Tip Lewis and His Lamp Part 11

Everybody liked Mr. Dougla.s.s. He turned around now from looking down the road, and looked down at Tip.

"Well, Tip," he said, "going to the circus?"

Tip shook his head.

"What's the matter?--no money? Pity to get so near and not go in; isn't it, pet?"

This last to the dainty little girl whose hand he held.

"Yes," she answered, with a happy smile. "Papa, why don't mamma come?"

"Oh, she'll be along soon. Here, sir," to the doorkeeper, handing him twenty-five cents, "let this ragam.u.f.fin in. In with you, Tip, and practise standing on your head for a month to come."

It was all done in a hurry; the doorkeeper stepped aside, the crowd jostled and pushed against him, the music burst forth in a new loud swell. A moment more, and Tip stood in the brightly-lighted room, staring eagerly around him. There was enough to see; the seats were filling rapidly with gaily--dressed ladies and gentlemen. He knew them, many of them, had seen them on the streets often and often; had seen some of them in Sabbath school, seated before their cla.s.ses.

Tip was speedily giving himself up to enjoyment, hus.h.i.+ng the small voice in his heart. One of the nicest men in town had let him in; yes, and there he was now with his wife and little girl; Mrs. Douglas was not only a teacher in the Sabbath school, but a member of the church. If she could go to the circus, why couldn't he? So Tip reasoned, and n.o.body told him that his lamp said, "Every one of us shall give account of _himself_ to G.o.d."

Presently the wonderful little s.h.a.ggy ponies trotted out; and back behind the curtains was one of the riders; he got a peep of her every now and then in her splendid dress; he knew she would be out pretty soon, and then she would ride.

Oh, that music! how it rolled around the ring! Tip was too busy looking and listening to keep out of people's way; he stepped back, still jostled by the crowd who were pouring in, and stepped directly in front of a man who was trying to make his way through the crowd around the entrance. Tip knew him in an instant; he was one of the circus men,--the one with the ugly face that he had noticed in the morning; it was ugly still, and red with liquor. He turned a pair of fiery eyes on Tip, and a dreadful oath fell from his lips as he swung him angrily out of his way.

Oh, Tip Lewis! No wonder your heart fairly stops its beating for an instant, then bounds on with rapid throbs. Only a few days ago you listened to the story of a bleeding, dying Saviour, bleeding and dying for you; and you promised, with honest tears, that for this you would love and serve and honour Him for ever. And yet, to-night, here you are, watching the tricks of men who can speak that sacred name in such a way that it will make even you, who are used to this, shudder and turn cold.

"In the name of the Saviour whom you love, what do you here?"

It was to Tip as if Christ Himself had asked that question. He turned suddenly, and, with both hands pressed to his ears, fairly fought his way through the crowd.

"Let me out! let me go!" He fairly shrieked the words at the astonished doorkeeper, who stood aside to let him pa.s.s. Up the hill with swift, eager steps he ran, trying still to shut out the ring of that awful oath, the sound of that hateful voice, speaking the name which had so lately become to him the one dear and precious name in earth or heaven. On, on, up the hill, and then down on the other side, stopping finally at the great tree under the hill, just across the pond. Stopping and sitting down, he tried to think. What had he done? He had been warned, he had been tempted, and he had _fallen_. It didn't help him now to think that good men and women were there. Perhaps G.o.d had not so plainly shown them the wrong. Perhaps they had never found that verse: "Avoid it, pa.s.s not by it." Perhaps--oh, _anything_--it was nothing to him now. This much was certain: he had done wrong. Such a heavy, _heavy_ heart as Tip had to-night. "What _should_ he do? What would Kitty say, if she found it out? Oh, what would Mr. Dewey think, or Mr. Holbrook? and then, above all else, came the thought, What could Jesus, looking down on him now from heaven, what could _He_ think of him? This thought brought the bitter tears, but it brought him also on his knees; and he said,--

"Oh, Jesus Christ, in spite of it all, you _know_ I love you. Won't you forgive me and let me try again?" Long he knelt there, trying to get close to Christ, and his Saviour did not leave him alone. It was only yesterday he had learned the verse, and it came to him softly now: "Thou art a G.o.d ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, of great kindness."

In his sore trouble, Tip's lamp had not failed him.

CHAPTER XII.

"He honoureth them that fear the Lord."

Slowly, but surely, as the late autumn days came on, Tip was growing into a better place in the schoolroom, in the opinion of his teachers and his schoolmates. In Mr. Burrows' school, ten was the perfect mark, and _x_ was the very lowest grade a boy could reach. It had once been an everyday joke with Tip, that, being _x_, he must be perfect, because it said in the spelling-book that _x_ was ten.

But it had been a good many days since Tip had said "_x_;" the boys had ceased to be amazed when he answered "ten" in prompt, proud tone.

They were growing, many of them, to be surprised and sorry for him, when, in his days of failures, he answered, with drooped eyes and very red, ashamed face, "seven," or, it might be, "six."

