of young people, and to give them a dinner now and then she would not have considered a very great step toward elevating them morally and spiritually. Mrs. Roberts, it was just that which she wanted to do, lift them up. She thought there could be invented ways of reaching them, so that they would want helping, want teaching, crave it, I mean. And she thought that Christian homes of wealth and culture could be opened to them, and they, gradually told in, made to feel on a level with others in the social scale. In short, she believed that instead of people going down to them in a condescending spirit, they could be drawn up to the level of others so that they could realize their manhood and be led to make earnest efforts to take their rightful places in the world. I know I am bungling dreadfully. I don't know how to tell you her plans, only that they were splendid. But I am afraid the world will have to be made over before they can be carried out. Perhaps so, Christ is at work making the world over, you know. The lady before him, whose eyes never for an instant moved from his face, spoke with exceeding sweetness and gravity. Neither by word or glance did she give him to understand that she thought his schemes wild. But I find that, after all, I want details. I catch a glimpse of the grandness of your sister's meaning. What were some of the steps, the little steps, such as you and I could take, toward accomplishing? Yet, even while I ask the question, I see something of what the answer must be, Christian homes opening to receive them. That is a new thought to me, and in the plural number I do not see how just now it could be done. But one Christian home, I ought to be able to manage that. Mr. Reed, that is the way to begin it, you may depend. Indeed, I suppose you have tried it. The city is full of boys, and many of them are away down. Since we cannot reach all of them this week, we must try to reach seven. And, failing in that, suppose we say one? For which one have you been working? Just who, at this moment, specially interests you? I hope it is one of my boys, because you see they appeal to me just now, as no others can. Which isn't Mr. Reed, and what have you tried to do for him, and to what extent have you succeeded? There were never any hotter cheeks than young Reed's just at that moment. This was the most extraordinary person with whom he had ever talked. It was impossible to generalize with her, not that he wanted to generalize. On the contrary, he at once saw the possibilities growing out of individual effort, and caught at the idea of undertaking something. But the question was, why had he not thought of it before? One person to reach after and try for, surely he might have attempted it, instead of trying to carry the hundreds that he stumbled against, and so accomplish nothing for any of them. It was humiliating the confession that he had to make. Indeed, Mrs. Roberts, I have not one in mind. If you asked me what one hundred I was most anxious about, I might possibly be able to answer. But I see that there has been no individuality about it, unless perhaps the half dozen or more boys who compose that class are taking a little stronger hold on me than any of the others. But even for them I have tried to do nothing, unless two or three attempts to secure a permanent teacher for them, which have ended in failure, may count for effort. I don't blame myself as much as I might, because now that you suggest personal work to me, I realize that there is nothing for one situated as I am to do. I have no Christian home at my command. Ah, but we are to come down to very small numbers, you know, to fractions, if need be. You have a piece of Christian home at command, I trust. But he looked at her inquiringly, and she explained. Why, you have the privacy of your own room, which is, of course, your corner of home just now, and it is a Christian corner. Is there not room in it sometimes for two? He smiled faintly over that. Mrs. Roberts, there is one thing with which you evidently are not familiar, and that is the corner which a poor clerk in the city has to call home. Mine is the fourth story back of a fourth-rate boarding house, where the thermometer drops often below the freezing point, and this place I share with as Uncongenial a fellow as ever breathed. What would you think of labeling such accommodations home, and what can I do in it for others? Not much, perhaps, smiling, unless for the Uncongenial fellow. I should think there might be a chance in this direction. Ah, but, he said eagerly, he is a Christian. My sympathies do not need to be drawn out in that direction. The smile was a peculiar one now, but the tone was very quiet in which the little lady said that some time, when they had leisure to talk, she should like to ask him whether his experience with Christians had been so exceptionally bright that he thought there was no work to do in that direction. But just now, she said earnestly, I want to know, since you are shut away from home effort, for which of these boys are you praying especially, and which of them do you carry about on your heart, with the hope of a chance meeting, an unexpected opportunity to speak a word or do a kindness, or look a kindness that shall give you possible future influence. Don't you have to work in those ways? Two people never equally interest me at the same moment. I find I must be intensely individual, not to the exclusion of others, but in praying. For instance, yesterday I prayed, and this morning I prayed for my entire class, but there was one all the time who was uppermost. I find myself questioning, what can I do for them all but especially for him? Do you know, I fancy that most Christians feel the same. Individual effort is so necessary that I have thought perhaps the Holy Spirit turns our thoughts most directly toward one person at a time, so that we may concentrate