IV.
_WHAT WAS HE HERE FOR?_
Bartie Trafton, _alias_ Little Mew, was crouching behind a clump ofhollyhocks in a little garden fronting the Trafton home. It was afavourite place of retreat when things went poorly with Little Mew.They had certainly gone unsatisfactorily one day not long after the sailthat was not a sail. He had perpetrated a blunder that had brought outfrom Gran'sir Trafton the encouraging remark that he did not see whatthe boy was in this world for. Bartie had retreated to the hollyhockclump to think the situation over. He was ten years old, and life didhave a hard look to Little Mew. He never supposed that his father caredmuch for him. When the father was ashore he was drunk; when he came tohis senses, and was sober, then he went to sea. Bart sometimes wonderedif his mother thought of him and knew how he was situated.
"She's up in heaven," thought Bart among the hollyhocks, and to Bartheaven was somewhere among the soft, white clouds, floating like thewings of big gulls far above the tops of the elms that overhung the roofof the house and looked down upon this poor little unfortunate. Ifearth brought so little happiness, because bringing so littleusefulness, then why was Bart on the earth at all?
"I don't see," he murmured.
The question was a puzzle to him. He was still looking up when he heardthe voice of somebody calling.
"It is somebody at the fence," he said. It was a musical voice, andBart wondered if his mother wouldn't call that way. He turned; and whata sweet face he saw at the fence!--a young lady with sparkling eyes ofhazel, fair complexion, and cheeks that prettily dimpled when shelaughed. He surely thought it must be his mother grown young and comeback to earth again. There was some difference between that face, sopicturesquely bordered with its summer hat, and the puzzled, irregularfeatures under the old, ragged straw hat that Bart wore.
"Are you the little fellow I heard about that got into the water oneday?" asked the young lady.
"Yes'm," said Bart, pleased to be noticed because he had been in thewater, while thankful to be out of it.
"Well, I'm getting up a Sunday-school class, and I should like very muchto have you in it. Would you like to come?"
"Yes'm," said Bart eagerly, "if--if granny and gran'sir would let me."
"Where are they? You let me ask them."
"She's got a lot of tunes in her voice," thought Bart, eagerly leadingthe young lady into the presence of granny and gran'sir.
They were in a flutter at the advent of so much beauty and grace, andgave a ready permission.
"Now, Bartie--that is your name, I believe--"
"Yes'm."
"I shall expect you next Sunday down at that brick church, Grace Church,just on the corner of Front Street."
"I know where it is."
"And one thing more. Do you suppose you could get anybody else tocome?" asked the young lady.
"I'll try."
"That's right. Do so. Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
Bart was puzzled to know whom to solicit for the Sunday school.Gran'sir was so much interested in the young lady that Bart concludedgran'sir would be willing to go if asked and if well enough; but Bartconcluded that gran'sir was too old, and he said nothing. Sundayitself, on his way to the church, Bart saw a recruit. It was DaveFletcher.
"Oh, you will go with me, won't you? I haven't anybody yet," he saideagerly.
"What do you mean?" replied the wondering Dave.
"Oh, go to Sunday school with me. I said I would try to bring someone."
Dave smiled, and Bart interpreted the smile as one half of an assent.
"Oh, do go! I said I would try. And she's real pretty."
"Who? your teacher?"
"Yes."
"Well, that is an inducement. But I am only going to be here a Sundayor two. My visit is almost over."
"Oh, well, it would please teacher."
Dave smiled again, and this Bart interpreted as the other half of theassent desired.
"Oh, I am so glad! I'll tell you where it is."
"W-e-l-l! It won't do any harm. I can go as visitor, and I suppose itwould please my family--"
"Family?"
"My father and mother and sister, if they should know I had visited theSunday school. Come along! We don't want to be late, you know. I'll bevisitor, and perhaps they will want me to make a speech at the school.Ha! ha!"
Bart pulled Dave eagerly into the entry of the church, and then lookedthrough the open door into the room where he knew the Sunday school met;for Bart had been a visitor once in that very same place.
"Oh, I see teacher," thought Bart, spying his friend in a seat not farfrom the door. Her back was turned toward him, but he had not forgottenthe pretty summer hat with its fluttering ribbons of blue. Dave, with asmile, followed the little fellow, who was timorously conveying hisprize to the waiting young lady. She looked up as Bart exclaimed,"Here, teacher! I've got one."
"'Here, teacher! I've got a recruit.'" _Page 63._]
"Why, Dave," she exclaimed, "where did you come from?"
"Annie--this you?" he said. The two began to laugh. Bart in surpriselooked at them.
"This is my sister, Bart," explained Dave. "Ha! ha!"
That beautiful young lady and the big boy who had saved him sister andbrother? He might have guessed such a friend as Dave would have such asister as this nice young lady. She was visiting at Uncle Ferguson's.
"You see, Dave, when I began my visit I did not expect to teach whilehere; but I met the minister, Mr. Porter, and he said he wished I wouldstart another class for him in his Sunday school and teach it whilehere, and I could not say no; and went to work, and have been picking upmy class. I didn't happen to tell you."
The Rev. Charles Porter, at this time the clergyman at Grace Church, wasan old friend of the Fletcher family. Meeting Annie in the streets ofShipton, and knowing what valuable material there was in the young lady,he desired to set her to work at once; and when her stay in town mightbe over, he could, as he said, "find a teacher, somebody to continue toopen the furrow that she had started."
Dave enjoyed the situation.
"I will play that I am superintendent, Annie, and have come to inspectyour class, and will sit here while you teach."
"I don't know about allowing you to stay here, sir, unless you become amember of the class and answer my questions, Dave."
Annie was relieved of the presence of this inspector; for a gentleman atthe head of a class opposite, noticing a big boy among Annie's flock oflittle fellows, kindly invited Dave to sit with his older lads.
"I am Mr. Tolman," said the gentleman. "Make yourself at home among theboys."
"Thank you, sir," said Dave; and his sister, with a roguish smile, bowedhim out of her class.
That Sunday was an eventful day to Little Mew. It was pleasant any wayto be near this young lady, who seemed to him to be some beautiful beingfrom a sphere above the human kind in which he moved. And then Bart wasinterested in the subject Annie presented. She talked about heaven andits people. She talked about God; but she did not make him that far-offbeing that Bart thought he must be, so that the louder people prayed thequicker they would bring him. She told how near he was, all about us,so that we could seem to hear his voice in the pleasant wind, and feelhis touch in the soft, warm sunshine.
"But--but," said Bart, "he seems to be behind a curtain. I don't seehim."
And then the teacher, her voice to Bart's ear playing a sweeter tunethan ever, told how God took away the curtain; how he came in the LordJesus Christ; that the Saviour was the divine expression of God's love;and men could see that love going about their streets, coming into theirhomes, healing their sick, and then hanging on the cross that the worldmight be brought to God. Bart had been told all this before, butsomehow it never got so near him.
"What she says somehow gets into me," thought Bart, looking up into theteacher's face. He thought he would like to ask her one question whe
nhe was alone with her. The school was dismissed, and Bart lingered thathe might walk away with the teacher.
"Could I ask you about something?" he said, trotting at her side andlifting his queer, oldish face towards her.
"Certainly; ask all the questions you want. I can't say that I cananswer them, but there's no harm in asking them."
"Well, what am I in this world for?"
He said it so abruptly that it amused Annie.
"What are you in this world for?"
"Yes'm. I don't seem to amount to much."
Bart eagerly watched the face above him, that had suddenly grownserious; for Annie was thinking of the little fellow's home--of itsunattractiveness, of the two old people there that seemed souninteresting, especially the grandfather, who, as Annie recalled him,seemed to be only a compound of a whining voice, a gloomy face, a badcough, and a clumsy cane. Then she recalled the slighting way in whichshe heard people speak of this odd little fellow, who seemed to be afigure out of place in life's problem; one who seemed to run into life'smisfortunes, not waiting that they might run into him--one ill-adjustedand awry. Well, what should she say? She thought in silence. Then shestopped him, and looked down into his face.
Bart never forgot it. It was as if all of heaven's beautiful angels shehad told about that day were looking at him through her face, and all ofheaven's beautiful voices were speaking in her tones.
"Bart," she said, "the great reason why you are in this world isbecause--God loves you."
What? He wanted to think that over.
"Because what?" he said.
"Why, Bart," she said, "God is a Father--a great, dear Father."
Bart began to think he was; but he had been getting his idea of Godthrough gran'sir's style of religion, and God seemed more like a judgeor a big police-officer--catching up people and always marching them offto punishment.
"God is a great, dear Father," the tuneful voice was saying, "and hewants somebody to love him; and the more people he makes, the more thereare to love him, or should be, and so he made you. But oh, if we don'tlove him, it disappoints and grieves him!"
"Does it?" said Bart, thoughtfully, soberly.
"When you are at home--alone, upstairs--you tell God how you feel aboutit, just as you would tell your mother--"
"Or teacher," thought Bart.
"As you would tell your mother if she were on the earth."
That day, all alone hi his diminutive chamber, kneeling by a little bedwhose clothing was all too scanty in cold weather, a boy told God hewanted to love him. When Bart rose from his knees he said to himself,"Now, I must try to love other people."
He went downstairs. Gran'sir was lying on a hard old lounge, makingbelieve that he was trying to read his Bible, and at the same time hewas very sleepy. Bart hesitated, and then said,--
"Gran'sir, don't you--you--want me to get you a pillow and put underyour head?"
"Oh, that's a nice little boy!" said the weary old grandfather, when hishead dropped on the soft pillow now covering the hard arm of the lounge.
"And, gran'sir, I ain't much on readin'; but perhaps, if you'd let me, Imight read something, you know."
"Oh, that's a dear little feller," said gran'sir, closing his eyes, soold and tired. He had been trying to read about Jacob and the angels atBeth-el; but the lounge was so tough that the feature of the storygran'sir seemed to appreciate most sensibly was that Jacob slept on apillow of stones. I can't say how much of the story, as Bart read it,gran'sir heard that day, for he was soon as much lost to the outsideworld as tired Jacob was. He had, though, a beautiful dream, heafterwards told granny. Yes; in his sleep he seemed to see the ladderwith its shining, silver rounds, climbing the sky, and on them were somany angels, oh, so many angels!
"And, granny," whispered gran'sir, "I was a little startled, for one ofthem angels seemed to have Bartie's face. I hope nothin' is goin' tohappen, for I am beginnin' to think we should miss that little chap everso much."