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Updated: May 16, 2025
"Tode," exclaimed Nan, suddenly, "you ought to go to some Sunday-school. Then you'd learn all about the Bible and the things you want to know." "Might be a good scheme, that's a fact," he answered, thoughtfully. "Reckon I'll try it on anyhow, an' see how it works." "Yes, do. I always used to go before mother was sick. If you have a good teacher you'll like it, I'm sure."
She was thinking how hard she tried to bring up her children to be good boys and girls, and yet they were not always good. She wondered what kind of a boy her Dick would have been if he, like Tode, had had no home and no one to keep him from evil ways. "If that's so, there's some excuse for him," she said, in response to Nan's plea for Tode.
"Humph," said the mother, with a darkening face, "we shall likely; we do most generally. His loving father will get drunk, and if he don't pitch Tode head over heels out here on the stones, in honor of his birthday, I'll be thankful. Tode Mall, you stop crawling out to that gutter, or I'll shake you within an inch of your life!"
One day Carrots told him that Tode Bryan was huntin' everywhere for him. Then Dick, in desperation, made up his mind to go to sea he could stand the strain no longer. He dared not go home, even to bid his mother goodbye. Dick was selfish and cruel, but he had even yet a little lingering tenderness for his mother.
Theodore grew to like his teacher much as the weeks passed, and often after Sunday-school the two walked home together. Some of the boys that had been longer in the class rather resented this friendship, the more so as Theo was by no means popular among them just at this time. "He's gettin' too good, Tode Bryan is," one of them said, one Sunday.
Such boys ought not to be shielded." "Mr. Scott, I had an awful time over that last night," answered the boy, earnestly. "I wanted to pay them fellers for this job you better b'lieve I did, but," he shook his head slowly, "I can't do it. You see, sir, I ain't Tode no more I'm Theodore, now."
They were old but clean, and it was trying to Nan to see Little Brother's pure, sweet face and fresh garments held by Tode's dirty hands against his dirtier jacket. But the baby did not mind. He looked as contented as Tode did, and when the boy's grimy fingers touched his thin cheek, Little Brother laughed a soft, happy, gurgling laugh that was music in Tode's ears.
That's well!" he exclaimed, heartily. The doctor looked at him curiously. "Did you ever see the lad before you picked him up yesterday?" he asked. "No, never," answered the bishop, who naturally had not recognised in Tode the boy whom he had taken into church that Sunday, weeks before. The doctor shook his head as he drove off and muttered to himself, "Whoever saw such a man!
He sat through the remainder of the service in a dreamy state of strange enjoyment. He did not understand why the people around him stood or knelt at intervals. He did not care. When the bishop prayed, Tode looked around, wondering whom he was calling "Lord." He concluded that it must be the one who made the music.
Stephens, "shall you and I kneel down and thank the Lord Jesus for the care which he has had over you to-night, and for the help which he has given you?" "Yes, sir," answered Tode, promptly, not having the remotest idea what kneeling down meant, but he followed Mr. Stephens' movement, and was commended to God in such a simple, earnest prayer that he had never heard before.
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