"Then what are you talking about, my dear? If you should never consider it your duty, you would certainly never be called upon to do it."

CHAPTER XX.

"OH, WHAT A NICE THOUGHT!"

This very calm view of the question gave Gracie time to recover from her excitement, and to laugh at her folly. Then Mrs. Roberts said, still speaking very gently:--

"I don't want to argue with you, dear, and I couldn't if I wished; you know I am a dunce about all such things; but I just want to ask you a little question; you need not answer me unless you choose; not now, that is--perhaps some time we may want to talk about it. I would like to know the reasons that people have for thinking that it is out of place for a lady to kneel down with her Christian friends and speak to Jesus about a thing that they unitedly desire, and that they believe He is able to do for them? If it is not proper to speak before them, why is it proper to speak _to_ them on the same subject?"

This question Gracie carried to her room for thought.

Meantime, as Dr. Everett and young Ried went homeward, they had a talk together.

"When I found out that those boys had gone to the theatre to-night I was completely discouraged," declared Ried. "It seemed to me that our work was a failure; I could almost see Satan laughing over the success of his scheme. I never felt so about anything in my life. And now it seems to me that perhaps the Lord will let it result in being the best thing that ever happened to us."

To all of which Dr. Everett made the apparently irrelevant answer:--

"Mr. Roberts and his wife are singularly well mated; how perfectly they fit into each other's thoughts. Ried, you and I have a great deal to learn from them."

"I have," said Ried, meekly.

Yet another bit of talk closed this evening:

"McCullum has given me an idea," Mr. Roberts said to his wife as they sat together reviewing the day. "Not a bad one, I fancy. I wonder when we can act on it and watch results? There are tickets for other places besides theatres. Why couldn't we furnish them for some entertainment, lecture, or concert, or something of the sort, that would be really helpful? The only difficulty is that there are few helpful places as yet within reach of their capacities. It takes an exceptional genius to hold such listeners."

But his wife, her face aglow, clasped her hands in an ecstasy of delight.

"What a beautiful thought!" she said; "and how nice that it should come to you just now, when there will be such a splendid opportunity to put it in practice. Why, don't you know? Gough, next week, fifty cent tickets; on temperance, too! how grand! And Evan, let us give them each two tickets. I want that Dirk Colson to take his sister; perhaps he will not, but then he may; one can never tell. Oh, Evan, won't it be nice?"

"Ah!" said Mr. Roberts, "as usual you are ahead of me. I had not thought of the two tickets apiece. That is a suggestion for their manliness.

Flossy, we'll try it."

Yet another bit of talk.

They shambled down the stairs, from the second-rate hall at a late hour that evening--those seven boys; quiet for them, though the play had been exciting, and not remarkably moral "viewed" from the standpoint of a Christian.

"After all," said Nimble d.i.c.k, breaking a silence with speech, as though the subject of which he spoke had been under discussion among them, "after all, it was rather sneaking to bolt and say nothing; I kind of wish we hadn't done it."

"That's what I told you all along," said Dirk Colson, with even unusual sullenness, "but you would go and do it, and we was fools enough to follow you."

"And I'll bet she had oysters or something!" This from Jerry Tompkins; you have probably no idea how hungry he was at that moment.

"They was goin' to do somethin' new to-night; that there Dennis girl told me so when I met her on the street yesterday; something that we would like first rate, she said--a brand-new notion." This was Stephen Crowley's contribution to the general discomfort.

"Well," said Nimble d.i.c.k, and the sigh with which he spoke the word would have gone to Mrs. Roberts' heart, "I s'pose it's all up now; I shouldn't wonder if we never got another bid; I wouldn't if I was them, I know that; and their old theatre wasn't no great shakes, after all.

We've been a pack of fools, and I don't mind owning it."

Whereupon, having reached the corner, they separated and went glumly to their homes. And this is grat.i.tude! What a pity Mr. McCullum--who had been smiling over his benevolence all the evening--could not have heard them!

The weeks that followed this night, were crowded with trifles on which hung important and far-reaching results. This is a very trite saying, I know. All weeks are crowded with eventful trifles; at least, we in our blindness call them trifles, although we are constantly discovering their importance, and being constantly astonished over them.

Among other things, the seven boys became nine,--having taken to their companionship two choice spirits, apparently worse than themselves, and appeared at the South End Mission with all the bravado that boys of their stamp are apt to put on when they feel somewhat ashamed of themselves. The consequence was that the trials which Mrs. Roberts had to endure from them, though a trifle less apparent to others, were not a whit less distressing than usual.

But before the session was concluded they were treated to a sensation that held them in silent astonishment for nearly five minutes. Any person well acquainted with Alfred Ried could have told that he had a plan in view, and was trying to carry it in the face of some opposition.

