TIP LEWIS AND HIS LAMP

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XXI.

CHAPTER XXII.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CHAPTER XXV.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CHAPTER I.

"Cast thy bread upon the waters."

The room was very full. Children, large and small, boys and girls, and some looking almost old enough to be called men and women, filled the seats. The scholars had just finished singing their best-loved hymn, "Happy Land;" and the superintendent was walking up and down the room, spying out classes here and there which were without teachers, and supplying them from the visitors' seat, which was up by the desk.

The long seat near the door was filled this morning by half a dozen dirty, ragged, barefooted boys; their teacher's seat was vacant, and those boys looked, every one, as though they had come thither just to have a grand frolic.

Oh, such bright, cunning, wicked faces as they had!

Their torn pants and jackets, their matted hair, even the very twinkle in their eyes, showed that they were the "Mission Class."

That is, the class which somebody had gathered from the little black, comfortless-looking houses which thronged a narrow back street of that village, and coaxed to come to the Sabbath school,—to this large, light, pleasant room, where the sun shone in upon little girls in white dresses, with blue and pink ribbons fluttering from their shoulders; and upon little boys, whose snowy linen collars and dainty knots of black ribbon had evidently been arranged by careful hands that very morning.

But those boys in the corner kicked their bare heels together, pulled each other's hair, or laughed in each other's faces in the greatest good humour.

The superintendent stopped before them.

"Well, boys, good morning; glad to see you all here. Where's your teacher?"

"Hain't got none!" answered one,

"Gone to Guinea!" said another.

"She was afraid of us," explained a third. "Tip, here, put his foot through one of her lace flounces last Sunday. Tip's the worst boy we've got, anyhow."

The boys all seemed to think this was very funny, for they laughed so loudly that the little girls at their right looked over to see what was the matter.

Tip ran his fingers through his uncombed hair, and laughed with the rest.

"Well," said the superintendent, "I'm going to get you a teacher,—one you will like, I guess. I shall expect you to treat her well."

There was just one person left on the visitors' seat,—a young lady who looked shy and quiet.

"Oh, Mr. Parker," she said, when the superintendent told her what he wanted, "I can't take that class; I've watched those boys ever since they came in,—they look mischievous enough for anything, and act as they look."

"Then shall we leave them with nothing but mischief to take up their attention?"

"No, but—they really ought to have a better teacher than I,—some one who knows how to interest them."

"But, Miss Perry, the choice lies between you and no one."

And, while she still hesitated and looked distressed, Mr. Parker bent forward a little, and said softly,—

"'Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these My brethren, ye did it not to Me.'"

The lady rose quickly, and gathered her mantle about her.

"I will go, Mr. Parker," she said, speaking quickly, as if afraid her courage would fail her. "Since there is no one else, I will do the best I can; but oh, I am afraid!"

Down the long room, past the rows of neatly-dressed, attentive children, Mr. Parker led her to the seat near the door.

"Now, boys," said he, "this is Miss Perry. Suppose you see if you can't all be gentlemen, and treat her well."

Miss Perry sat down in the teacher's chair, her heart all in a flutter. She taught a class in her own Sabbath school hundreds of miles away,—five rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed little girls gathered around her every Sabbath; but they were little girls whose mothers had taught them to love their lessons, to listen respectfully to what their teacher said, to bow their heads reverently in prayer; and more than that, they loved her, and she loved them. But these boys! Still she must say something: six pairs of bright, roguish eyes, brimful of fire and fun, were bent on her.

"Boys," she said gently, "have you any lessons for me?"

"Not much," answered Bob Turner, who always spoke first.

"We don't get lessons mostly. Don't come unless it's too hot to go fishing or berrying."

"Tip comes 'cause he's too lazy to go past the door,"

"I don't!" drawled out the boy they called Tip; "I come to get out of the sun; it's hotter than sixty down home."

"Never mind, boys," said their frightened teacher; for they were all laughing now, as though the funniest thing in the world had happened. "See here, since you have no lessons, shall I tell you a story?"

