Aunt Stanshy was ready to show that she was a woman. She held out her hand, also, and said, "I said more than I needed to, and I am sorry for that. Let it go, please."

"Well," he exclaimed, "it was mean in me to tempt a man, though I did not see then, as I do now, how low drink may bring a man. G.o.d knows I am low enough."

The tears were now making their way down old Tim Tyler's face. Charlie saw that Aunt Stanshy turned away from those present and looked in another direction, but the quick-eyed boy thought he noticed a redness to Aunt Stanshy's eyes when she faced the company again.

Will Somers had come from the store in season to hear Tim's words. A fisherman soon called who had hurt his hand with a fish-hook and wished to have a poultice applied by the "young doctor," as people sometimes called Will. This second party had closely followed Will and had heard what was last said. It was an interesting scene. There was the drunkard, confessing how low he had fallen, and there was the woman who once had loved and respected him. There was Charlie, the son of the man whom the drunkard tried to lead astray. There was Will, and the fisherman made an additional spectator.

Will stepped up to Tim.

"Mr. Tyler, excuse, me, but why do you stay so low? Why not come up again?"

"Will's tone was full of sympathy.

"G.o.d knows I would like to come up again."

"You can, and be back in your old place, owning your own boat, too."

"Yes," said Aunt Stanshy, eagerly, "and fishing from the barn, just the same as before."

"You are all kind, very kind. It does me good," and poor Tim actually smiled at the prospect. "What would my sister, who has clung to me, say?

Wouldn't she be taken aback?"

The tears were again in the drunkard's eyes.

"Good deal of the man there yet," thought Will. "Your sister might be taken aback, but in that kind of way that would help you forward. Come,"

he said, aloud, "I will go into my room and write a pledge for you, and be back in a moment."

Tim looked intently at the pledge of total abstinence that Will brought.

"If--if--I had some one to sign with me, some one to stand with me," he murmured.

"I will," said the fisherman, stepping forward, and now recognized as a previous acquaintance.

"You, John Fisher, will you?"

"Yes, I have taken a drop now and then, but I'll sign and stand with you.

I don't want to get into the--"

"Dock, where I was?" asked Tim.

"No, I am sure I don't."

"And that's the very place where drop-people may fetch up. I was a drop-taker once. I will sign, and G.o.d help me!"

"O he will," said Aunt Stanshy, encouragingly. Charlie now saw that her eyes were redder than ever.

After the name of Timothy Tyler came the name of John Fisher.

"Now you will make those at home happy," said Will.

But only those with whom Tim made his home really knew how happy it made them. How great was the change there! Young Tim speedily began to rally, sitting up that very day, while Ann went round the house singing.

Charlie came up the next day with a delicacy from Aunt Stanshy for the patient.

"Tell Aunt Stanshy to wipe out every thing, and we will start once more,"

was the message that Ann sent off by Charlie.

"It is all wiped out," was Aunt Stanshy's answer, and the two soon came together and joined hands.

The barn-door toward the dock was now open, and, in a humble way, the firm of "Tyler & Fisher" began business, drying their fish on the flakes adjoining Aunt Stanshy's barn, while in the barn itself they stored their possessions, as might be necessary.

A note from Mr. Walton arrived about that time. It was written in his frank, simple, hearty way, congratulating both the men on the stand they had taken. Referring to Tim's desire for fellowship in his new effort, of which Mr. Walton had heard, he added, "There is another who will stand by you, the Great Brother who came as a babe at Bethlehem, and Christmas will soon remind us of it. Feeling for us and loving us, he at last died for us. Ask him to stand with you. He came to help just such poor weak fellows as we all are."

That touched the "firm," and the next Sunday they both sat in a back seat near the stove by the church-door. As Tim Tyler sat there in old St.

John's and heard the dreary wind roaring without, he thought of the fishing-boats that scud before such winds anxious to make port and reach home.

"That's me, I hope, trying to get home," he thought, "and find harbor in G.o.d's Church, will hold us all."

CHAPTER XVIII.

A NEW DEPARTURE.

Again the club was only a memory. It was like a walking-stick that, when the mountain-tramp is over, the vacationist puts on the wall as a memento.

"How is your club getting along, Charlie?" asked Miss Bertha Barry, one day, when she was calling at Aunt Stanshy's.

"We--we--don't meet," said Charlie, mournfully. Juggie was there, also, calling on a once brother knight, and he, too, looked sad.

"Now I have an idea," said the teacher. "You know I like a good time as well as any body, but I think if we have clubs, it is a good idea to make them as useful as possible. If you meet again, remember, your name is 'Up-the-Ladder Club,' always to be climbing up, always to be advancing.

Now you can advance in this way; you can combine the literary element."

"Come-and-bine what?" asked Juggie.

"The literary element."

"De literal element?"

"Recitations and so on, I mean."

"We did have an entertainment," said Charlie, who was not disposed to forget or disparage the glory of "departed days."

"But this is something different, and let me explain. Let us suppose that we take the subject, 'Days of our Forefathers,' the times before or at the Revolutionary War. One of you could be dressed as a farmer in those days, and tell what farmers did; another as printer could tell what printers did, and so on. That would give you an idea of those days, and make something useful of your club."

The plan was popular with the boys of the club. When the subject was proposed to Aunt Stanshy, she made the comment: