What Two Children Did Part 20

For awhile the banker looked out on the showery landscape, then he turned to the children's mother.

"Perhaps you are right, Mrs. Rayburn," he said gently. "The world is all too selfish;" and he sighed as he said it.

"It is indeed," came the emphatic answer. "There is no crime, there is no sin, that has not for its basis selfishness. It is the evil part of life, and the Christ life that ought to be man's pattern, is the type of unselfishness."

"Well," said the banker, taking up his paper, "I am open to conviction."

The sun was s.h.i.+ning when they arrived at the pretty station, and they all stopped on the platform to listen a moment to the organ note of the sea. As they waited, a wagon drove up, and a young fellow jumped out and ran towards them.

"It's--it's--d.i.c.k! d.i.c.k who used to walk on crutches!" cried Ethelwyn, fairly rubbing her eyes in astonishment.

There were no signs of lameness now in this tall youth, and his face was radiant with happiness. He could not speak for a moment, as he shook hands with those whom he knew, and of whom he had almost constantly thought with heartfelt grat.i.tude.

"My sakes! Aren't you mended up well, though?" said Beth, walking around him admiringly.

They all laughed at this, of course, and d.i.c.k was then introduced to Bobby's mother, his grandfather, and Bobby himself.

"d.i.c.k is the first patient of the Home," said Mrs. Rayburn, "and he does it credit. He is Mrs. Stevens's right-hand man now. Where and how is dear Mrs. Stevens?"

"She is well but could not leave to come to the train," said d.i.c.k. "She can hardly wait to see you, though."

"I do sincerely trust she has baked a bushel of cookies," said Ethelwyn, as they climbed into the wagon.

The approach to the Home was very beautiful. The sun was going down in a blaze of glory, and the wagon wound around the hill road to where the cottage, gay with flags and striped awnings, crowned its summit.

Then, above the roar of the sea and the clatter of hoofs, came the sound of children's voices calling from the broad piazza,

"Welcome home! Welcome home!"

Then a child's voice sang,

"To give sad children's hearts a joy, To give the weary rest, To give to those who need it sore, This makes a life most blest."

As Bobby's grandfather helped the grown people out of the wagon--the children had climbed down without waiting for help--he cleared his throat once or twice.

"I'm nearer conviction than I was," he said.

As she hurried towards the porch, Mrs. Rayburn smiled to herself.

Nan's mother waited, and walked up with Bobby's grandfather. Over her had come a great and happy change; her eyes were now full of earnest light, and she had forgotten her headaches and other small ills.

She now looked up into the banker's face.

"After all, life to be beautiful and to reach rightly towards eternity should be helpful, and self-forgetful; do you not think so?" she said.

"I was long learning the two great commandments, which embody the whole decalogue, and I probably never should have learned them if it had not been for these blessed children, and their mother."

"H--m, h--m," said the banker.

On the porch were twenty children. In forty eyes the new light of happiness was dawning. At the beginning, many of them had been hopeless and even evil, but now it was all different, for they had found out that they could laugh.

Aunty Stevens herself, full of laughter and bubbling over with joy at seeing her friends again, surrounded by the shouting children, made them more than welcome.

Bobby's grandfather was armed with a huge box, which he had mysteriously guarded all day; he now set it down upon the porch.

"If you children don't make this box lighter at once, I shall have no use for you," he declared. And they all, scenting candy with infallible instinct, fell upon it with rapture.

They had tea on the lawn, that evening, and, after a consultation with Mrs. Stevens, Bobby's grandfather sent a message over the telephone that was followed very shortly by a man with ice cream and a huge cake. When eight o'clock came, one of the teachers began to play a march on the piano in the hall. At once the children fell into line, marking time with their feet, and singing,

"Good-night, good-night, Children and blossoms who sleep all the night, Always will wake up happy and bright, Good-night, good-night!"

As they sang, they marched away to bed. The others followed them in.

The boys' dormitories were in a building on one side of the lawn, and the girls' on the other, while the babies' nursery was in the main building.

The spirit of the Home was helpfulness, so each child aided some one else in getting ready for the night. When they were in their white night-gowns, they all dropped upon their knees, and one of the teachers said a short prayer after which they all joined with her in the Lord's Prayer.

When the guests came down into Aunty Stevens's sitting-room where the open fire was dancing--for the evening was a trifle chilly--Bobby's grandfather put a few questions to Mrs. Stevens.

"When the children are thievish and given to bad language and lying, what do you do?" he asked.

"In some way they seem to shed those things, as a worm does its coc.o.o.n, after they are here for a while," she answered. "In the light of loving care, the sunny child nature comes out--it cannot help it, any more than a rose can help blooming in the sun; and, with the other children who have been here from the first to regulate things, we do not have much trouble. They are too young to stay vicious, and when they go away they are well enough grounded in good habits not to forget them, we hope, and to go on helping others."

"Do you have to refuse many applicants?"

"Yes, that is one trouble. We ought to be able to take at least fifty children, and we need an infirmary; but those things will come in time."

Bobby's grandfather opened his mouth to speak, just as Bobby himself climbed into his lap with a question trembling on his lips.

"Well, sir?" inquired his grandfather.

"May I have some of the money you're going to leave me, to give now, just as Ethelwyn and Beth did?" asked Bobby.

"How do you know I'm going to leave you any, you young freebooter?"

"Well, I s'posed you would; most people would think so, 'cause I'm named for you, and you always said you liked me," remarked Bobby, somewhat embarra.s.sed.

His grandfather patted him comfortingly on the back.

"Yes, Bobby, I do like you, and all the better for your request. We'll build the infirmary, and maybe more. I am open to conviction no more,"

he added, looking towards Mrs. Rayburn, "for I _am_ convicted and I hope converted."

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