our efforts. Do you think this is so? Young Reed did not answer promptly. He had no answer ready that suited him. His strongest feeling just then was one of self reproach mingled with humiliation. How had he looked down on this fair and beautiful little woman, her very beauty being, he had fancied, an element against her when it came to actual effort? How had he allowed himself to sneer over her attempts at teaching that class of boys? How actually irritable had he been over it? How almost angrily he had questioned why it was that a teacher was not found for them fitted to their needs when he had prayed about it so much, determined not to believe that the prayer had been answered and the teacher found. Yet here she was, the one whose efforts he had despised, talking already about individual prayer for them, while he, who had done a great amount of fretting for them, had not once presented them as individuals to Christ and asked a definite blessing for each. His answer, when it came, was low and full of feeling. I have concentrated my desires in praying for the coming of such a teacher as might get hold of them, and I begin to think that I have an answer to my prayers. But she was absolutely proof against compliments. She wasted not a moment's thought on that but said, Mr. Reed, who are they? I tried to get their names yesterday, but soon saw that they were not in the mood to help me. I don't think I have one correct name. Can you give me a list? No, he could not, which admission did not lessen the glow on his cheek. Possibly he could mention the names of two and guess at a third, but of the others he knew nothing. To whom, then, can I go? Mr. Durant would know, of course. Where shall I find him? So much, Alfred knew. Mr. Durant was to be found at the Fourth National Bank, but, as for giving information in regard to that class, he was sure it was beyond him. He, Alfred, had asked only last Sabbath who the boy was who behaved so wretchedly, and also who was the fellow next to him, but Mr. Durant had not known. Well, then, Mrs. Robert said, nothing daunted, not even a shadow appearing on her quiet face, she must just study it out with his help. There is immediate work for you, she said. For, of course, I want to know their names. Who are the two? This Dirk Coulson whom you mentioned, which was he? Alfred described him as well as his bewilderment would allow, and was interrupted. Oh, the small dark one! I know, he interested me. Where does he live? But to this question no clear answer could be given, down in one of the alleys towards the south end. But just which alley, or how far down it, Alfred did not know. He knew it was a disreputable alley, and that there wasn't a decent home anywhere about it, and that was all. What does Dirk do for a living? This question was quite as difficult to answer as the other. Nothing, young Reed believed, at least nothing regular. Odd jobs he doubtless picked up occasionally, but as for regular employment, Alfred was sure he had none. Is that his fault? I mean, doesn't he desire work and make an effort to secure it? But this young Reed could not even pretend to answer. Work, for such as he, was scarce. Boys with better habits, brought up to be industrious, were at this present time out of work. Possibly the fellow was not to blame for being an idler. Many other questions were asked, and many attempts were made at answers. But when the shoppers began to press in to such a degree that their conversation was broken, and the energetic seeker after information felt herself obliged to retire, one thing had been accomplished. Alfred Reed had been made to realize that he knew much less than he had supposed he did about the seven boys who had seemed to be filling his thoughts for several weeks. And also, in his eager, passionate desire that everything should be done for all of them, he had overlooked the chances for doing here and there some little thing for one of them. Good morning, Mrs. Roberts had said, turning cordially to a fashionably dressed lady. Collars? Oh yes, this is the counter for them to be found in endless variety. They have a new pattern that I have been admiring. Mr. Reed, please show Mrs. Emery the curtain collars with embroidered coins. Which thing Mr. Reed proceeded to do with alacrity and respect, no trace of the earlier contemptuous feeling shadowing his face. Here was a woman who knew stylish collars when she saw them, and who also knew several other things, and had taught him a lesson this very morning that he would not be likely to forget. But Mrs. Roberts, as she made her way out from the fast-filling store, felt that she had not made great progress toward getting acquainted with her class. Still, it must be admitted that if young Reed had gotten some new ideas, so also had she. A Christian home. She found herself repeating the phrase, lingering over it, wondering if her new home in every sense of the word merited that title. It cannot simply mean a home where Christ is honored, she said to herself. I surely have that. It rather means a home where everything pertaining to it serves his cause. The very furniture and the light and the brightness are made to do duty for him, else they have no place there, and I, labeled Christian, have no right to them. Can they bear the test, I wonder? What is there that I can do with all the beauties of my parlors? There are things that I have not done. I can see some to do. But how can my Christian home serve these boys? When I get them into it, of course it will work for me. But how to get them in? Who are they? I wonder what spring I can touch to give me even this meager bit of information. As if an answer to her mental query, she came just then full upon policeman Duffer. She recognized him instantly. A man who, though by no means small, was so far from having the majestic presence of most policemen that, in the estimation of the boys, he mirrored the name Little Duffer. Mrs. Roberts carried to her new work one talent not always to be found among even efficient workers, the ability to remember both names and faces. Especially did a name seem, without any effort on her part, to fasten itself upon her memory. And not only that, but it brought with it a train of memories enabling her to locate when and where and under what circumstances she heard the name, and therefore generally whom the name fitted. Recognizing the features of the policeman whom she had seen at the door of the South End Mission, she connected him at once with the term Little Duffer, heard in her class, and addressed him. Mr. Duffer, I believe. It is safe to say that policemen Duffer, entirely accustomed as he was to hearing himself addressed officially a hundred or a thousand times a day, was yet utterly unaccustomed to the prefix of Mr. and started in surprise. Are you not the gentleman whom I saw at the South End, Les Sabbath? The policeman admitted that he probably was. He was detailed for duty there. Then she plunged at once into business. Did he know the boys who attended that school? Some of them he did, better than he wanted to, and a precious set they were in policemen Duffer's opinion. Might as well go out to the zoo, he declared, and get a set of animals and try to tame them. Mrs. Roberts was not in the mood to argue. She was bent on information. Did he know, she wondered, the boys who composed her class? She had just taken the class, and was so unfortunate as not to be acquainted with their names. One was Dirk Coulson, and another she had heard was Haskell, Timothy Haskell perhaps, though of that she was not certain. Did that give Mr. Duffer any clue? Plenty of clue, he said, shaking his head. So you've taken that class, ma'am? A curious mixture of amazement and credulity in his voice. What possessed you, if I may be so bold? They're a hard lot, ma'am. I know them, as I said, altogether too well. I've had enough to do with some of them, and I expect more work from them. They gain in wickedness in a most surprising way. Their names, yes. They're Scrawly, and Sneaking Billy, and Black Dirk, him you know. Mrs. Roberts interrupted him. She begged his pardon, but could those really be the boys' names? Were they not rather some unfortunate street names that had been fastened upon them? Thus brought back to his senses, policeman Duffer laughed and admitted that he supposed Sneaking Billy was properly called Snyder, but he was once caught in a mean trick from which he tried in so many ways to squirm out that the boys had themselves named him Sneaking Billy, and the name had stuck. As for Scrawly, his real name was Stephen Crawley. How it became contracted into Scrawly, the boys could tell better than anybody else. They always called him that, and so did other people. And policeman Duffer was inclined to doubt whether the fellow remembered that he had any other name. You can see yourself, ma'am, he added, how Black Dirk came by his name. He's the blackest white fellow as I ever saw, and I've seen crowds of them. The streets were full, and policeman Duffer was being interviewed by a great many people in regard to all the questions that policemen are expected to answer. But by dint of patient waiting, one foot poised on a curb-stone to keep it out of the mud, making hurried little memoranda while policeman Duffer was engaged and earnestly plying her questions when he was at leisure, Mrs. Roberts learned the names of her seven boys and where several of them lived. End of Chapter 5, Recording by Tricia G. Chapter 6 of Esther Reid Yet Speaking This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Esther Reid Yet Speaking by Pansy. Chapter 6. Satan He Has Them All the Week That black Dirk is a case, said policeman Duffer, turning hastily away from an unusually stupid man who could not be made to understand where a certain street was. He is the worst of the lot, I believe. Jerry Tompkins is slyer, and Dick Bolton is quicker than lightning at mischief. Nimbledick, they call him. He's a sort of ringleader. What he does, the rest are apt to. But to my thinking, Dirk is ahead of them all for evil. The rest are kind of jolly. Fun seems to be about half that they are after. But Dirk, he's sullen. You never know how to take him, nor when he may burst out on you. He's dangerous. I am always looking out for something awful that he will do. Poor Dirk. Yet he was the boy to whom Mrs. Roberts' desires had gone out the most anxiously. It was over his image that she had lingered that morning in her closet. Policeman Duffer would have been greatly astonished had he known that there was that in his words which gave her courage. Perhaps, she said to herself with quickening breath, oh, perhaps the poor boy is the most in danger of them all, and the Saviour knowing it sees ways in which I may reach him, and so presses his poor sullen face on my memory. What does he do for a living? She hastened to ask. Well, to the best of my knowledge, he loaves for a living. That's all I've ever known him guilty of doing. He's got a drunken father, one of the meanest kind of drunkards. If he would go and stay drunk all the time and leave them alone they might manage. But he has spells of getting half over it, and coming home and tearing around like all possessed. Then they have times. I've been in there when it took all my strength to manage him. If he would get killed in one of his rouse I'd have some hope of the rest of them, but he won't. That kind of folks never do get killed, it's the decent ones. A fellow was carried by here just with a broken leg, a nice decent boy, works hard to help his sister. He's the sort now that gets his leg broken and gets laid up for the rest of the winter. How do you account for that? He lives pretty near black dirks. Of course he's got a drunken father, they all have in that row, but if I was going in for benevolence I'd twice as soon do something for young colkins as for any of your set. They're a bad lot. They aren't worth lifting a finger for, now that's a fact. And yet, said Mrs. Roberts, her voice tremulous with a feeling that just then surged over her, how can I help remembering that if the Lord Jesus had said that of us and stayed up there in his glory we should have been utterly without help or hope today? Very much astonished was policeman Duffer. Ladies on all sorts of errands had consulted him. He had been presented with many tracks in his day, but rarely had a clear-voiced, earnest-eyed woman quietly confronted him with that name as if it contained an unanswerable argument. However, he was not embarrassed, it took a great deal to embarrass him. I don't take much stock in him, he said, with a lofty toss of his head and a careless tone as though the question were one easy to dispose of. I don't believe in him myself. Do you know him? earnest eyes raised to his face, fixed steadily on his face while the questioner waited quietly for an answer. Policemen Duffer was embarrassed now. He was not used to being confronted with such matter-of-fact questions. Do I know him with a confused little laugh? Why, I reckon not, ma'am. According to the popular notion he is too far away for folks to be well acquainted. Then popular notion is mistaken, for I know him very well indeed, and he is by no means far away. But what I meant was, have you studied his life and character, and do you fully understand the arguments for believing in him? I study the folks who profess to belong to him, ma'am, and I find that about as much as I can stand. This was said with a saucy little laugh, and with the air of a man who believed he had produced an unanswerable argument. The steady eyes did not move from his face, and the voice which answered him had lost none of its quietness. But do you think it is wise to spend your time in studying the imperfect copies without looking at the perfect pattern? You would not take the child's careless imitation as a proof that his teacher could not write. I thank you for helping me today. I wish you would help my boys when you can, and I wish you would study my master instead of me. Good morning. That's a queer party, did policeman Duffer exclaim, as he watched her far down the street. I'm blessed if I wouldn't like to know who she is. She ain't like the rest somehow. Her boys, much she knows about them. Her bears, she might as well call them. What does she think she can do with that set in her little hour Sunday afternoon? Satan, he has them all the week, and looks after them sharp. And then these Christians come in of a Sunday and mince a little, and think they can upset his doings by it. Shows their sense. But she's a curious little party, sharp without knowing it. I'm blessed if I don't keep an eye on her and save her from scrapes if I can. In the meantime, all unconscious of his good intentions, Mrs. Roberts pursued her way down the thronged avenue and presently turned from it entirely and moved down one of the side streets with resolute steps. A daring thought had come into her mind. She would try to find the alley where one, at least, of her boys lived. It couldn't be worse than some of the alleys at home which she had penetrated. She felt certain that by following the policeman's directions she could find the place and possibly be able to minister to the boy with the broken limb. At all events it was necessary for her to know how her boys lived and where they lived if she were to reach them. But there were alleys and alleys, as the venturesome lady found to her cost. This one into which she was plunging excelled anything in that line which she had ever imagined, swarming with life in its most repulsive forms and growing every moment more terrifying to a well-dressed woman braving its horrors alone. She stopped in dismay at last, admitting reluctantly that the wisest thing she could do was to turn around and go home. Possibly the wisest, but not it appeared, practicable. Where was home? Down which of the cross streets had she come? Did this one where she stood lead to it, or did it lead as it appeared to her in an entirely opposite direction? She looked up and down in a cross for some familiar landmark and looked in vain, growing momentarily more frightened at the attention she was attracting by standing irresolutely there. Flossie Shipley in her girlhood days had been almost a hopeless coward and Flossie Roberts felt, by the throbbing of her heart, that she had not yet outgrown her girlish character. Suddenly she gave a little exclamation of delight and with a spring forward laid her hand on the arm of one whom she recognized, none other than Nimble Dick himself. I am so glad, she said to the amazed young scamp, a little quiver of satisfaction in her voice, so glad to have met you. Do you know you are a friend in need? I have lost my way. I cannot decide which way to turn to reach Fifth Avenue again. Will you help me, please? When had Nimble Dick lost an opportunity for fun at the expense of another? Here was a chance for a jolly lark, a woman scared to death because she was on green alley. What would she think of Burke Street? Suppose he should send her there, only three blocks away, though a lovelier part of the city than she had seen yet he would venture. If the crowds here showed her too much attention, it would be worth something to see how she got through Burke Street. Oh yes, he said briskly. I can show you the way in the twinkling. You just go down this alley till you come to the big house on the corner that has the windows all knocked out of it. Then you turn and go down that street till you get to the third crossing, then turn again to the right, and you'll be on Fifth Avenue before you know it. Had Mrs. Roberts been looking at his face, she would