Oh yes, they were willing enough to hear a story, if it wasn't stupid.

"I'll tell you something that happened to a boy when he was about thirteen years old. His name is Robert; he told me this story himself, so you may be sure it's true.

"He said one evening he was walking slowly down the main street of the village where he lived"—

"Where was that?" asked Bob Turner.

"Oh, it was away out west. He said he felt cross and unhappy; he had nowhere in particular to go, and nothing to do. As he walked, he came to a turn where two roads met. 'Now,' thought he, 'shall I turn to the left and go home, and hang around until bed-time, or shall I turn to the right and go down to the river awhile?'

"You see, Robert hadn't a happy home,—his mother was dead, and his father was a drunkard.

"While he stood thinking, a boy came around the other corner, and called out,—

"Going home, Rob?'

"'Don't know,' said Robert; 'I can't make up my mind.'

"'Suppose you come on down to our house, and we'll have a game of ball?'

"Still Robert waited. He was fond of playing ball,—that was certain,—and he liked company better than to walk alone; why he should think of wandering off down to the river by himself he was sure he didn't know. Still something seemed to keep saying to him, 'Go this way—turn to the right; come, go to the river, 'until he said at last,—

"'No; I guess I'll take a walk this way first.'

"And he turned the corner, then he was but a few steps from the river."

"What came of the other fellow?" asked Bob.

"Why, some more boys came up just then, and he walked along with them.

"There was a large elm-tree on the river bank, and there was one particular spot under it that Robert called his seat; but he found a gentleman seated there this time; he had a book in his hand, partly closed, and he was leaning back against a tree, watching the sunset.

"He looked around as he heard Robert's step, and said, 'Good evening; will you have a seat?'

"He moved along, and Robert sat down on the grass near him; then he said,—

"'I heard a boy call out to another just now, "Going home, Robert?" Are you the boy?'

"'No,' said Robert; 'Hal Carter screamed that out to me just as he came round the corner.'

"'Oh, you are the one he was talking to. Well, I'll ask you the same question. Are you going home?'

"'No,' said Robert again; 'I have just walked straight away from home.'

"'Yes; but are you going up there?' And the gentleman pointed up to the blue sky. 'That's the home I mean; I've just been reading about it; this river made me think of it. Where it says, you know, "And he showed me a pure river of water, clear as crystal." Then it goes on to describe the city with its "gates of pearl" and "streets of gold," the robes and crowns that the people wear, the harps on which they play, and, after this warm day, I couldn't help thinking that one of the pleasantest things about this home was the promise, "Neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat." Aren't you going to that home, my boy?'"

"'I don't know,' Robert said, feeling very much astonished."

At this point the superintendent's bell rang, and Miss Perry had to hasten her story.

"I haven't time, boys, to tell you all the gentleman said, but, after that talk, Robert began to think about these things a great deal, and pretty soon he learned to read the Bible and to pray. That was more than fifty years ago. He is an old minister now; I have heard him preach a great many times; and he told me once he should always believe God put it into his heart to turn to the right that evening, instead of the left."

"Oh!" exclaimed Tip, just here; and Miss Perry stopped.

"Joe pinched me," said Tip, to explain his part of the noise.

But their teacher felt very badly; they had not listened to her story as though they cared to hear it; they had slid up and down the seat, pulled and pinched and pricked each other, and done a great many mischievous things since she commenced; and yet now and then they seemed to hear a few words; so she kept on, because she did not know what else to do.

"Oh, Mr. Parker," she said, when the school was dismissed, and her noisy class had scrambled, some through the window and some through the door, "some man who understands boys ought to have had that class; I haven't done them any good, but I tried;" and there were tears in her eyes as she spoke.

"You did what you could," said the superintendent kindly; "none of us can do more."

Some loving voice ought to have whispered in that teacher's ear, "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."

CHAPTER II.

"But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit."

Tip Lewis yawned and stretched, and finally opened his eyes rather late on Monday morning.