He looked convinced, and Mr. Durant looked astonished and troubled; there was much low-toned talk between them and some shaking of head.

Apparently, however, Mr. Ried came off victor, for his brow cleared, and he presently made his way to Mrs. Roberts' side and said a few words, and must have been gratified by the sudden lighting up of her face and her eager:--

"Oh, what a nice thought! Even if it fails, apparently, it will not utterly, for the suggestion will help them."

In the course of time the new idea came to the front. There was to be a festival, or a social, or an entertainment at the South End in the course of a few weeks,--a sort of anniversary of the starting of the Mission. Among other work that was in progress, the decoration of the room, involving the hanging of pictures, banners, mottoes, wreaths, etc., required some strong arms and willing hands. Committees were to be formed. Two weeks before, teachers had been appointed to prepare a list of committees. It fell to young Ried to appoint the committee on decoration. When he was called upon for his report, he came promptly forward, like a man ready for action, and commenced:--

"A committee of four has been deemed amply sufficient for decoration, and I appoint for the purpose the following: Richard Bolton, Morris Burns, Miss Gracie Dennis, and Miss Annie Powell."

The teachers, who had been long at the Mission, looked from one to another with a bewildered air. Morris Burns they knew,--a clear-eyed young Scotchman, with willing hands and feet ever ready to run of errands for all workers; a boy of nineteen or so, whom everybody liked; warm-hearted, unselfish, and thoroughly trustworthy. Annie Powell was one of the older girls in Mr. Durant's Bible-cla.s.s; a sweet-faced, ladylike little factory girl, who would work in with Morris Burns nicely. Miss Gracie Dennis was Mrs. Roberts' beautiful young friend; all the teachers knew her, and all thought it very kind in her to throw her strength and taste into the preparations as heartily as though she were one of them. But who was Richard Bolton? n.o.body knew. Yet their knowledge of business etiquette told them that he was chairman of the Decoration Committee. Where was he? Not a teacher, certainly, for they were intimately acquainted with one another; and they knew no such name in the one Bible-cla.s.s made up of trustworthy helpers.

Over in Mrs. Roberts' cla.s.s, with the single exception of the teacher, there was equal ignorance; the nine boys had stopped their restless mischief to listen, because there is a sort of fascination to boys in all the details of well-managed business; they liked to hear the appointments; but who Richard Bolton might be seemed not to occur to one of them. It is true that Jerry Tompkins nudged Nimble d.i.c.k in anything but a quiet way with his elbow, and murmured, "You've got a namesake it seem, in this 'ere job." Yet no light dawned on them.

Mr. Durant, who, it is possible, has not appeared to you in a favorable light, for the reason that he was being much perplexed by the entirely new methods being introduced among the boys who had heretofore driven him to the very verge of desperation, was really a quickwitted man, and having succ.u.mbed to what he feared was a wild experiment, knew how to help carry it out properly. He came briskly to the front,--Alfred's committee being the last on the list,--and began his work.

"The chairmen of these different committees will be kind enough to report to me as rapidly as possible the time and place of their first meeting for consultation, and I will make the announcements." Then he stepped to Mrs. Roberts' cla.s.s. "Bolton," he said, bending toward that astonished scamp, and speaking as though this were an every-day affair, "you are chairman, I believe, of the Decoration Committee; where and when will you have them meet?"

Imagine Nimble d.i.c.k's eyes! Nay, imagine the eyes and faces of the entire nine! It would have been a study for an artist.

For a moment Nimble d.i.c.k was speechless; then he managed to burst forth with:--

"What in thunder are you talking about?"

"Your committee," said Mr. Durant, politely ignoring the manner of the questioner. "You must call them together, you know, to plan your work.

Where shall it be, and when?"

"I ain't got no committee; and I ain't got no place to meet n.o.body; and I don't know what in thunder you're after."

Then came Mrs. Roberts to the rescue:--

"Why, Mr. Bolton, you can meet at our society parlor, you know; it is the very place, and will be so convenient for Miss Dennis."

"What's to meet, and what's to do?" said d.i.c.k, defiantly. "I ain't going to meet n.o.body."

"Why, it is just to hang mottoes and banners, and trim the room for the Anniversary. Of course you'll help; I would have the meeting arranged there by all means."

"Very well," said Mr. Durant, quickly, as though he had received the answer from the chairman himself. "Now as to time; you ought to come together to-morrow evening if you could; there is a good deal to do."

"Mr. Bolton, couldn't you come up at six o'clock for once? Then you could get your work all done before the time for our social. I can arrange for Annie Powell to be there at that time; and, Mr. Durant, doesn't Morris Burns work for you? Could he be present at six o'clock?

Then I don't see but your meeting is nicely planned. You can be there at six, can't you, Mr. Bolton?"