Chapter 8

Whether Tip felt it or not, there were some changes in his home. Mrs. Lewis, though worried and hurried and cross enough, still was not so much so as she had been.

The house was quieter, there was no cradle to rock, there were no baby footsteps to follow and keep out of danger; she had more time for sewing. Yet this very thing, the missing of the clinging arms about her neck, sometimes made her heavy heart vent itself in short, sharp words.

But Tip had astonished the family at home—it didn’t require wonderful changes to do it—rather the change which they saw in him seemed wonderful.

The fire which she found ready made in the morning, the full pail of fresh water, the box filled with wood, were all so many drops of honey to the tired mother’s heart. The awkward pat of his father’s pillow, which Tip now and then gave as he lingered to ask how he was, seemed so new and delightful to that neglected father’s heart, that he lay on his hard bed and thought of it much all day.

Tip got on better at home than anywhere else; he had not so many temptations. He had been such a lawless, reckless boy, that they had all learned to leave him very much to himself, and, as not a great deal of his time was spent there, his trials at home were not many. As for Kitty, she did not cease to wonder what had happened to Tip; she perhaps felt the difference more than any one else, for it had been the delight of his life to tease her.

Now, from the time that he gathered his books, with the first sound of the school-bell, and hurried up the hill, until he returned at night, ready to split wood, hoe in the garden, or do any of the dozen things that he had never been known to do before, he was a never-failing subject of thought and wonderment to her. Watching him closely, the only thing she could finally settle on as the cause of the change which she found in him was that he now went every Sunday morning to the Sunday school. The mystery must be hidden there. Having decided that matter, Kitty speedily resolved that she would go there herself, and see what they did. Many were the kind hearts that had tried to coax her into that same Sunday school, and had failed. But this Saturday afternoon’s gazing out of the window, with a wonderfully sober face, had ended in her exclaiming, “I say, Mother, I want a needle and thread.”

“What do you want with a needle and thread?” asked Mrs. Lewis, stirring away at some gruel in a tin basin, and not even glancing up.

“I want to mend my dress; it’s torn this way and that, and looks awful. I want some green thread, the color of this wide stripe.”

Now for a minute the gruel was forgotten, and Mrs. Lewis looked at Kitty in amazement.

“Dear me!” she said at last; “I don’t know what will happen next. It can’t be possible that you are going to work to mend your own dress without being scolded about it for a week, and then made to do it.”

“Yes, I am, too; I ain’t going to look like a rag-bag another hour. And I’m going to wash out my sunbonnet and iron it; then I mean to go over to that Sunday school tomorrow. I ain’t heard any singing since I was born, as I know of, and I mean to.”

The gruel began to burn, and Mrs. Lewis turned to it again, saying nothing, but thinking a great deal. Once she used to go to Sunday school herself, when she was Kitty’s age; and she didn’t have to mend her dress first, either; she used to be dressed freshly and neatly, every Sunday morning, by her mother’s own careful hands.

She poured the gruel into a bowl, and then went over to her workbox.

“Here’s a needle and thread,” she said at last, drawing out a snarl of green thread from the many snarls in her box. “Mend your dress if you want to, and I’ll wash out your bonnet for you towards night, when I get that vest done.”

It was Kitty’s turn to be astonished now. She had not expected help from her mother.

Tip lingered in the kitchen on Sunday morning. He looked neat and clean; he had a fresh, clean shirt, thanks to the washing which his mother had done “towards night.” He was all ready for school, yet he waited.

Kitty clattered around, making rather more noise even than usual, as she washed up the few poor dishes.

Evidently Tip was thinking about her. The truth was, his lamp had shown him a lesson that morning like this: “Freely ye have received, freely give.” He stopped at that verse, reading no further. What did it mean? Surely it spoke to him. Had not God given, oh, so many things to him? Had He not promised to give him heaven for his home? Now, here was the direction: “Freely give.” What, and to whom? To God? Surely not. Tip was certain that he had nothing to give to God; nothing but his poor, sinful heart, which he believed the Savior had taken and made clean.

What could he give to anyone? He leaned out of his little window, busy with this thought. Kitty came out to the door, and pumped her pan full of water. He looked down on her. There was Kitty; had he anything which he could give her? He shook his head mournfully; not a thing. But wouldn’t it be the same if he could help her to get something? What if he could coax her to go to Sunday school; perhaps it would do for her all that it had done for him. And at this moment the unwearied Satan came with his wicked thoughts.

“Kitty would be a pretty-looking object to go to Sunday school—not a decent thing to wear! Everybody would laugh at her and at you. Besides, I don’t believe she would go, if you did ask her; she would only make fun of you. Better not try it.”

“Oh, Tip Lewis,” said his conscience, “what a miserable coward you are! After all you have promised, you won’t risk a laugh for the sake of getting Kitty into the Sunday school!”

“Yes, I will,” said Tip, and he ran downstairs.

And this was why he lingered in the kitchen—not knowing just what to say. Kitty helped him.

“Tip,” said she, “I suppose they sing over at that Sunday school, don’t they?”

“I guess they do”; and Tip’s eyes brightened. “Ever so many of them sing at once, and it sounds grand, I tell you. They play the melodeon, too: don’t you want to go and hear it?”

“Humph! I don’t know. I don’t suppose it will be any stupider than staying at home. I get awful sick of that. If I knew the way, maybe I would go.”

“Oh, I’ll take you!” said Tip, in a quick, eager way. He wanted to speak before his courage failed.

So Kitty, in her stiff blue sunbonnet and green calico dress, went to Sunday school. There was no mission class for girls, so Mr. Parker sent her among the gaily-dressed little girls in Miss Haley’s class; but Mr. Holbrook detained Tip.

