Archie Fell

“ Don’t you ever get tired, mamma?”
“How little children know about the doctrines nowadays,” remarked Aunt Cynthia, severely. “Now, I knew them all by heart before I was old as Maybee,—sanctification, perseverance of the saints—”
“It was sinners I meant,” said Maybee, scowling, “folks what have to be forgived every single day. I do believe, mamma, the harder you try the worse it is. So many things keep happening, things you don’t like, while things you want to happen, won’t; and Miss Nancy says if anybody ever gets real good and happy, they’re most sure to die.” ”

“ Blackman.
The greatest change, however, was in Tryphosa Harte. You would scarcely have believed the quiet, happy face at the end of the seat was the same, Say had seen peering so disagreeably over the roof of the old house. The sour, ugly mouth was almost always smiling now; the fierce, scowling eyes were full of eager desire; the loud, coarse voice low and gentle, and her whole bearing so subdued and yet so thoroughly in earnest it was a comfort to look at her.
“Why, I really like Tryphosa,” said Jenny King, walking home one day beside Miss Marvin; “she is as different as can be. ”

“ I think that was what Enoch did. What else is necessary for people to walk happily together?”
“They must like the same things,” said Dick, “or they won’t have anything to talk about.”
“Very true: Enoch must have loved what God loved, and so should we. God loves truth and holiness, everything pure and noble and good, and he hates sin. What next?”
“They must love each other,” suggested Sue.
“Yes, indeed; two will never walk together long unless they love one another. God loves everybody, and Enoch must have loved God or he couldn’t have walked with him. ”

“ Sarah’s mother was a widow, and supported herself and daughter by doing fine sewing.
“We must remember this,” she said, slowly, looking down into the uplifted eyes: “if we really trust God he will surely lead us by the very best way to himself; and when we are with him up there it will make little difference how he took us from down here.”
“I must send her my ‘Brown-Haired Bess’ that I’ve promised Maybee,” said Miss Marvin to herself, as Sarah walked thoughtfully away. “I believe the ‘hidden life’ is beginning to show in that sweet, earnest face.” ”

“ I hope you can plead ‘Not guilty’ to all the rest; only remember Jesus said, ‘Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer.’ And then there’s the ‘new commandment’ Christ gave us, ‘Love one another.’”
“There’s—I—you know, the other one, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ and I—I have taken things, little things, sometimes,” said Dick, hurriedly.
“O Dicky Vance! To think Satan could make a brave, kind-hearted boy like you into a thief. How does he pay you? By making you real happy and giving you lots of fun? At the circus the other day, for instance.” ”

“ With punishment barred Sin’s broad, tempting way.
And so our Father in Heaven doth wait,
Lovingly, patiently; once and again
Calling us back from the broad, gilded gate
Which leads down to death, through sorrow and shame.
His love, strong and tender to help and to bless,
Though stern and unyielding, is love no less
When it bars the way with punishment sore,
Than when it waits at the Open Door. PART THIRD. I.
FARMER VANCE.
“Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.” ”

“ Quite crushed by this chilling response, Maybee fled to mamma.
“He’d ought to; he’s hurting folks when he don’t know it,” she sobbed. “Won’t you or papa or some big body ask him to please stop?”
“May be,” said mamma, wiping away the tears, “it is this little body’s special work, and if it is, God will provide a way. When He has a work for us to do He always opens the door. Only be patient, and watch and wait.”
A week or two afterwards, Tod, neat and clean as a pin, started for papa’s shop. ”

“ I remember it,’ Frank replied. ‘And can it be, uncle, that my heavenly Father is as well pleased with me when I pile wood as when I read the Bible?’
“His uncle replied, ‘To perform any duty with the spirit of obedience is pleasing to your heavenly Father. “To obey is better than sacrifice,” and great knowledge of the Scripture without practising it cannot make a Christian any more than great knowledge of geography can make a voyager of one who never leaves his home. ”

“ He can’t be with those bad, wicked men, and if he’s with us, we’re a great many the most.”
“I was real bad last week, but I’ve been forgived,” sobbed Maybee.
“My sweared a little swear yes’day, but my didn’t mean to; my said ‘Good Gwacious!’” moaned Tod.
“God doesn’t love us because we’re good,” said Say softly. “You know we’re all just as bad as can be.”
“I ain’t neither,” said Maybee stoutly. “I ain’t half so wicked as Tryphosa Harte.”
“Oh, but didn’t you know,” whispered Say, shivering as the back door rattled noisily, “Tryphosa is trying to be a Christian.” ”

“ You know we must be washed in the blood of Christ and clothed with his righteousness before we can enter that beautiful land, and when God takes anything from us that would hinder our getting ready, we need not mind when we think of what is ‘going to be.’ I remember, too, how afraid Tod was that day, of the cars and boat, and how he fretted because Uncle Thed wouldn’t let him walk instead of carrying him over the sand and rocks. So we often grumble at things in our lives,—things God means shall help us along faster towards heaven. ”