have seen the wicked light dancing in his eyes over the thought that he had thus mapped out for her a walk through the very worst portion of the city, every step of course leading her further and further away from Fifth Avenue. The sights that she might see, and the mishaps which might occur to her, a handsomely dressed woman alone, before she made her way through the horrors of these streets, were too much even for Nimble Dick's imagination who knew the locality well. He did not try to calculate them, but gave himself up to the enjoyment of imagining how long it would be before she would reach home if she followed his directions. She won't see no swallowing serpents that I know of, he reflected gleefully, but I'll miss my reckoning if she don't see what will scare her worse than they would. But Mrs. Roberts was already scared. She felt her heart beating hard, and knew that her cheeks were aglow with excitement and vague terror. She was not used to walking such streets alone. She looked ahead at the way pointed out, and could see that this warming life grew more turbid as far as her eye could reach. She felt that she could not brave its terrors unprotected. Suddenly she turned from looking down the alley, and her hand, a small delicately gloved hand, was again laid on Nimble Dick's arm. He could feel it trembling. I suppose I shall seem very foolish to you, she said gently, but I am afraid to walk down there alone. Would you mind going along with me to protect me? I am only a woman, you know, and we are apt to be cowards. A very curious sensation came over Nimble Dick. He looked up the alley and down the alley, and was glad that not one of the fellows was in sight. What was to become of his lark? But there was that hand still resting on his arm, with a persuasive touch in it, and he had never been appealed to for protection before, never in his life. Was it possible that with him she would not be afraid? He turned and looked at her, searchingly a scowl on his face. No, she was not shaming. Her eyes were full of anxious fear, and also of petition. Nimble Dick was amazed at himself, and ashamed of himself. He did not know how to account for his sudden change of intention. But he suddenly turned in an opposite direction, from the one which he had pointed out, and said, Come on, then, I'll show you a shorter way, and strode forward. Oh, thank you, she said, relief and gratitude in her voice. I shall be so much obliged to you for coming with me. I am quite bewildered. Cannot decide which way I came, or anything about it. I was trying to find the house of a young man who has been hurt. A policeman told me that he lived on this street, and that his name was Culkins. I was thinking about him, and walked on without noticing, until I did not know where I was. Do you know anything of the young man? You are too far down for him, said Nimble Dick. He is quality and lives at the upper end of the alley. That's his house, a way up there. He's hurt bad, they say, but I suppose he'll get well. He's got a quality doctor, a regular swell, who never come into these alleys before. He was going along when they brought Mark home, and he followed them in, and he come there again last night in this morning. I don't know what for, I'm sure. Mark Culkins can't pay no doctor's bills if he does work regular, and pay more rent than the rest of folks. There was a curious mixture of complaint and satisfaction in Dick's tone. Mrs. Roberts gathered from it that the young man, Mark Culkins, in whom the policeman had tried to interest her, was superior to the rest of the miserable people in the alley, and that they resented it as an insult to themselves. But that at the same time, the reflected honor of having a swell doctor come into their midst, attendant upon one who really belonged to their class, was very great. Could she possibly get a little influence over them by following up the injured young man and giving what help was needful? She had hardly meant to call, though trying to find the house. Her method of reasoning had been something like this. The policeman said that he lived about two blocks from my poor Dirk's home, since there has so recently been an accident, there may be something to mark the house, a doctor passing in possibly, or something that shall give me a landmark, and I can have a glimpse of the outside of one of the homes. In her ignorance of life at that end of the social scale, she did not know that a doctor passing in and out, even after an accident, was a sufficiently rare occurrence to make much more of a mark than she was looking for. So absorbed had she been over the boys belonging to her class that she had rather ignored the policeman's manifest hint to add this one to her list. Yet was it possibly an answer to her prayer, an entering wedge of some sort that might open the way to influence? Who is the doctor, she asked her guide, as the possibility of making an entrance through him occurred to her. Do you know his name? Oh yes, Dick knew his name and where he lived, and even the names of some of his swell patients. Trust him for gaining information about anything that came into the alley. It's Dr. Everett, he said promptly, that curious touch of pride again appearing in his voice. He lives a way up among the twenty-thirders, and he goes to Katie's house to doctor, and lots of them places where the big ones lives. I don't know how he happens to come here. Mrs. Roberts had never heard the name, but she reflected that she was a newcomer and wisely desisted from taking from the glory of Dr. Everett by admitting that he was not known to all the world. He might be a good doctor in a philanthropic one. His visits to this region looked like it. Do you know where any of the boys in our class live? This was her next carefully worded question. She did not know whether to hint that she had heard of one who lived in that alley, or