She had much ado to keep
back the tears, but she had made a special little feast for him that
evening, with a white cloth on the table, and a cup of actual tea, and
the cup set in a saucer. She was not going to spoil the scene with
tears; so after a little she said, cheerily:--
"Now you have a chance to do something nice for somebody. Who will you
take on your ticket?"
"I was thinking," he answered, slowly. "You know it is a temperance
lecture, and it is by a wonderful man. The fellows in the shop have been
talking about him all day, and they say you just can't help
_thinking_ when he gets agoing; and I was just thinking, What if we
could get _him_ to go, and he would listen, and get to thinking."
There are no italics that will give you an idea of the peculiar emphasis
which the boy put on the pronouns. Sallie understood; that "he" could
mean but one person in the world. But her brother must have answered the
look on her face, for she spoke no word.
"Sometimes they _do_, Sallie. There was old Pete, you know."
Oh, yes, Sallie knew old Pete; every body in that alley knew him; a
notorious drunkard once, of the sort which people, even good Christian
people, are apt to pronounce hopeless; yet now he wore a neat suit of
clothes every day, and brought home twenty pounds of flour at one time
in a sack, and bought his coal by the barrel.
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