“ Who is with her?” asked Sue, her face full of real concern.
“Judy Ryan. Father has hired her to stay all the time. Isn’t it nice?”
“Splendid! Judy is so neat,—and she likes what Aunty McFane likes.” Sue added the last in a still lower whisper.
“I know,” said Dick. “She had just been reading a chapter in the Bible out loud, and Aunty McFane said there was a promise for every ache she had. Isn’t it funny,” he continued, turning to Miss Marvin, “that folks just as different as can be find exactly what they want in the Bible?” ”

“ What was there to prevent a deed of blood, as dreadful as those we read of almost every day?
What but God’s angels, if so be they were around those helpless little ones, as they were around the prophet Elisha in olden time,—invisible but strong. ”

“ An’ Tom followed us coming home and told Tod to get right down on his knees and say his prayers. It is nice to pray, isn’t it, Aunt Sue? and all good folks do, don’t they? and God tells us to, doesn’t He? But when they talk about it so, they make you feel perzactly as if it wasn’t nice at all, and they always will, if you are trying to be good; they’ll just poke fun at it and make you feel awful. And then they shut Tod in Mis’ Lynch’s yard and fastened the gate. ”

“ But, Maybee, think a moment. Did you do it really to please me or to please yourself? Have you been mamma’s good, obedient little Maybee to-day?”
“It’s nicer doing things than ’tis minding,” said Maybee, hanging her head.
Sue looked up from the parcel she was untying: “There, mother, that’s just it. I’ve tried, you know, ever since that night we were so frightened, to do things to please God; but it’s—it’s the minding I don’t like.”
“The natural heart loves to do great things,” said Mrs. Sherman, drawing her eldest daughter closer to her; “it is only the ‘new heart’ that loves to mind God.” ”

“ What’s going on?” cried Dick Vance, the laziest, wickedest boy in school, now on the way after his father’s cows. Tod recognized one of his noon-time tormentors, and straightened himself up, muttering, “My’ll kill you, you bet!” with a furtive glance at Maybee, who was busy a little ways off, launching a whole fleet of maple-leaves.
“Ho! here’s a man for you,” cried Dick. “Ain’t he a stunner now! Regular man, he is.” ”

“ Dick slunk hurriedly away; Tom disappeared no less rapidly, followed by the others boys of his set; Say Ellis called to Jenny from across the street, and Will Carter was left to walk along with Miss Marvin.
Almost before he knew it, he was talking over all his many plans and hopes for the future. To fit thoroughly for college, to graduate “A No. 1,” work himself into an “up-stairs lawyer,” to make rousing speeches that would carry everything before them, possibly to step from the Legislature into Congress: that was Will’s ambition. ”

“ Sampson, however, instead of looking horrified and disgusted, laid his hand on Tom’s shoulder again, and said, “My dear boy, you may work for Satan all your life,—work hard, too,—and depend upon it, he’ll turn you off at last without even a reward of merit. He promises well, I know. He may pay up a while in counterfeit coin most as good as the real, except that it won’t pass in another world, but he’ll give you the slip some time. There is only one Master whose ‘promise to pay’ is good for this world and the world to come. ”

“ I think Mabel means to be very good and quiet,” she added, stooping to kiss the dimpled chin on the doorstep.
“Yes’m, ’course,” nodded Maybee, skipping away to meet the freckle-faced Theodore, six months her junior. “On’y my ap’n’s so slippery it will rattle, and Tod’s got starch in his shoes, so’s he can’t go very sofferly.”
Sue took Tod’s other hand and walked on in her most matronly manner.
“Good-morning,” said Bell Forbush, coming out of her gate. “You look for all the world like a hen with two chickens. Don’t tell me those tots are going to school.” ”

“ Some of the boys, Tom Lawrence among them, began to drop in and fill the “back seats,” not to laugh and whisper, but to listen with apparent seriousness.
“Like as not they would come into Sabbath School if we asked them. Our class is running-over full, but we could have another seat, and Miss Marvin might work wonders with Tom,” said Dick to Will Carter. The two were good friends now, having entered the academy together, with Will ranking too far ahead to fear Dick’s rivalry at present. The misspent years in the past would always bother poor Dick. ”

“ Maybee stood by the window with a very sober face. There wasn’t much to see so early in the morning; only the street, a few passers-by, and over the hills, a spiral of white smoke where the cars were hurrying away towards the great city, carrying mamma and Sue with them. How long it would be till night! And mamma had said when she kissed her good-by, “I want Maybee to do exactly as Aunt Cynthia tells her, all the whole time. If she gets tired of play, there’s her garden to weed, the play-room to put in order, and that last seam to sew.” ”