whether this would be considered an insult. Well, said Nimble Dick, the sly twinkle coming back to his eyes that the strangeness of the situation had driven away for a moment, I calculate that I know where I live myself. Sometimes I do anyhow. To be sure, she said, laughing at his humor, I should have said where any of the others live. Of course, you will give me your address after being so kind as to see me to some point where I am acquainted. She had nearly said a place of safety, but checked herself in time. I am not sure, though, that Dick would have noticed it. He was lost in astonishment over the idea of giving anybody his address. This is Dirk Coulson's house, he said suddenly, and he is one of our fellows. Mrs. Roberts uttered an exclamation. The house was one of the most forlorn in the row, seeming, if the miserable state of the buildings would admit of comparison, to be more out of repair than the others. It came home to her just then with a sudden desolating force, that human beings, such as she was trying to reach, and such as she hoped would live in heaven forever, called such earthly habitations as these homes. What possible idea could they ever get of heaven by calling it home? Do they have the whole of the house? She asked the question timidly, for the building looked very large, but she was utterly unused to city tenement life. The whole of that house? Dick fairly shouted the sentence, and bent himself double with laughter. Well, I should say not, mom. As near as I can calculate, about thirty-five different families have that pleasure. The whole of the house? Oh, my, what a greenie! And he laughed again. Mrs. Roberts exerted herself to laugh with him, albeit she was horror-stricken. Thirty-five families in one house? How could they be other than awful in their ways of living? I know almost nothing about great cities, she said. My home was in a much smaller one. This was the truth, but not the whole truth. Instinct kept this veritable lady, in the truest sense of the word, from explaining that she knew nothing about the abject core when she was speaking to one of their number. Just at this moment occurred a diversion. They had been making swift progress through the alley, Dick's long strides requiring effort on his companion's part to keep by his side, but just ahead the way was obstructed. End of Chapter 6. Recording by Trisha G. Chapter 7 Of Esther Reed Yet Speaking. This LibriBox recording is in the public domain. Esther Reed Yet Speaking by Pansy. Chapter 7. What a little schemer it is. A riot, not among men, which is sufficiently terrifying, nor yet among women, which is worse, but that most awful of all sights and sounds of sin, a riot among children, swearing, spitting at one another, tearing one another's hair, scratching like tigers, growling like wild beasts, throwing garbage at one another. This was the sort of crowd upon which Mrs. Roberts, in her black silk walking suit, with her velvet hat and seal furs, presently came. She grasped at Dick's arm in horror, but a feeling that was more than terror was taking her strength away. Oh, she said, and the agony in her voice really suggested more than terror to the young fellow beside her. And they are little children. They cannot be more than seven or eight. Oh, what can I do? You needn't be scared, mom. There was a little hint of something like pity in Dick's voice. She clung to him so that he could not help feeling himself her protector. It ain't an uncommon row at all. They mostly act like this. Most likely one of them found a bone and Tother one wants it, and then they're gone in for a row, and all the young ones crowd around and fight on one side or Tother. Did this fearful explanation make the situation less terrible? There was a lull, however, in the quarrel. The elegantly dressed lady was seen approaching, an unusual sight in that alley, and both parties paused to get a view. Posed in their attentions to each other, that is, but at Mrs. Roberts they hooded and jeered, and one threw a handful of mud. Then did Nimble Dick rise to his position as protector. Shut up there. Stand aside, Pluck, and let us pass. Look out there, you smirky. Don't you throw that over here unless you want your head broke for you when I give back. This threat was thrown at a wretched little girl who had dived her hand deeply into a box or cask of garbage, and brought it forth wreaking with rotten apples, pork fat, and any liquid horror which the name suggests to you. She had her hand uplifted ready to throw, and was evidently intending to give the strange lady the benefit of what she had prepared for one of the rioters. The assured tone in which Nimble Dick spoke had its effect. The combatants were all small and he was large, and was evidently recognized as a power. There were some defiant flances thrown at him, but the motley crowd gave way and allowed him to pass uninjured. Still he kept an alert watch of them until quite out of reach, and was not sparing of his admonitions. Hold on there, Bill. I see that. Look out, Sally. You'll be sorry if you throw anything, mind you that. And at last they were through the crowd. Not out of danger, it seemed, for there, directly in their narrow path, was a drunken man, swaying from side to side in the way which is so terrible to one unused to such size. Dick felt the hold on his arm tightened, and was astonished at the sound of his own voice as he said soothingly. You needn't be scared at him, Mom. That's only old jock. He's as ugly as old Nick himself, but he knows better than to be very ugly to me. I can throw him in the gutter as easy as I could them young ones, and he knows it. That's Dirk's father, that is. Ain't he a beauty? And again Mrs. Roberts uttered an exclamation of dismay, and part of her terror went out in sorrow over the rungs of a boy who had such a home and such a father. What ought to be expected of