Three People Part 14

Mr. Stephens was hastening home from his office with quick business tread. He was just in front, and instinctively the boy quickened his step to keep pace with the rapid one. Tode knew him well, had waited on him at table when there came now and then a stormy day, and he sought the hotel at the dining hour instead of his own handsome home. He halted presently before a bookstore and went in. Tode lounged in after him.

Already the old careless feeling that he might as well do that as any thing had begun to control him again. Mr. Stephens made his purchase, gave a bill in payment and waited for his change, and from his open pocket-book, all unknown to him, there fluttered a bit of paper, and lodged at Tode's feet. Tode glanced quickly about him, n.o.body else saw it. Mr. Stephens was already deep in conversation with an acquaintance, and might have dropped a dozen bits of paper without knowing it. The paper might be of value, and it might not. Tode composedly put his foot over it, put his hands in his pockets, and stood still. Mr. Stephens departed. There was a bit of brown paper on the floor. Tode stooped and carefully picked that and the other crumpled bit up, and busied himself apparently in wrapping something carefully up in the brown paper. Then he waited again. Presently a clerk came toward him.

"Well, sir, what will you have?"

"Shoe-strings," answered Tode, gravely.

"We don't keep them in a bookstore, my boy."

"Oh, you don't. Then I may as well leave." And Tode vanished.

"Who's the wiser for that, I'd like to know?" he asked himself aloud as soon as the door was closed. Then he started for the hotel in high glee.

He stopped under a street lamp to discover what his treasure might be, and behold, it was a ten dollar bill! Now indeed Tode was jubilant; a grand addition that would make to his little h.o.a.rd, and visions of all sorts of wished for treasures danced through his brain. His spirits rose with every step; he sung and whistled and danced by turns. Had this strange boy then forgotten the errand which had taken him out that evening? Not by any means. He went directly to the office as soon as he reached the house and made known to Mr. Roberts his intention of leaving him. He stood perfectly firm under Mr. Roberts' questioning persuasions and rather tempting offers. He squarely and distinctly gave his reasons for leaving, and endured with a good-natured smile the laugh and the jeers that were raised at his expense. He endured as bravely as he could whatever there was to endure for conscience' sake that evening, and finally went up to his room triumphant--triumphant not only in that, but also over the fact that he had successfully stolen a ten dollar bill.

Oh, Tode, Tode! And yet there was the teaching of all his life in favor of that way of getting money, and he knew almost nothing against it. He had only three leaves of a Bible; he had never heard the eighth commandment in his life. He knew in a vague general way that it was wrong, not perhaps to steal, but to be _found_ stealing. Just why he could not have told, but he knew positively this much, that it generally fared ill with a person who was caught in a theft, but his ideas were very vague and misty; besides he did not by any means call himself a thief. He had not gone after the money, it had come to him. He was very much elated, and as he went about making ready for sleep he discussed his plans aloud.

"I'll go into business, just as sure as you live, I will. I'll keep a hotel myself; I'll begin to-morrow; I'll have cakes and pies and crackers and wine. Oh bless me, no, I can't have wine, but coffee.

_Jolly_, I can make tall coffee, I can, and that's what I'll have _prezactly_. This ten dollar patch will buy a whole stock of goodies, and I won't clerk it another day, _see_ if I do."

By and by he quieted down, so that by the time his candle was blown out and he was settled for the night, graver thoughts began to come.

"'Tain't right to steal," he said aloud. "I know 'tain't right, 'cause a fellow always feels mean and sneaking after it, and 'cause he's so awful afraid of being found out. When I've done a nice decent thing, I don't care whether I'm found out or not; but then I didn't steal. I didn't go into his pocket-book, it blew down to me--no fault of mine; all I did was just to pick a piece of paper off the floor, no harm in that. How did _I_ know it was worth anything? What's the use of me thinking about it anyhow? He'll never miss it in the world; he's rich--my! as rich as the President."

Tode turned uneasily on his pillow, shut his eyes very tight, and pretended to himself that he was asleep. No use, they flew open again.

He began to grow indignant.

"I hope I'll never have another ten dollars as long as I live, if it's got to make all this fuss!" he said in a disgusted tone. "I wish I'd never picked up his old rag--I don't like the feeling of it. I didn't steal it, that's sure; but I've got it, and I wish I hadn't."

"The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." That verse again, coming back to him with great force, beholding the evil and the good. Which was this? Was it good? Tode's uneducated, undisciplined conscience had to say nay to this. Well, then, was it evil?

"I feel mean," he said, reflectively. "As mean as a thief, pretty near.

I wouldn't like to have anybody know it. I wouldn't tell of it for anything. S'pose I go down there to that prayer-meeting and tell it.