“ To get is the world’s maxim, to give is God’s. Poor little Bell had learned only the first; she grasped eagerly at what seemed good, and found only sorrow and shame.
“It is so pretty up in Derryford in the summer!” Miss Marvin knew that; she had spent three months there once upon a time, and now she took a fancy to try a few weeks at the old-fashioned farm-house again. But she wanted somebody for company, and a nice boy to drive her around the country. Why weren’t Bennie and his mother the very ones? Bennie was looking pale, and his mother too. ”

“ Now, we asked Bell to ask her cousin for a dozen things, and it isn’t so very different asking God, only that he’s so great.”
“Which makes it so much the better, and he has—different things, you know, patience, and love.”
“Oh dear! it’s such hard work to use those things, I’m afraid I don’t want them much,” sighed Jenny; “but I’ll pray about Tryphosa. I begin to pity her more already.”
“Going to give away your stockings!” exclaimed Tilly Ellis, Sarah’s little sister, that night, as the latter was looking over her one small drawer of underclothing. ”

“ I dare say father would give her a pair of shoes, but they’d never walk into church, I’m sure of that.”
“I should call it casting pearls before swine,” laughed Jenny King. “Please, Miss Cox, don’t set us to driving any but little pigs into Sabbath School: you can coax round them easy, but that Tryphosa Harte,—it would take the meekness of Moses to begin with, and the patience of Job to hold out. I know meekness and patience and perseverance are nice things to have, but, you see, none of us has a rich cousin to keep us supplied with that sort of pocket-money.” ”

“ He had heard Griggs say the water sometimes rose to the very tip of the Needle. Most likely that was in a storm; but if the wind should go on increasing, and nobody knew where they were!
“We shall be ‘high’ if we aren’t ‘dry,’ up here,” called out Dick. “Only it’s a dreadfully narrow ‘shelf.’ Next time we’ll look twice before we leap.”
“Oh dear! the water’s clear up to our fire-place,” cried Robert, shivering with the rain and fright. “Don’t crowd so, Varney. What shall we do if it comes any higher? Oh, I shall certainly blow off! Do get up here quick, Bill, so I needn’t be right on the edge.” ”

“ One after another the frightened girls flung themselves down, one to be caught safely in the strong arms of a stalwart fireman, another reaching the ground with simply a sprained ankle, still another with a broken arm; while a fourth, falling beyond the mattress, was taken up bruised and bleeding, but alive, and life is dear at any cost. ”

“ You would suppose, now, Dick would be more in earnest than ever; but we all have to learn that when circumstances are most favorable and pleasant is the very time Satan will contrive to lay a temptation in our way and trip us if he can. For some time Dick had been very regular at the prayer-meeting. The boys sneered and laughed, but Dick had never minded, and now that his father went with him and Deacon Carter frequently commended his perseverance, and even the minister occasionally added a word of approval, Dick began to pride himself on the fact. ”

“ The class, however, remained after school to decide when and where to meet for rehearsals.
“You must all come to my home every other night,” said Bell decidedly.
“I’m afraid—perhaps—I thought Miss Marvin didn’t approve,” suggested Sue.
“Indeed I do; you cannot take too much pains to speak clearly and correctly. Shall I explain what I did mean? Suppose you make a feast for your friends, and they pronounce it the best they ever ate. At the same time, you find a poor man starving close by your door. You may give him never so little, but you feed him tenderly, and save his life. ”

“ I wish Miss Cox hadn’t moved away, so she could take the girls. Whom shall we have for a teacher?”
“Oh! we will find somebody. First, catch your class—”
“No, it’s first catch Will Carter; and I rather think I can if I set about it right,” said Dick, musingly.
“Be wise as a serpent but harmless as a dove,” laughed Miss Marvin. “Fishers of men sometimes need to work as warily as those who go down to the sea in ships.”
Dick went around to Will’s that very night and began earnestly setting forth the advantages of the new class and the necessity of Will’s taking the lead. ”

“ They say she’s uncommonly smart.”
“But, Miss Cox, she makes all manner of fun of anything good. I’ll ask mother to give her my last summer’s sacque, but I shouldn’t dare speak to her,” exclaimed Sue.
“I could give her one of my cambric dresses and I dare say Cousin Mate would get her a hat, but she’s so disagreeable I never want to go near her,” said Bell.
“It wouldn’t be a bit of use, I know,” put in Nettie Rand. “She’d only laugh in our faces the minute we said Sabbath School to her; and I think it’s hard work enough to ask folks to be good when they treat you decent. ”

“ Waiting in the post-office one day, Maybee overheard one gentleman say to another, “So Dan Harte’s been drinking again? How did it happen?”
“Oh, he was at work for ’Squire Ellis, had a slight ill turn, and was dosed with liquor the first thing. To use Dan’s own words, it set him on fire. He couldn’t eat nor sleep till he’d been down to Caffrey’s and drank himself dead drunk.”
“All over with him now, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so. He seems more determined than ever. But there’s no safety for such poor fellows unless we can put the temptation quite out of their way.” ”