him? That interminable alley was conquered at last, and they emerged into respectability on the Broad Avenue. Mrs. Roberts released her hold of her protector's arm, and his new character vanished on the instant. You're here, Mom, he said, with a saucy twinkle in his eye and a saucy leer on his face. Can you get yourself home from the spot, or shall I borrow a wheelbarrow and tote you there? Mud shaken with various emotions though she was, Mrs. Roberts forced herself to laugh. She would not frown on his fun when it was not positively sinful. He might not be aware that it was disrespectful. He might never have heard the word. I know the way now, thank you. At least I think I do. Can you tell me whether I take a green car or a yellow one to get to East 55th Street? You take a green one, he said quietly, his character of protector having returned to him with the question, which still showed her dependence on him. Thank you, she said again with great hardiness. I shall never forget your care of me. Her hand was in her pocket, and a bright coin was between her fingers. She longed to give it to Nimble Dick. He had saved her from so much this morning. And he was so miserably clad, surely he needed help. A moment's reflection, and she resolutely withdrew her hand. He should be paid by a simple hearty thank you this morning, for kindness rendered. He might not consider it a current coin, but possibly it would be his first lesson in the courtesies of life. Later in the day when Mrs. Roberts was somewhat rested from her morning's campaign, young Reed received a little note. Dear Mr. Reed, I know the names of all the boys, and enclose you a list. It is possible that you may fall in with someone during the day who can impart knowledge concerning them. Anyway, I thought you would like to know their names. Keep me posted, please, as to your success in making their acquaintance. We are allies, remember? Yours for the master, Mrs. E. L. Roberts. Alfred Reed twisted the delicate note paper thoughtfully in his hand, a look of perplexity on his face. He felt committed for labor. Glad was he, very, yet perplexed. He did not, in the least, know where to commence. Well, neither had this little lady, yet she had accomplished more in her one day's acquaintance than he after a lapse of weeks. Either she had found opportunities, or had made them. There must be chances. He would be sure to keep his eyes open after this. In the handsome house on East 55th Street, where Mr. Roberts had settled his bride, after a somewhat extended business tour involving months of absence, matters were entrained for a cozy evening in the library. That was the name of the beautiful room where the husband and wife sat down together, but it was quite unlike the conventional library. Books there were in lavish abundance, but there were also pictures and flowers and a singing bird or two, and an utter absence of that severe attention to business details, which characterizes most rooms so named. Little prettinesses, which Mr. Roberts smilingly admitted did not belong to a library, were yet established there, with an air of having come to stay. We will call it the library for convenience, the master of the house said, and then we will put into it whatever we please. It shall be a conservatory, and a sewing-room, and a lounging-room, and anything else that you and I choose to make it. And Mrs. Roberts gleefully assented, and gave free reign to her pretty tastes. Flossy Shipley had been want to be much trampled with the ways in which they did everything, but Mrs. Evan Roberts was learning that, in unimportant matters at least, they had a right to be a law unto themselves. Perhaps it helped her to be aware that a large class of people were all ready to quote Mrs. Evan Roberts as authority on almost any point of taste. On the evening in question, Mr. Roberts, in dressing gown and slippers, had drawn his lounging chair to the drop light, preparatory to a half hour of reading aloud, but it transpired that there was something preparatory to that, or at least that must take the precedence. Certain business telegrams followed him home, which required the writing of two or three business letters. It will not take me long, he explained to his wife, and they are not complicated affairs, so I give you leave to talk right on while I dispatch them. She laughed at this hint about her fondness for talk, but presently made use of the privilege. Evan, what sort of a young man do you consider Mr. Reed? Reed? Who? Oh, my clerk! The very best sort, a most estimable fellow, one of a thousand. By the way, did you tell him how you became interested in that sister of his? Not yet, I want to get better acquainted. But Evan, do you know where he boards? Hardly, on Third Avenue somewhere, I believe, or possibly second. The store register should show. Do you want his address? Oh, I know where it is, but I mean what sort of a place is it? Mr. Roberts slightly elevated his shapely shoulders. It is a boarding house where many clerks board. That tells a doleful story to the initiated, I suspect, poor fair and dismal surroundings. Still, it is eminently respectable. Where does he spend his sabbaths? The rapidly moving pen executed nearly two lines of handsome writing before Mr. Roberts was ready to respond to this question. Why, at church principally, I fancy, he is very regular in his attendance at morning service, and the south end mission absorbs his afternoons. I suppose he goes to church in the evening, but since we have been giving our attention to that evening mission, I have not seen him. Ah, but Evan, I mean the rest of the time, those little bits of sabbath time that are sacred to home, the twilight, for instance, or for an hour in the morning. Do you know what sort of a place he has for those times? Nearly three more lines added to the paper than Mr. Roberts raised his head. No, my dear, I don't. Now that you bring me face to face with the question, it seems a surprising thing to say that I should not know where a young man who has been for more than a year in our employ spends his choice bits of time, but I don't. Then I want to tell you something about it. He has a dingy fourth story back room, small, I fancy, from the way in which he spoke of it, and not a speck of fire over. In such weather as this, how can a young man read his Bible or even pray under such circumstances? Mr. Roberts laid down his pen and sat erect, regarding his wife with a thoughtful faraway air. Flossy, he said at last, it is an immense question. You open a perfect mine of anxiety and doubt. I have hovered around the edges for some time, but have generally contrived to shut my eyes and refused to look into it, because I was afraid of what I might see, and because I did not know what to do with my knowledge. I have not been the working member of the firm very long, you know, and my special field until lately has been the other side of the ocean. But I have been at home long enough to know that there are several hundred young men in our employ who are away from their homes, and knowing as I do the price of bored and respectable houses, and knowing the salaries which the younger ones receive, it does not require a great deal of penetration to discover that they must have rather dreary homes here, to put it mildly. The fact is, Flossy, I haven't wanted to look into this thing very closely, because I do not see the remedy. Look at our house, for instance, with its three hundred clerks, we'll say, who are away from their friends. Suppose one half, or even one third of them, are miserably situated. What can I do? Are they not sufficiently well paid to have the ordinary comforts of life? Doubtful, the truth is, what you and I call the ordinary comforts of life takes a good deal of money, and in the city, rents are high, and the boarding housekeepers have hard struggles to make their expenditures meet their income, and they carry economy to the very verge of meanness. Some of them fairly over the verge, I presume, and the result is cheap food badly cooked, because well-cooked food means high-priced help, and cold rooms and dreariness and discomfort everywhere. Now what can be done about it? Then our house is only one of hundreds, and in many of these hundreds they employ more help and give less wages than we. In fact, I know that some of our clerks are looked upon with envy by a great many young men. We never have any trouble in supplying vacancies. People swarm around us because we have the reputation of being liberal. We are not liberal, however. Sometimes I'm inclined to think we are hardly fair, yet there is nothing I can do. I am a junior partner with a great deal of the responsibility and a third of the voting power and I can't get salaries raised. I've been working at that problem at intervals for a year and have accomplished very little. Do you wonder that I keep my eyes as closely shut as I can? His wife's face were a thoughtful, not to say perplexed look. She seemed to have no answer ready, and after waiting a moment for it, Mr. Roberts bent himself again to the task of getting his business letters answered. Before he had written one more line, her face had cleared. She interrupted him. Evan, when you talk about 400 clerks and multiply that by hundreds of houses and more hundreds of clerks, I cannot follow you at all. It is not that I am not impressed with the number I am. It appalls me. But I don't want to be appalled. I want to be helpful. Perhaps just now there is nothing that I can do for the hundreds, so I want to narrow my thoughts down to what possibly I can do. What, for instance, can be done towards getting a good young man, like Alfred Reed, into a place that will be just a little bit like home, that will give him a spot where he can study his Bible in comfort and invite a friend with whom he wants to pray or whom he wants to reach and help in any way? That isn't a huge problem, can't it be solved? Her husband smiled. He is only one of thousands, he said. Yes, I know, but he is one of thousands. Since we cannot reach thousands, shall we fail to reach one? Evan, I am only one of thousands, but how would you argue about me? Mr. Roberts laughed again. You are one out of thousands and thousands, he said emphatically. A line more, and he signed the firm name with an unusually fine flourish. There, I've accomplished one letter. What do you want to do, Flossie? I want Mr. Reed to have a room where he can invite one of my boys occasionally and make him comfortable and do for him what we cannot with our rooms, do for him what only a young man can do for a young man. I don't clearly know what I want further than that, but I see that one thing is a stepping stone. Remember, I want all your thousands to have just as pleasant rooms, and I would like to help bring it about, but I don't just now see the way. Do you see the way to this? No, but doesn't it seem as though we ought to be able to accomplish so much? It does, certainly. What is your desire, Flossie? Do you want him to have a room in our house? She shook her head. No, that would not further my plan for those boys. I would like to have him here, and it would be a good thing for him, at least I think it would, but I can see things which he could accomplish for these young men set by himself in a different part of the city. Besides, Evan, I have other plans for our rooms, entirely different ones, and some of them I am afraid you will think are very strange. He answered the doubt with a smile that said he had no fears of her or her plans. What a little schemer it is, he said, looking down on her with fond, proud eyes. Who would have imagined that she could plot and plot so mysteriously? I used to think she was a very open-hearted woman. End of Chapter 7, Recording by Tricia G.