Would I do _it_? No, _sir_--'cause why? I'm ashamed of it. But then I didn't _steal_ it; I didn't even know it was money. Oh bah! Tode Mall, don't you try to pull wool over your own eyes that way. Didn't you s'pose it was, and would you have took the trouble to get it if you hadn't s'posed so? Come now. And then see here, I wouldn't have anybody know about it; and after all there's them eyes that are in every place, looking right at me. 'Tain't right, that is sure and certain. I didn't steal it, but I've got it, and it ain't mine, and I oughtn't to have it.

I could have handed it back easy enough if I'd wanted to. So I don't see but it looks about as mean as stealing, and feels about as mean, and maybe after all it's pretty much the same thing. Now what be I going to do?"

And now he tumbled and tossed harder than ever. That same miserable fear of those pure eyes began to creep over him again, accompanied by a dreary sense of having lost something, some loving presence and companions.h.i.+p on which he had leaned in the darkness.

"I'll never do it again," he said at last, with solemn earnestness. "I _never will_, not if I starve and freeze and choke to death. I'll let old rags that blow to me alone after this, I will."

Then, after a moment's silence, he clasped his hands together and said with great earnestness:

"O Lord Jesus, forgive me this once, and I'll never do it again--never."

After that he thought he could go to sleep but the heavy weight rested still on his heart. He was not so much afraid of those solemn eyes as he was sorry. An only half understood feeling of having hurt that one friend of his came over him.

"What be I going to do?" he said aloud and pitifully. "I _am_ sorry--I'm sorry I did it, and I'll never do it again."

Still the heavy weight did not lift. Presently he flounced out of bed, and lighted his candle in haste.

"I'll burn the mean old rag up, I will, so," he said with energy. "See if I'm going to lie awake all night and bother about it. I ain't going to use it, either. I don't believe I've got any right to, 'cause it ain't mine."

By this time the ten dollar bill was very near the candle flame. Then it was suddenly drawn back, while a look of great perplexity appeared on Tode's face.

"If it ain't mine what right have I got to burn it up, I'd like to know?

I never did see such a fix in my life. I can't use it, and I can't burn it, and the land knows I don't want to keep it. Whatever be I going to do? I wish he had it back again; that's where it ought to be. What if I should--well, now, there's no use talking; but s'pose I ought to, what then?"

And there stood the poor befogged boy, holding the doomed bill between his thumb and finger, and staring gloomily at the flickering candle. At last the look of indecision vanished, and he began rapid preparations for a walk.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XII.

THE STEPPING STONE.

Thus it was that Mr. Stephens, sitting in his private room running over long rows of figures, was startled, somewhere near midnight, by a quick ring of the door-bell. His household were quiet for the night, so he went himself to answer the ring, and encountered Tode, who thrust a bit of paper toward him, and spoke rapidly.

"Here, Mr. Stephens, is your ten dollars. I didn't steal it, but it blew to me, and I kept it till I found I couldn't, and then I brought it."

"What is all this about?" asked bewildered Mr. Stephens. "Come in, my boy, and tell me what is the matter."

And presently Tode was seated in one of the great arm-chairs in Mr.

Stephens' private room.

"Now, what is it, my lad, that has brought you to me at this hour of the night?" questioned that gentleman.

"Why, there's your money," said Tode, spreading out the ten dollar bill on the table before them. "You dropped it, you see, in the bookstore, and I picked it up. It blew to me, I didn't steal it, leastways I didn't think I did; but I don't know but it's just about as bad. At any rate I've brought it back, and there 'tis."

"Why!" said Mr. Stephens, "is it _possible_ that I dropped a bill?" And he drew forth his pocket-book for examination. "Yes, that's a fact.

Really, I deserve to lose it for my carelessness. And so you decided to bring it back? Well, I'm glad of that; but how came you to do it?"

"Oh," said Tode, "I couldn't sleep. The eyes of the Lord, you know, were looking at me, and I tumbled about, and thought maybe it wasn't right, and pretty soon I knew it wasn't, and then I asked the Lord Jesus to forgive me, and I didn't feel much better; and then I got up and thought I'd burn the mean thing up in the candle, and then I thought I musn't, 'cause it wasn't mine; and by that time I hated it, and didn't want it to be mine; and then after awhile I thought I ought to bring it to you, but I didn't want to, but I thought I ought to, and there 'tis."

Mr. Stephens watched the glowing face of his visitor during this recital, and said nothing. After he finished said nothing--only suddenly at last:

"Where do you live, my boy?"

"I live at one of the hotels--no, I don't, I don't live no where. I did till to-night, and to-night I sleep there, and after that I don't belong nowhere."

"Have you been employed in a hotel?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why do you leave?"

"'Cause I can't be putting bottles to my neighbors any longer. You know what Habakkuk says about that, I suppose?"

Tode was ignorant, you see. He made the strange mistake of supposing that every educated man was familiar with the Bible. Again Mr. Stephens said nothing. Presently, with a little tremble to his voice, he asked another question: