Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

FOOTNOTES:

A Bit of Brightness.

BY MARY JOANNA PORTER.

It not only rained, but it poured; so the brightness was certainly not in the sky. It was Sunday, too, and that fact, so Phœbe thought, added to the gloominess of the storm. For Phœbe had left behind her the years in which she had been young and strong, and in which she had no need to regard the weather. Now if she went out in the rain she was sure to suffer afterward with rheumatism, so, of course, a day like this made her a prisoner within doors. There she had not very much to occupy her. She and her husband, Gardener Jim, lived so simply that it was a small matter to prepare and clear away their meals, and, that being attended to, what was there for her to do?

Phœbe had never been much of a scholar, and reading even the coarse-print Bible, seemed to try her eyes. Knitting on Sunday was not to be thought of, and there was nobody passing by to be watched and criticised. Altogether Phœbe considered it a very dreary day.

As for Gardener Jim, he had his pipe to comfort him. All the same he heaved a sigh now and then, as if to say, "O dear! I wish things were not quite so dull."

In the big house near by lived Jim's employer, Mr. Stevens. There matters were livelier, for there were living five healthy, happy children, whose mother scarcely knew the meaning of the word quiet. When it drew near two o'clock in the afternoon they were all begging to be allowed to go to Sunday-school.

"You'll let me go, won't you, ma?" cried Jessie, the oldest, and Tommy and Nellie and Johnny and even baby Clara echoed the petition. Mrs. Stevens thought the thing over and decided that Jessie and Tommy might go. For the others, she would have Sunday-school at home.

"Be sure to put on your high rubbers and your water-proofs and take umbrellas." These were the mother's instructions as the two left the family sitting-room. A few moments after, Jessie looked in again. "Well, you are wrapped up!" exclaimed Mrs. Stevens, "I don't think the storm can hurt you." "Neither do I, ma, and Oh! I forgot to ask you before, may we stop at Gardener Jim's on the way home?"

"Yes, if you'll be careful not to make any trouble for him and Phœbe, and will come home before supper-time."

Tommy, who was standing behind Jessie in the doorway, suppressed the hurrah that rose to his lips. He remembered that it was Sunday and that his mother would not approve of his making a great noise on the holy day.

He and Jessie had quite a hard tramp to the little chapel in which the school was held. The graveled sidewalks were covered with that uncomfortable mixture of snow and water known as slush, which beside being wet was cold and slippery, so that walking was no easy thing. Yet what did that matter after they had reached the school?

Their teachers were there, and so was the superintendent, and so were nearly half of the scholars. Theirs was a wide-awake school, you see, and it did not close on account of weather.

Each of the girls in Jessie's class was asked to recite a verse that she had chosen through the week. Jessie's was this:

"To do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased."

The teacher talked a little about it and Jessie thought it over on her way to Gardener Jim's. The result was that she said to her brother:

"Tommy, you know mother said we must not trouble Jim and Phœbe."

"Yes, I know it, but I don't think we will, do you?"

"No, I'm sure they'll be glad to see us, but I was thinking we might do something to make them very glad. Suppose that while we're in there, I read to them from the Bible, and then we sing to them two or three of our hymns."

"What a queer girl you are, Jess! Anybody would think that you were a minister going to hold church in the cottage. But I'm agreed, if you want to; I like singing anyway. It seems to let off a little of the 'go' in a fellow."

By this time they had reached the cottage, and if they had been a prince and princess—supposing that such titled personages were living in these United States—they could not have had a warmer welcome. Gardener Jim opened the door in such haste that he scattered the ashes from his pipe over the rag-carpet on the floor. Phœbe, too, contrived to drop her spectacles while she was saying "How do you do," and it took at least three minutes to find them again.

At length, however, the surprise being over, the children removed their wraps, Jim refilled his pipe, and Phœbe settled herself in her chair. She was slowly revolving in her mind the question whether it would be best to offer her visitors a lunch of cookies or one of apples, when Jessie said:

"Phœbe, wouldn't you like to have me read you a chapter or two?"

"'Deed and I would, miss, and I'd be that grateful that I couldn't express myself. My eyes, you see, are getting old, and Jim's not much better, and neither of us was ever a scholard."

So Jessie read in her sweet, clear voice the chapters beloved in palace and in cottage, about the holy city New Jerusalem, and about the pure river of water of life, clear as crystal; about the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations; about the place where they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign for ever and ever.

"Dear me, dear me!" exclaimed Phœbe, "it seems almost like being there, doesn't it? Now I'll have something to think of to-night if I lie awake with the rheumatism."

"We're going to sing to you, too," was Tommy's rejoinder.

Then he and Jessie sang "It's coming, coming nearer, that lovely land unseen," and "O, think of the home over there" and Phoebe's favorite:

Jim wiped his eyes as they finished. He and Phœbe had once had a little boy and girl, but both had long, long been in the "better land." Yet though he wept it was in gladness, for the reading and singing had seemed to open a window through which he might look into the streets of the heavenly city.

Thus Tommy and Jessie had brought sunshine to the cottage on that rainy Sunday afternoon. They had given the cup of cold water—surely they had their reward.

How Sammy Earned the Prize.

BY MRS. M.E. SANGSTER.

"And now," said the Principal, looking keenly and pleasantly through his spectacles, "I have another prize offer to announce. Besides the prizes for the best scholarship, and the best drawing and painting, and for punctuality, I am authorized by the Trustees of this Academy to offer a prize for valor. Fifty dollars in gold will be given the student who shows the most courage and bravery during the next six months."

Fifty dollars in gold! The sum sounded immense in the ears of the boys, not one of whom had ever had five dollars for his very own at one time, that is in one lump sum. As they went home one and another wondered where the chance to show true courage was to come in their prosaic lives.

"It isn't the time when knights go round to rescue forlorn ladies and do brave deeds," said Johnny Smith, ruefully.

"No, and there never are any fires in Scott-town, or mad dogs, or anything," added Billy Thorne.

"But Sammy Slocum said nothing at all," Billy told his mother. "Old Sammy's a bit of a coward. He faints when he sees blood. Of course he knows he can't get the prize for valor, or any prize for that matter. His mother has to take in washing."

"William," said Billy's father, who had just entered, "that is a very un-American way of speaking. If I were dead and buried your mother might have to take in washing, and it would do her no discredit. Honest work is honest work. Sammy is a very straight sort of boy. He's been helping at the store Saturday mornings, and I like the boy. He's got pluck."

"Six months give a fellow time to turn round, any way," said Billy, as the family sat down to supper.

It was September when this conversation took place, and it was December before the teachers, who were watching the boys' daily records very carefully, had the least idea who would get the prize for valor.

"Perhaps we cannot award it this year," said the Principal. "Fifty dollars should not be thrown away, nor a prize really bestowed on anybody who has not merited it."

"There are chances for heroism in the simplest and most humble life," answered little Miss Riggs, the composition teacher.

That December was awfully cold. Storm and wind and snow. Blizzard and gale and hurricane. You never saw anything like it. In the middle of December the sexton was taken down with rheumatic fever, and there wasn't a soul to ring the bell, or clear away the snow, or keep fires going in the church, and not a man in the parish was willing to take the extra work upon him. The old sexton was a good deal worried, for he needed the little salary so much that he couldn't bear to give it up, and in that village church there was no money to spare.

Sammy's mother sent bowls and pitchers of gruel and other things of the sort to the sick man, and when Sammy took them he heard the talk of the sexton and his wife. One night he came home, saying:

"Mother, I've made a bargain with Mr. Anderson, I'm going to be the sexton of the church for the next three months."

"You, my boy, you're not strong enough. It's hard work shoveling snow and breaking paths, and ringing the bell, and having the church warm on Sunday, and the lamps filled and lighted. And you have your chores to do at home."

"Yes, dear mammy, I'll manage; I'll go round and get the clothes for you, and carry them home and do every single thing, just the same as ever, and I'll try to keep Mr. Anderson's place for him too."

"I don't know that I ought to let you," said his mother.

But she did consent.

Then began Sammy's trial. He never had a moment to play. Other boys could go skating on Saturday, but he had to stay around the church, and dust and sweep, and put the cushions down in the pews, and see that the old stoves were all right, as to dampers and draughts, bring coal up from the cellar, have wood split, lamps filled, wicks cut, chimneys polished. The big bell was hard to ring, hard for a fourteen-year-old boy. At first, for the fun of it, some of the other boys helped him pull the rope, but their enthusiasm soon cooled. Day in, day out, the stocky, sturdy form of Samuel might be seen, manfully plodding through all varieties of weather, and he had a good-morning or a good-evening ready for all he met. When he learned his lessons was a puzzle, but learn them he did, and nobody could complain that in anything he fell off, though his face did sometimes wear a preoccupied look, and his mother said that at night he slept like the dead and she just hated to have to call him in the morning. Through December and January and February and March, Sammy made as good a sexton as the church had ever had, and by April, Mr. Anderson was well again.

The queer thing about it all was that Sammy had forgotten the prize for valor altogether. Nothing was said about it in school, and most of the boys were so busy looking out for brave deeds to come their way, that if one had appeared, they would not have recognized it. In fact, everybody thought the prize for valor was going by the board.

Till July came. And then, when the visitors were there, and the prizes were all given out, the President looked keenly through his spectacles and said:

"Will Master Samuel Slocum step forward to the platform?"

Modestly blushing, up rose Sammy, and somewhat awkwardly he made his way to the front.

"Last winter," said the President, "there was a boy who not only did his whole duty in our midst, but denied himself for another, undertook hard work for many weeks, without pay and without shirking. We all know his name. Here he stands. To Samuel Slocum the committee award the prize for valor."

He put five shining ten-dollar pieces into Sammy's hard brown hand.

The Glorious Fourth.