Her Benny: A Story of Street Life
Page 6
CHAPTER VI.
In which Benny makes a Discovery.
All unseen the Master walketh By the toiling servant's side; Comfortable words He speaketh, While His hands uphold and guide. --Baynes.
Christmas Day this year came upon a Wednesday, and, during the two dayspreceding it, Benny did what he characterized as a "roaring bizness."There were so many people leaving and arriving by all the ferry-boatsand at all the stations, that our hero was kept on the trot nearly allthe time. His frank open face seemed to most people, who had a bag or abundle to carry, a sufficient guarantee of his honesty, and they hoistedtheir bag upon the little fellow's shoulder without any fear that hewould attempt to pry into its contents, or make off with it round somesharp corner.
For a time the "match business" was turned over entirely to Nelly'smanagement; and though the modest little girl never pushed herwares--she was too shy for that--yet Benny declared she did "stunnin'."
Many a gentleman, catching just a glimpse of the pale sweet face as hehurried past, would turn to have another look at the child, and, withouttaking any of her fusees, would put a penny, and sometimes more, intothe little thin hand. And Nelly would courtesy her thanks, unable toutter a word.
Benny declared "he liked Christmas-time 'mazin' well, and wondered whyfolks didn't have Christmas a sight oftener than once a year." How itwas that coppers were so much more plentiful at this time of the yearthan at any other time was to him a mystery. Poor little fellow! thethought never seemed to enter into his small head that it might be thatpeople's hearts were more open at this festive season than at someother times. However, Benny was not one that speculated long on suchquestions; he only wished that people were always as ready to have theirbags carried, and always gave their pence as ungrudgingly. Once ortwice he felt a bit sad, and brushed away a hasty tear, when he saw boysno bigger than himself wrapped up in great warm overcoats, and beautifullittle girls with fur-trimmed jackets and high-heeled dainty boots,clasped in the arms of their parents as soon as they stepped from theferry, and then hurried away to a cab or to a carriage in waiting--andthen thought of his own cheerless life. "I specks they's mighty 'appy,"he said reflectively, and then hurried away to the other end of thestage, where he thought he saw the chance of employment.
On Christmas Eve Benny took his sister through St. John's Market, andhighly delighted they were with what they saw. The thousands of geese,turkeys, and pheasants, the loads of vegetables, the heaps of orangesand apples, the pyramids of every other conceivable kind of fruit, thestalls of sweetmeats, the tons of toffee, and the crowds of well-dressedpeople all bent upon buying something, were sources of infinite pleasureto the children. There was only one drawback to their happiness, andthat was they did not know how to lay out the sixpence they had broughtwith them to spend. If there had been less variety there would have beenless difficulty; but, as it was, Benny felt as if he would never be ableto decide what to buy. However, they agreed at last to lay out twopencein two slices of bread and ham, for they were both rather hungry; andthen they speculated the other fourpence in apples, oranges, andtoffee, and, on the whole, felt very well satisfied with the results oftheir outlay.
It was rather later than usual when they got home, but old Betty knewwhere they had gone, and, as it was Christmas Eve, she had got a biggerfire in than usual, and had also got them a cup of hot cocoa each, andsome bun loaf to eat with it.
"By golly!" said Benny, as he munched the cake, "I do wish folks 'ud'ave Christmas ev'ry week."
"You are a cur'us boy," said the old woman, looking up with a smile onher wrinkled face.
"Is I, granny? I specks it's in my blood, as the chap said o' his timberleg."
The old woman had told them on the first evening of their arrival, whenthey seemed at a loss what name to give her, to call her granny; and noname could have been more appropriate, or have come more readily to thechildren's lips.
"But could folks have Christmas any oftener if they wished to?" askedlittle Nell.
"In course they could, Nell," burst out Benny. "You dunna seem to knowwhat folks make Christmas for."
"An I thinks as you dunno either, Benny."
