Kitabı oku: «Mr. Blake's Walking-Stick», sayfa 4

CHAPTER IV

MR. BLAKE AGREES WITH THE WALKING-STICK

Early on Sunday morning Willie awoke and began to think about Sitles, and to wish he had money to buy him a broom-machine. And then he thought of widow Martin. But all his thinking would do no good. Then he thought of what Old Ebony had said, and he wished he could know what that text was that the cane was just going to quote.

“It was,” said Willie, “the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the fourteenth chapter of something. I’ll see.”

So he began with the beginning of the Bible, and looked first at Genesis xiv. 12, 13. But it was about the time when Abraham had heard of the capture of Lot and mustered his army to recapture him. He thought a minute.

“That can’t be what it is,” said Willie, “I’ll look at Exodus.”

In Exodus it was about standing still at the Red Sea and waiting for God’s salvation. It might mean that God would deliver the poor. But that was not just what the cane was talking about. It was about giving gifts to friends. So he went on to Leviticus. But it was about the wave offering, and the sin offering, and the burnt offering. That was not it. And so he went from book to book until he had reached the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the fourteenth chapter of the book of Judges. He was just reading in that place about Samson’s riddle, when his mamma called him to breakfast.

He was afraid to say anything about it at the table for fear of being laughed at. But he was full of what the walking-stick said. And at family worship his father read the twentieth chapter of Acts. When he came to the part about its being more blessed to give than to receive, Willie said, “That’s what the cane said.”

“What did you say?” asked his father.

“I was only thinking out loud,” said Willie.

“Don’t think out loud while I am reading,” said Mr. Blake.

Willie did not find time to look any further for the other verses. He wished his father had happened on them instead of the first text which the cane quoted.

In church he kept thinking all the time about the cane. “Now what could it mean by the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the fourteenth chapter? There isn’t anything in the Bible against giving away presents to one’s friends. It was only a dream anyhow, and maybe there’s nothing in it.”

But he forgot the services, I am sorry to say, in his thoughts. At last Mr. Blake arose to read his text. Willie looked at him, but thought of what the cane said. But what was it that attracted his attention so quickly?

“The twelfth and thirteenth verses” —

“Twelfth and thirteenth!” said Willie to himself.

“Of the fourteenth chapter,” said the minister.

“Fourteenth chapter!” said Willie, almost aloud.

“Of Luke.”

Willie was all ears, while Mr. Blake read: “Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors, lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.”

“That’s it!” he said, half aloud, but his mother jogged him.

The minister added the next verse also, and read: “And thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.”

Willie had never listened to a sermon as he did to that. He stopped two or three times to wonder whether the cane had been actually about to repeat his father’s text to him, or whether he had not heard his father repeat it at some time, and had dreamed about it.

I am not going to tell you much about Mr. Blake’s sermon. It was a sermon that he and the walking-stick had prepared while they were going round among the poor. I think Mr. Blake did not strike his cane down on the sidewalk for nothing. Most of that sermon must have been hammered out in that way, when he and the walking-stick were saying, “Something must be done!” For that was just what that sermon said. It told about the wrong of forgetting, on the birthday of Christ, to do anything for the poor. It made everybody think. But Mr. Blake did not know how much of that sermon went into Willie Blake’s long head, as he sat there with his white full forehead turned up to his father.

CHAPTER V

THE FATHER PREACHES AND THE SON PRACTICES

That afternoon, Willie was at Sunday-school long before the time. He had a plan.

“I’ll tell you what, boys,” said he, “let’s not give Mr. Marble anything this year; and let’s ask him not to give us anything. Let’s get him to put the money he would use for us with the money we should spend on a present for him, and give it to buy coal for Old Aunt Parm’ly.”

“I mean to spend all my money on soft gum drops and tarts,” said Tommy Puffer; “they’re splendid!” and with that he began, as usual, to roll his soft lips together in a half chewing, half sucking manner, as if he had a half dozen cream tarts under his tongue, and two dozen gum drops in his cheeks.

“Tommy,” said stumpy little Sammy Bantam, “it’s a good thing you didn’t live in Egypt, Tommy, in the days of Joseph.”

“Why?” asked Tommy.

“Because,” said Sammy, looking around the room absently, as if he hardly knew what he was going to say, “because, you see” – and then he opened a book and began to read, as if he had forgotten to finish the sentence.

“Well, why?” demanded Tommy, sharply.

“Well, because if Joseph had had to feed you during the seven years of plenty, there wouldn’t have been a morsel left for the years of famine!”

The boys laughed as boys will at a good shot, and Tommy reddened a little and said, regretfully, that he guessed the Egyptians hadn’t any dough-nuts.

Willie did not forget his main purpose, but carried his point in his own class. He still had time to speak to some of the boys and girls in other classes. Everybody liked to do what Willie asked; there was something sweet and strong in his blue eyes, eyes that “did not seem to have any bottom, they were so deep,” one of the girls said. Soon there was an excitement in the school, and about the door; girls and boys talking and discussing, but as soon as any opposition came up Willie’s half coaxing but decided way bore it down. I think he was much helped by Sammy’s wit, which was all on his side. It was agreed, finally, that whatever scholars meant to give to teachers, or teachers to scholars, should go to the poor.

The teachers caught the enthusiasm, and were very much in favor of the project, for in the whole movement they saw the fruit of their own teaching.

The superintendent had been detained, and was surprised to find the school standing in knots about the room. He soon called them to order, and expressed his regrets that they should get into such disorder. There was a smile on all faces, and he saw that there was something more in the apparent disorder than he thought. After school it was fixed that each class should find its own case of poverty. The young men’s and the young women’s Bible classes undertook to supply Sitles with a broom-machine, a class of girls took Aunt Parm’ly under their wing, other classes knew of other cases of need, and so each class had its hands full. But Willie could not get any class to see that Widow Martin had a sewing-machine. That was left for his own; and how should a class of eight boys do it?