Though he was still anything but a good reader, no one could fail to see that he blundered less and less every day, and Mr. Burrows was growing patient with his blunders, growing helpful in his troubles.

The boys saw him working hard over his spelling-book, and few of them now had the meanness to laugh when a word pa.s.sed him.

Mr. Burrows' tones were not so harsh to him as they used to be; and now-a-days, when he was accused of breaking rules, instead of being called up and unhesitatingly punished, his teacher, who grew every day less and less sure that he was at the bottom of all the mischief done, always gave him a chance to speak for himself, and was learning to believe him.

Oh yes! things were different, and were all the time growing more so. Bob Turner saw this plainly: he began to find Tip a very stupid companion, and stayed away from school more afternoons than ever.

But poor Tip noticed the change less,--yes, much less than any of the others. You don't know how hard it was for him. Do you think Satan was willing to leave him, and let him grow quietly into a good boy? Not a bit of it. You see he had been born bubbling over with fun and frolic; he had never learned to have them come in at the right place or the right time.

Sometimes he felt willing to give up all trying to do right, for the sake of having a grand frolic just when and where he wanted it,--no matter what might be going on just then. Sometimes, when he failed, he felt fierce and sullen, and told himself it was all humbug, this trying to be good. Sometimes he felt so utterly sad and discouraged, that it seemed to him he never could try again; yet through it all he _did_ try heartily.

His arithmetic was the hardest. He was still in the dunce cla.s.s,--so the boys called it, because it was made up of the drones from several cla.s.ses, and was constantly being put back to addition.

It was a sharp winter's morning. No more make-believe winter for a while,--the snow lay white and crisp on the ground, and the frosty air stung every nose and every finger it could reach.

Tip's study, at the foot of the hill under the elm, had been quite broken up, and he found it very hard to study at home,--especially this morning. His father's cough had been bad all night, and this made his mother troubled and cross.

Kitty, these days, seemed trying to see just how cross and disagreeable she could be; and the kitchen--at best a dismal place--was just now at the worst. The wet wood in the stove sizzled and stewed and made a smoke; and in the midst of Tip's fifth trial on an example which was puzzling him terribly, he was called on to split some kindlings.

"This instant!--I won't wait a minute!" Kitty said in a provokingly commanding tone; and Tip went at it sullenly, saying, with every spiteful drive of his axe through the pine board which he had picked up, "It's no use; I _cant_ do that sum, and I ain't going to try. I don't know anything, and never will. I've done it over fifty times, and twisted it every way I can think of. There's no sense to it, any way,--sixteen sheep _stood him in_ two dollars apiece. What does that mean, I'd like to know? He had forty sheep and twenty-five cows. I know it all by heart; but I can't do it, and that's the whole of it. I wish his sheep had choked to death, and his old cows run away, before I ever heard of them.

I'll go over it just once more." (Tip was back by the kitchen window now, with his slate and book.) "Let's see: twenty-five cows at thirty-four dollars apiece;" and he worked away in nervous haste, until he came to "stood him in." If he only _could_ find out what that meant, he felt sure he could do it. If he had somebody to help him; but he hadn't. There would be no time after he went to school before the cla.s.s was called.

Just then he thought of his father; he used to be a carpenter before he was sick, and he used to make a great many figures sometimes on smooth boards. Tip remembered it was just possible that he might know something about the sum. Suppose he should ask him?

He started up suddenly, and went towards the bedroom door.

"Father," he said softly, "can't you tell me what 'stood him in' means?"

The sick man turned himself on his pillow, and looked wonderingly at Tip.

"What do you mean?" he asked at last.

"Why," said Tip, in a despairing tone, "it says 'stood him in' in the arithmetic,--the sheep stood him in two dollars apiece,--and I don't see any sense to it."

"Oh!" said Mr. Lewis; "I see what you mean;" then he went back to his long-ago deserted carpenter's shop.

"Why, Tip, if I had ten pounds of nails, and they were worth eight cents a pound, they would stand me just so much,--that is, they would be worth that to me; and if I should sell them I'd get so much for them.

Don't you see?"

Light began to dawn on Tip's mind.

"Then it means," he said, "that the man didn't sell his sixteen sheep; he just counted them worth two dollars apiece. Yes, I see; if that's it, I'll try it." And he rushed to his work again.

And Tip will never forget the eagerness with which he presently turned to the answer in his arithmetic, and from that back to the one on the slate, nor the way in which the blood bounded through his veins when he found that they agreed perfectly.

"It's exactly it," he called out to his father, in a hearty, grateful voice. "I've got it, and I've been at work on it this whole morning."

Ellis Holbrook, about that time, conquered a most puzzling example in algebra; but he felt not prouder than did Tip.

"Thomas," said Mr. Burrows to the head boy in Tip's arithmetic cla.s.s, "you may take the twenty-third example to the board."