"Don't I, though?" he said, putting on an air of importance. "It's madeto give folks the chance of doing a lot o' feeding; didn't yer see allthe gooses an' other nice things in the market that the folks is goingto polish off to-morrow?"
"I dunna think it was made purpose for that. Wur it, now, granny?"
Thus appealed to, the old woman, who had listened with an amused smileon her face, answered,
"No, my child. It's called Christmas 'cause it is the birthday ofChrist."
"Who's He?" said Benny, looking up; and Nelly's eyes echoed the inquiry.
"Don't you know--ain't you never heerd?" said the old woman, in a toneof surprise.
"Nay," said Benny; "nothin' sense. Some o' the chaps says 'by Christ' asI says 'by golly'; but I never knowed He was somebody."
"Poor little dears! I didn't know as how you was so ignorant, or Ishould have told you before." And the old woman looked as if she did notknow where or how to begin to tell the children the wonderful story, andfor a considerable time remained silent. At length she said, "I'll readit to 'e out o' the Book; mebbe you'll understand it better that way norany way else."
And, taking down from her shelf her big and much-worn Bible, she openedit at the second of St. Matthew, and began to read in a tremulousvoice,--
"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod theking, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying,Where is He that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star inthe east, and are come to worship Him."
And slowly the old woman read on until she reached the end of thechapter, while the children listened with wide-open and wondering eyes.To Nelly the words seemed to come like a revelation, responding to thedeepest feeling of her nature, and awakening thoughts within her thatwere too big for utterance. Benny, however, on the contrary, could seenothing particularly interesting in the narrative itself. But the art ofreading was to him a mystery past all comprehension. How granny couldsee that story upon the page of her Bible was altogether beyond hisgrasp. At length, after scratching his head vigorously for some time, heburst out,--
"By jabbers! I's got it at last!--Jimmy Jones squeeze me if I ain't!It's the specks that does it."
"Does what?" said Nelly.
"Why, the story bizness, to be sure. Let me look at the book throughyour specks, shall I, granny?"
"Ay, if you like, Benny." And the next minute he was looking at theBible with granny's spectacles upon his nose, with a look of blankdisappointment upon his face.
"Golly! I's sold!" was his exclamation. "But this are a poser, and nomistake."
"What's such a poser?" said granny.
"Why, how yer find the story in the book; for I can see nowt." And Bennylooked as disappointed as if he had earned nothing for a week.
By much explaining, however, granny enabled him to comprehend in somevague way how the mystery was accomplished; and then arose within theheart of the child an unutterable longing to understand this mysteriousart fully, and be able to read for himself--a longing that grew inintensity as evening after evening he tried, by granny's help, to masterthe alphabet. In fact, it became a passion with the lad, and many anhour in the weeks and months that followed he spent gazing at theplacards on the walls, and in trying to explain to the other Arabs thatgathered around him the meaning of the mysterious characters.
Benny was naturally a sharp lad, and hence, though his opportunitieswere few, his progress was by no means slow. Sometimes he startled JoeWrag by spelling out a long word that he had carried in his head thewhole of the day, and asking its meaning. Long words had an especialfascination for him, and the way he brought them out in all sorts ofconnections was truly amusing.
Nelly manifested no desire to learn to read. If ever she thought aboutit, it was only to regard it as something in
finitely beyond hercapabilities; and she seemed content to remain as she was. But if shecould get granny to read to her a chapter out of St. John's Gospel,she seemed to desire no higher pleasure. She would sit with a dreamyfar-away look in her half-closed eyes, and the smiles that old Joe Wragloved to see would come and go upon her face like patches of springsunshine chasing each other across a plain. She never said very much,but perhaps she thought all the more. To honest Joe Wrag she seemed asif ripening for a fairer country, and for a purer and nobler life. Notthat she ailed anything. True, she had a little hacking cough now andthen, and when she lay asleep a pink spot would glow on either cheek;but nothing more than that.