"Oh, bother!" he said, with another yawn, when he saw how the sun was pouring into the room; "I suppose a fellow has got to get up. I wish getting up wasn't such hard work,—spoils all the fun of going to bed; but then the old cat will be to pay, if I don't get around soon."

And with this he rolled out; and when he was dressed, which was in a very few minutes after he tumbled out of his ragged bed, he was the self-same Tip who had been at the bottom of most of the mischief in Miss Perry's class the day before,—the very same, from the curly hair, not yet combed nor likely to be, down to the bare, soiled feet.

The bed which he had just left, so far as neatness was concerned, looked very much like Tip, and the room looked like the bed; and they all looked about as badly as dust and rags and poverty could make them look.

After running his fingers through his hair, by way of finishing his toilet, Tip made his way down the rickety stairs to the kitchen.

It seemed as though that kitchen was just calculated to make a boy feel cross. The table stood against the wall on its three legs, the tablecloth was daubed with molasses and stained with gravy; a plate, with something in it which looked like melted lard, but which Tip's mother called butter, and a half loaf of bread, were the only eatable articles as yet on the table; and around these the flies had gathered in such numbers, that it almost seemed as though they might carry the loaf away entirely, if too many of them didn't drown themselves in the butter. Over all the July sun poured in its rays from the eastern window, the only one in the room.

Tip stumbled over his father's boots, and made his way to the stove, where his mother was bending over a spider of sizzling pork.

"Well," she said, as he came near, "did you get up for all day? I'd be ashamed—great boy like you—to lie in bed till this time of day, and let your mother split wood and bring water to cook your breakfast with."

"You cooked, a little for you, too, didn't you?" asked Tip, in a saucy, good-natured tone. "Where's father?"

"Just where you have been all day so far,—in bed and asleep. Such folks as I've got! I'm sick of living."

And Mrs. Lewis stepped back from the steaming tea-kettle, and wiped great beads of perspiration from her forehead; then fanned herself with her big apron, looking meantime very tired and cross.

Yet Tip's mother was not so cross after all as she seemed; had Tip only known it, her heart was very heavy that morning. She did not blame his father for his morning nap, not a bit of it; she was only glad that the weary frame could rest a little after a night of pain. She had been up since the first grey dawn of morning, bathing his head, straightening the tangled bedclothes, walking the floor with the restless baby, in order that her husband might have quiet. Oh no; there were worse women in the world than Mrs. Lewis; but this morning her life looked very wretched to her. She thought of her idle, mischievous boy; of her naughty, high-tempered little girl; of her fat, healthy baby, who took so much of her time; of her husband, who, though she never said it to him, or even to herself, yet she knew and felt was every day growing weaker; and with these came the remembrance that her own tired hands were all that lay between them and want; and it is hardly a wonder that her voice was sharp and her words ill chosen. For this mother tried to bear all her trials alone;

she never went for help to the Redeemer, who said,—

"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden."

"Wah!" said Johnny, from his cradle in the bit of a bedroom near the kitchen,—which kitchen was all the room they had, save two tiny bedrooms and Tip's little den up-stairs.

Mrs. Lewis glanced quickly towards the door of her husband's room; it was closed. Then she called,—

"Kitty, make that baby go to sleep!"

"Oh yes!" muttered Kitty, who sat on the floor lacing her old shoe with a white cord; "it's easy to say that, but I'd just like to see you do it."

"Ah yah!" answered Johnny from the cradle, as though he tried to say, "So should I."

Then, not being noticed, he gave up pretending to cry, and screamed in good earnest, loud, positive yells, which brought his mother in haste from the kitchen.

"Ugly girl!" she said to Kitty, as she lifted the conquering hero from his cradle; "you don't care how soon your father is waked out of the only nap he has had all night. Why didn't you rock the cradle? I've a notion to whip you this minute!"

"I did," answered Kitty sulkily; "and he opened his eyes at me as wide as he could stretch them."

