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Updated: May 11, 2025
"Yes, I might if he wants to learn, and if he won't bother me too much." Tode's cheeks were all aglow. He had awakened lately to the fact that there was a great deal in this world that he didn't understand, that he wanted to know about; and without a doubt but that this wise-eyed girl knew it all, and that he should learn it all, and that he should learn it from her in a little while.
Tears were strangers to Tode's eyes, but they flowed down his cheeks as he sat there in the dark and thought of the happy days he had spent there, and that now he must go away from it all away from the bishop back to the wretched and miserable life which was all he had known before. "Oh, how can I tell him! How can I tell him!" he sobbed aloud, with his head on the desk.
I never thought about it," replied Tode. "Well, you'd better think about it, an' 'tend to it right away. 'F you're goin' to church with bishops you'd ought to look respectable, anyhow." Something in the tone and emphasis with which Mrs. Hunt spoke brought the colour into Tode's brown cheeks, while Nan looked at the good woman in surprise and dismay.
And taking Tode's offered arm the daughter of the millionaire moved down the long parlor by his side. Mr. Birge, coming at that moment from the dining-room, passed the two, then turning back sought his wife to say: "The experiment has succeeded. Theodore is promenading with Dora Hastings." "The splendid girl!" said Mrs. Birge, energetically. "I knew she would."
By the time breakfast was ready she knew that the boy had left the house, but the bishop refused to believe it, nor would he be convinced until the house had been searched from attic to cellar. When Mr. Gibson made his appearance, a gleam of satisfaction shone in his narrow eyes as he learned of Tode's disappearance. "I was afraid something like this would happen," he remarked, gravely.
If the people who dined at that great hotel on the Avenue during those following weeks could have known how the chance words which they let drop, and in dropping forgot, were gathered up by that round-eyed boy, how startled they would have been! There was one memory which stood out sharply in Tode's life it was of his mother's death.
They scattered in all directions and the next moment, Tode's shrill voice rang out triumphantly, while his rival stalked gloomily off, meditating dire vengeance in the near future. Meantime, after Tode and Dick had departed, Nan had spoken a few grateful words to Mrs. Hunt, and then laying the baby on the lounge, she said, earnestly, "Please show me just how you make those bags.
Then came the explanation of his passing by us now, daily, hourly, calling us in a hundred ways, and then a few sentences written, it would seem, expressly for Tode's own need: "Sometimes," said the minister, "he passes by, speaking to the soul with some passage from the Word.
And the tears which had been gathering in Tode's eyes dropped one by one on his hand. Presently, as he listened, the minister's tones grew very solemn. "There are none before me to-day who can say, 'He never came to me. Sinner, he is near you now, near enough to hear your voice, near enough to answer your call. Will you call upon him? Will you let him help you? Will you take him for your Savior?
Tode watched her with wondering and admiring eyes. "Be you writing?" he exclaimed at last. "Why, yes," said Dora. "Don't you see I am?" "How old be you?" "I'm eleven years old. You never studied grammar, did you?" "And you know how to write?" "Why, yes," said Dora again, this time laughing merrily. "I've known how more than a year." Tode's answer was grave and thoughtful: "I'm fifteen."
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