“Edward, you intend to come to Sunday school regularly, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I think we must leave your place in the mission seat to be filled by some other boy, and you may come forward to my class.”

It is doubtful whether Tip will ever see a prouder or happier moment than that one in which he followed the minister down the long room to his own class. But when he saw the seat full of boys, his face grew crimson. At the end of the seat was Ellis Holbrook, the minister’s son—the boy who but a few days before had, he believed in his heart, told a wicked story about himself, and gained him a severe punishment. He did not feel as though he could sit beside that boy, even in Sunday school. But Mr. Holbrook waited, and sit down he must. Ellis moved along to give him room, and disturbed him neither by word nor look during the lesson. But Tip’s heart was full of bitterness, and he thought the pleasure of that morning gone. The lesson was of Christ and His death on the cross, and, as he listened, hard thoughts began to die out. The story was too new; it touched too near his heart not to calm the angry feelings and to interest him wonderfully.

As soon as school was dismissed, Mr. Holbrook turned to him. “What disturbs you today, Edward?”

Tip’s face grew red again. “I—I—nothing much, sir.”

“Have you and Ellis been having trouble in school?”

“He has been getting me into trouble,” spoke Tip boldly, finding himself caught.

Mr. Holbrook sat down again. “Can you tell me about it, Edward?”

“He said I threw paper balls, and Mr. Burrows whipped me; and I didn’t.”

“Are you sure you didn’t?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you say so at the time?”

“Over and over again, but he said he saw me.”

“Edward, have you always spoken the truth? Is your word to be believed?”

Tip’s eyes fell and his lip quivered. “I’ve told a great many stories,” he said at last, in a low, humble tone; “but this truly isn’t one. I’m trying to tell the truth after this, and Jesus believes what I have said this time.”

“So do I, Edward,” answered Mr. Holbrook gently, even tenderly. “Ellis was mistaken. But I see you are angry with him; can’t you get over that?”

Tip shook his head. “He got me whipped for nothing, sir.”

“Suppose Christ should follow that rule, Edward, and forgive only those who had treated Him well; would you be forgiven today?”

This was a new thought to Tip, and made him silent. Mr. Holbrook held out his hand for the little red Bible.

“Let me show you what this lamp of yours says about the matter.”

And Tip’s eyes presently read where the minister’s finger pointed: “If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”* (Matthew 15:16)

“Trespasses mean sins,” explained Mr. Holbrook; then he turned away.

All this time Kitty had been standing waiting—not for Tip, she didn’t expect his company—but for the stylish little girls to get fairly started on their way to church, so she could go home without having any of them look at or make fun of her.

Kitty had not been having a very good time: she had the misfortune to fall into the hands of a teacher who thought if she asked the questions in the question-book, and if one scholar could not answer, passed on to the next, she had done her duty. So the singing was pretty nearly all Kitty had cared for. God was leaving most of the work for Tip to do, after all. He went over to her now, and walked down the road with her. The boys had all gone, as well as the girls, so there was nothing to hinder their walking on quietly together.

“How did you like it, Kitty?” he asked.

“Oh, I didn’t think much of it. I sat by the ugliest girl in town, and she made fun of my bonnet and my shoes. I hate her.”

Tip had a faint notion in his heart that Kitty also needed the verse which had just been given him; but he had other thoughts about her. God’s Spirit was at work. Having taken her to Sunday school, having begun a good work, he wanted it to go on. It was very hard to speak to Kitty; he didn’t know what to say; but all the way down the hill there seemed to ring in his ears the message, “Freely ye have received, freely give.”

“Kitty,” he said at last, “don’t you want to be a Christian?”

“I don’t know what a Christian is.”

“But wouldn’t you like to love Jesus?”

“How do I know?” replied Kitty shortly. “I don’t know anything about Jesus.”

“Oh, didn’t you hear, in the lesson today, about how He loves everybody, and wants everybody to love Him, and how He died so we could?”

“I don’t know a thing about the lesson. I counted the buttons on Miss Harley’s dress most all the time; they went up and down the front, and up and down the sides, and everywhere.”

“Oh, but, Kitty, you surely heard the hymn—

‘Jesus loves me, this I know,
For the Bible tells me so.’ ”

“Yes,” Kitty said; “the hymn was pretty enough, only nobody gave me a book, and I could just hear a word now and then.”

Altogether, Tip didn’t feel that he had done Kitty a bit of good. But he knew this much, that, since he had begun to think about and talk to her, he longed—yes, longed—with all his heart to have her come to Christ.

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“Ellis, come here a moment,” said Mr. Holbrook, turning towards his study door, as the family came in from church. “What is it about this trouble in school with Edward Lewis?”

“No trouble, Father; only Tip threw a paper ball, just as he always is doing, and, as Mr. Burrows asked me if I knew who threw it, of course I had to tell him, and that made Tip mad. Why? Has he been complaining to you, father?”

“Ellis, did you see Edward throw paper?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you positive?”

“Yes—why—that is—I glanced up from my book just in time to see it whiz, and it came from Tip’s direction, and his hand was raised, so I supposed of course he threw it. I thought a minute ago that I knew he did.”

“But now you would not say positively that some boy near him might not have done it?”

“Why, no, sir. Alex Palmer might have thrown it; but I didn’t think of such a thing.”

“Well, Ellis, my verdict is that you were mistaken; I don’t think Edward told a falsehood this time. I’ll tell you why: he is trying to take the Savior for his pattern. I believe he is a Christian. Now, there is one thing which I want you to think of. Edward Lewis, who has never been taught anything good, who has never had anyone to help him, has given his heart to Christ; and my boy, for whom I have prayed with all my soul every day since he was born, has not.”