Crash! went something at that moment in the kitchen; and, with Johnny in her arms, Mrs. Lewis ran back to see what new trouble she had to meet. Tip, meantime, had been in business; being hungry, he had cut a slice of bread from the loaf, and, in the act of reaching over to help himself to some butter, hit his arm against a pitcher of water standing on the corner of the table. Over it went and broke, just as pitchers will whenever they get a chance. This was too much for the tired mother's patience; what little she had vanished. She tossed the slice of bread at Tip, and as she did so, said,—

"There! take that and be off. Don't let me see a sight of your face again to-day. March this instant, or you will wish you had!"

And in the midst of the din, while his mother looked after the pork, which had seized this occasion for burning fast to the spider, Tip managed to spread his slice of bread, find his hat, and make good his escape from the comfortless home.

There was an hour yet to school-time; or, for the matter of that, he might have the whole day. Tip went to school, or let it alone, just as he pleased. He made his way straight to his favourite spot, the broad, deep pond, and laid himself down on its grassy bank to chat with the fishes.

"My!" he said; "how nice they look whisking about. It's cool down there, I know; they don't mind the sun. I wish I had my fish-pole here, I'd have one of them shiny big fellows there for my dinner; only it's too hot to fish, and it would seem kind of mean, besides, to get him up here in this blazing sun. Hang me if I make even a fish get out of the water to-day, when it can stay in!"

Of all the scholars in Miss Perry's class, the one who she would have said paid the least attention was this same boy who was lying on his face by the pond, envying the fishes. Yet Tip had heard nearly every word she said; and now, as he looked into the water, which lay cool in the shade of some broad, branching trees, there came into his heart the music of those words again,—

"Neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat."

"I declare," he said, as the meaning of those words dawned upon him, "I'd like that! they'll never be too warm again. It was a pretty nice story she told us about that boy. He couldn't have had a very good time; his father was a drunkard. I wish I knew just about what kind of a fellow he was; he turned right square round after that man talked to him. Now he is a minister; I suppose lots of people like him. It must be kind of nice, the whole of it. I would like to be somebody, as true as I live, I would. I'd like to have the people say, 'There goes Tip Lewis; he's the best boy in town.' Bless me! that would be funny; I don't believe they could ever say it; they are so used to calling me the worst, they couldn't help it. What if I should reform? I declare I don't know but I will."

And Tip rolled over on his back, and looked up into the blue, cloudless sky; lying there, he certainly had some of the most sober thoughts, perhaps the only really sober ones he had ever known in his life. And when at last he slowly picked himself up, turned his back upon the darting fishes, and walked towards the school-house, he had in his mind some vague notion that perhaps he would be different from that time forth. Just what he was going to do, or how to commence doing it, he didn't know; but the story, to which he had seemed not to listen at all, had crept into his heart, had commenced its work; very dimly was it working, very blindly he might grope for a while, but the seed sown had taken root.

CHAPTER III.

"Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye did it unto Me."

Around the corner, and far up the street from where Tip Lewis lived, there stood a large white house; not another house in the village was so beautiful as this. Many a time had Tip walked slowly by the place, and cast the most admiring glances on the broad green lawns and bubbling fountain, of which he caught; glimpses from the road. Often he had stood outside, at the great gate, and fairly longed for a nearer view of that same fountain; for the truth was, though he was such a rough, mischief-making,—yes, a wicked boy, down in his heart he had a great love for beautiful things.

On this Fourth of July morning, Tip was up and abroad very early. He held a horse, which had been so frightened by fire-crackers that it wouldn't stand still a minute, and the owner of it gave him ten cents, with which he immediately bought fire-crackers for himself, and frightened the very next horse he saw. When the great cannon on the hill was fired, he got in the way, just as much as he knew how, which was a great deal; he contrived to be around when the largest bell was rung, and add his voice to the uproar among the boys who were gathered around the church doors; indeed, wherever there was commotion or confusion, Tip managed very soon to be, and to do his part towards making the most of it.