"I want to apologize for what I did this morning, and I pledge you my word of honor that hereafter, so long as I am a member of this school, I will behave myself."

His voice trembled somewhat towards the close, but he went bravely through to the end, and then sat down.

Then Mr. Bright bowed his head, and said:

"Our Father in heaven, whose weak and erring children we all are, bless the boy whose confession we have just heard, and help him to keep his word of honor like a man. And help us all, in all our strifes with evil and with wrong, that we may come out of them better, and stronger, and purer, even as our Master was made perfect through suffering, Amen." That was all!

Perhaps there were dry eyes in the room just then. If so, they did not appear,

After a pause of an instant, Mr. Bright said:

"You may go on with your work," and the pupils turned to their books again.

In five minutes more the hum of the busy school room was as if nothing uncommon had happened, and cla.s.ses were reciting as usual.

The deacon and his fellow-members sat upon the platform till recess, listening to recitations, and then left; the president remarking to the teacher as they went out, that they "thought the school was doing very well!"

"Dodd" and Mr. Bright walked home together after school was out.

"Where do you suppose I hid?" asked "Dodd," as they walked along.

"I have no idea," returned Mr. Bright.

"I ran down cellar, and, crawled part way up the airshaft back of the furnace," said "Dodd." And that was the last that was ever said about the affair by either teacher or pupil.

CHAPTER XVII.

For a few months after the event just narrated "Dodd" went to school to Mr. Bright, and during the whole time he deported himself as a good and faithful student should. But with the next meeting of the Conference, Parson Weaver was shifted again, and with him went the hero of this story. (I think "Dodd" may justly be called a hero after so bravely doing what he did in the presence of the school and the board of education, as just told.) Mr. Bright also left Emburg the following year, and so he and "Dodd" drifted apart, as people are all the time doing in this wide, wide world.

The parson had now been so long in the service that he was promoted to a city pastorate, at this turn of the ecclesiastical wheel of fortune, and so it fell out that "Dodd" went to the city to live. A more unfortunate thing could hardly have happened to him.

Yet his lot was such as is common to most boys who go from country to city life. They drift into the town where everything is new, strange and rare to them, just at that age when they are the most curious, the most on fire with new-born and wholly untamed pa.s.sions, and the least able to resist temptation. The glitter and tinsel of city life have thus a charm for them which falls powerless upon young men who have been familiar with such sights from their youth up, and the ignis fatuus of gilded pleasures lures them into the quagmires of sin before they are aware, where hosts of them sink down to death in the quicksands of a fast life. "Dodd" was not an uncommon boy. When he went to the city, he did as hosts have done before him, and as hosts will continue to do. I suppose G.o.d knows why!

Yet the young man did not go all at once into by and forbidden paths.

Few folks do. Neither do they come out of such ways by one great leap.

There are those who preach a different doctrine.

Either "Dodd" or his father made a fatal mistake, too, on going to town. Neither of them arranged to have the boy get to work, as soon as he entered his new life. The elder thought his son was getting large enough to look out for himself, and "Dodd" waited awhile to look around. So, between the two, the cup of salvation that the boy should have quaffed, fell, and was broken.

"Dodd" drifted about the town for many days, seeing what he could see.

His memory of Mr. Bright was still fresh and nourishing, and it often held him from wrong, where his natural inclination would have carried him clear over the line that separates evil from good. An iron, well heated, will hold its heat long after it is taken out of the fire. It grows cold, though, after a while.

So the boy began to circle about in the outer edge of the whirlpool that sucks in its victims so relentlessly and remorselessly, always, in the city.

I wish I did not have to tell the tale of still another descent into Avernus, of this boy of the checkered career. But I have started out to paint the picture exactly as it is, and I dip my brush in black again with a sigh. You have to do the same thing in telling, even to yourself, the story of yourself, don't you, my reader whose blood has iron in it, and whose pulses beat fast? I am not writing of a sluggish-veined person, nor for people of that complexion, good people though they are.

"Dodd" had never been to the theatre. He was curious to go, and now that he came within reach of this cla.s.s of amus.e.m.e.nts he was all anxiety to gratify his desire in this direction. He said nothing to his father or his mother about this, however. Indeed, it would have availed little if he had; that is, as these amus.e.m.e.nts were always looked upon by the parson and his good wife. They would have contented themselves by anathematizing the play-house and forbidding "Dodd"

attendance at such places; probably ending up their dissertation by declaring to the boy that it was his "natural heart, which is enmity against G.o.d," that led him to desire such sinful diversions.

So, one night "Dodd" went alone to the theatre.

Truth to tell, and to his credit be it said, he chose a reputable place for his maiden visit. The play was "London a.s.surance." It was well done, and the boy, who really possessed much innate dramatic genius, enjoyed the performance greatly. He felt ill at ease, however, while in the place, and went very quietly to bed when he reached home.

Indeed, as he lay awake for an hour or two after retiring, unable to sleep because of the vivid visions of the play that his highly wrought imagination and memory represented to his mental eyes, he resolved that he would never again go to see a play, but would stop with a single taste of the pleasure. Having made this resolve, be went to sleep content. How easy it is to make good resolutions, and to be content and satisfied in them when out of the reach of temptation.

But the next day, as he went about the city, he saw "Oth.e.l.lo" billed for that evening. He was restless in an instant. He talked the matter over with himself something as follows, considering whether or not he should go and see the "Moor of Venice:"

"'Dodd,' you are a fellow who cannot rest contented until you have seen what there is to see in the line of plays upon the stage. There are two kinds of dramas--tragedy and comedy. You saw comedy last night.

Go and see tragedy tonight and that will cover the whole field. You will then have seen it all and will be satisfied."

So that night, Tuesday evening, he went to see the tragedy. Don't ask about his resolve of the night before; just ask how you yourself have done scores of times, under similar circ.u.mstances, when you have sworn off, but when the trial came, have concluded not to count that time!

"Dodd" enjoyed "Oth.e.l.lo" as much as he did "London a.s.surance." But that night he pledged himself again not to pursue the pleasure further, as he had now seen it all. The next day, however, he found "Uncle Tom's Cabin" billed. Now even "ministers went to see this play," the bills said. "Dodd" saw "Topsy," "Eva," "Marks," and "Uncle Tom" that night!

Thursday he found "Ten Nights in a Bar-Room" billed. He knew the story, and was anxious to see the characters in it upon the stage. He saw them.

Friday, his friend John Oller, from Emburg, was in town, and "Dodd"

confessed to him that he had been four times to the theatre. John said:

"Well, 'Dodd,' I never went, and I want to go. Come and go with me to-night." The boys followed "Marble Heart" through to the end that evening.

Sat.u.r.day they went down town together, and "Zoe, the Octoroon Girl,"

was on for matinee. They took it in. Sat.u.r.day night was set for "Hamlet," and that melancholy Dane died in their presence before the city clock rang in the Sabbath morning.

Here is the story for you, good people. Seven times to the theatre in one week, for a boy who had been to such a place but seven times in all his life. It is the way of human nature. I suppose that when Adam and Eve really got to eating the forbidden apples, they ate, and ate, and ate. At least, this quality has been transmitted to their descendants.

Now, the bad thing about this affair, was not that "Dodd" had been to the play-house seven times, but that he had been there clandestinely.

When a person begins to sneak about anything, he is on the down grade to perdition, and the brakes are all off.

The result of this excess of "Dodd's" was a still further dissipation.

It is usually that way. The theatre soon had a fascination for him that he could not withstand. He went whenever he could get money enough to buy a ticket. After awhile he began to frequent places of amus.e.m.e.nt of a low grade. The "variety" performance attracted him, and he became an habitual attendant at such places. Here he formed acquaintances and made friendships that were not to his advantage, to say the best thing that can be said of them; and with these companions he drifted down the descent he had started on so unthinkingly. Here, also, he learned to drink, a vice which he had heretofore escaped.

So he kept on, down, and down. He needed money for the gratification of his desires, and to procure it he began to venture a little now and then on some gaming device. He was cautious and shrewd, and his early "investments" were fortunate. He won small sums at various times, and was elated with his success. He loitered much about the "bucket shop,"

and now and then took a "deal" as some friend gave him a "pointer." He was fortunate here, also, and even though so young, his vivid imagination began to picture the fortune he should some day make in this way. He suddenly dropped his country ways, dressed flashily, and took on, with marvelous apt.i.tude, the customs and manners of metropolitan life.

And still he kept his own counsel. The great gulf fixed between himself and his parents grew wider and wider. It was through this gap that the devils entered in and took possession of his soul.

The Book has it that wicked men wax worse and worse. It was so with "Dodd." His love of liquor grew upon him with wonderful rapidity. He began drinking to excess, his eyes became bloodshot, his hand became unsteady, and his step halted.

But the better part of the young man rebelled at this retrogression.

He pa.s.sed many an agonizing night alone, pledging himself to stop; hoping, longing for his true life of a few months before, and cursing his present condition. The "Other Fellow" was faithful to him, too, calling loudly to him to turn about, to go the other way, to "be converted."

But as is usual in such cases, after a night of such agony he would take one drink in the morning, just to steady his nerves down, and one being taken, the rest followed in course through the day, as they had done the day before, and the day before that. He was drunk a good share of the time.

It happened one night as he was going home, or rather as he was trying to go home, being in a very mellow condition, that is, he "stackered whiles"--that he was accosted by a polite and pleasant voiced, young gentleman, who took his arm kindly and walked with him several blocks.

As they walked he told "Dodd" that he was on his way to attend a revival meeting, and asked him to go along. Just then "Dodd" "took a bicker," and in the lurch, he knocked a book out from under the arm of his companion. It was a Bagster Bible!