"Speretual things," mused Joe Wrag one night, as he sat in the door ofhis hut looking into the fire, "are speretually discerned, an' I b'lievethat child 'as rale speretual discernment: she looks a mighty sightdeeper than we thinks she do, that's my opinion. I should like to gethowld o' all that passes through her purty little noddle, the littlehangel--bless her! As for the boy, 'e's a little hanimal. I reckonthe passons would call him a materialist. I don't b'lieve 'e b'lievesnothing but what 'e sees. No speretual insight in 'im--not a bit. P'rapshe's like me, don't belong to the elect. Ah, me! I wonder what the likeso' us was born for?"
And Joe went out, and heaped more fuel on the fire by way of divertinghis thoughts from a subject that was always painful to him. But when hecame back and sat down again, and the fire before him blazed up withfiercer glow, the thoughts returned, and would not be driven away.
"Bless her!" he said. "She sees in the fire only woods, an' meadows,an' mountains, an' streams; an' I only see the yawning caverns o' hell.An' to think I must burn in a fire a thousan' times bigger an' hotterthan that for ever and ever without a single moment's ease; scorchingon every side, standin' up or lyin' down, always burnin'! No water, nolight, no mercy, no hope. An' when a million million years are past,still burning, an' no nearer the end than at the beginnin'. Oh, howshall I bear it--how shall I bear it?"
And big drops of perspiration oozed from his forehead and rolled downhis face, testifying to the anguish of his soul.
"I canna understand it--I canna understand it," he went on. "All thispain and suffering for His glory. What kind o' glory can it be, to bringfolks into the world doomed aforehand to eternal misery? to give 'emno chance o' repentance, an' then damn them for ever 'cause they don'trepent! O Lord a mercy, excuse me, but I canna see no justice in itanywhere."
And once more Joe got up and began to pace up and down in front of thefire; but the thoughts would not leave him. "'Whom He did foreknow,'" hewent on, "'them also He did predestinate.' Mighty queer, that a Fathershould love a part o' His fam'ly an' hate the rest. Create 'em only toburn 'em for ever an' ever! An' what's the use o' the burnin'? Thatbangs me complete. If 't was to burn away the dross an' leave the metal,I could understand it. I think sometimes there's jist a bit o' the rightstuff in me; an' if hell would burn up the bad an' leave the good, an'give it a chance of some'at better, there 'ud be more justice in it,seems to me. But what am I a-saying? It shows as how I'm none o' theelect, to be talking to myself in this way. What a wicked old sinner Ibe!"
And once more Joe sat down with a jerk, as if he meant to say, "I'm notgoing to be bothered with such thoughts any more to-night." But alas! hefound that thoughts would come, whether he would or no.
"Pr'aps," he said, "we don't know nowt about it, none o' us. Mebbe Godis more marcyfuller than we think. An' I'm sadly banged about that'makin' an end o' sin;' I don't see as how He can make an end o' sinwithout making an end o' the sinner; an' whiles there is millions sichas me in hell, there'll be no end to neither on 'em. I'm sadly out in myreck'nin' somewheres, but 'pears to me if there was no sinners there 'udbe no sin; an' the way to rid the univarse of sinners is to get 'em allsaved or kill 'em outright."
Much more to the same effect Joe Wrag turned over in his mind thatnight, but we must not weary the reader with his speculations. Like manyother of God's children, he was crying in the darkness and longing forlight. He had found that human creeds, instead of being a ladder leadingup into the temple of truth, were rather a house of bondage. Men hadspread a veil before the face of God, and he had not courage to pull itaside. Now and then through the rents he caught a ray of light, but itdazzled him so that he was afraid there was something wrong about it,and he turned away his face and looked again into the darkness. And yetthe night was surely passing away. It wanted but a hand to take down theshutters from the windows of his soul, and let the light--ay, and thelove of God that surrounded him, like a mighty ocean--rush in. But whosehand should take down the shutters? Through what agency should the lightcome in? Let us wait and see.