God,” she added shyly. It was the first time she had ever spoken of sacred things like that to him, and Jud knew that she meant far more than just those simple words.
“Yes,” he answered fervently, “perhaps that will help. I’m wondering if you haven’t always had something big that I didn’t know. I used to see you reading the Bible, Miss Emily, and wondered how you could, but I’m wondering if it wasn’t better—”
“Yes,” said Emily timidly, “it’s always better. It’s the only way you can stand things sometimes. You try it, Jud.”
“Perhaps I will,” he said huskily, and then entirely irrelevantly he suddenly said, “Say, Miss Emily, I wish you’d go often to see A—to see Miss Custer. I feel worried about her. She doesn’t say much, but I don’t like that man she’s working for. He hasn’t got a good name downtown. I heard something today about him. I wish she could get away. I don’t like to talk to her about it, but maybe
you
could.” And Emily promised to help.
Then Jud went down the dark street to his boardinghouse, for he would not compromise Ariel by staying late at her house even though Mrs. Smalley had given her the use of her stuffy little parlor, in which to receive callers.
Chapter 9
D ick Smalley had “fallen” for Ariel, fallen hard. Her tender care and gentleness toward Stubby would have done it even if she had not been so lovely herself. But Ariel was lovely as a spring morning, and her frank, sunny smile had won him at first sight.
They became friends over Stubby’s invalid couch, and by the second week of the girl’s stay in the house, Dick was her avowed protector and admirer. He stole flowers from the station garden to present to her, he went out in the fields and gathered berries for her supper when she came home tired at night, and he hung upon her every glance with averted gaze, and would have gone to the ends of the earth at a single word from her.
She in turn enjoyed the friendship as much as he did. She began to be interested in his lessons, to inspire him to do well in school, a thing he had always before thought beneath a real boy. His teachers opened their eyes in surprise at his raised hand in class when a question was asked. He had never been eager to answer anything before. He had always sulked behind others and avoided having to recite. Now he took a real pleasure in telling in an offhand, expository way what he knew. His interaction with Ariel had given him a grown-up way of looking at his lessons, and telling the answers, that the other children could not comprehend. They looked at him with amazement. To think that Dick had attained to talking about book knowledge like that. He gave his answers in class with an assurance that none of them ever had, no matter how well they knew their lessons. He spoke of matters of science and the geographical world with an odd manner of imparting information that he felt even the teacher didn’t know. And sometimes he included an incident that Ariel had told him out of her store of knowledge gleaned from her father’s library. The members of his class, even the girl who was denominated the teacher’s pet, began to expect something interesting of him when he got up to recite, instead of giving him the superior smile of ridicule that had been the custom when he was called upon.
All this Ariel did for him quite unconsciously just by being interested in what he was supposed to be doing at school. He saw what importance she attached to learning, and he forthwith set up learning as a thing to be followed and conquered.
She began to teach him to play on the old cabinet organ that graced the stuffy parlor, and before many lessons had passed, he exhibited his skill on the school piano to the intense admiration of his ring of boy followers who already worshipped him from an athletic standpoint. There was no doubt whatever but that the advent of Ariel was the best thing that ever came into little Dick Smalley’s
“Yes,” he answered fervently, “perhaps that will help. I’m wondering if you haven’t always had something big that I didn’t know. I used to see you reading the Bible, Miss Emily, and wondered how you could, but I’m wondering if it wasn’t better—”
“Yes,” said Emily timidly, “it’s always better. It’s the only way you can stand things sometimes. You try it, Jud.”
“Perhaps I will,” he said huskily, and then entirely irrelevantly he suddenly said, “Say, Miss Emily, I wish you’d go often to see A—to see Miss Custer. I feel worried about her. She doesn’t say much, but I don’t like that man she’s working for. He hasn’t got a good name downtown. I heard something today about him. I wish she could get away. I don’t like to talk to her about it, but maybe
you
could.” And Emily promised to help.
Then Jud went down the dark street to his boardinghouse, for he would not compromise Ariel by staying late at her house even though Mrs. Smalley had given her the use of her stuffy little parlor, in which to receive callers.
Chapter 9
D ick Smalley had “fallen” for Ariel, fallen hard. Her tender care and gentleness toward Stubby would have done it even if she had not been so lovely herself. But Ariel was lovely as a spring morning, and her frank, sunny smile had won him at first sight.
They became friends over Stubby’s invalid couch, and by the second week of the girl’s stay in the house, Dick was her avowed protector and admirer. He stole flowers from the station garden to present to her, he went out in the fields and gathered berries for her supper when she came home tired at night, and he hung upon her every glance with averted gaze, and would have gone to the ends of the earth at a single word from her.
She in turn enjoyed the friendship as much as he did. She began to be interested in his lessons, to inspire him to do well in school, a thing he had always before thought beneath a real boy. His teachers opened their eyes in surprise at his raised hand in class when a question was asked. He had never been eager to answer anything before. He had always sulked behind others and avoided having to recite. Now he took a real pleasure in telling in an offhand, expository way what he knew. His interaction with Ariel had given him a grown-up way of looking at his lessons, and telling the answers, that the other children could not comprehend. They looked at him with amazement. To think that Dick had attained to talking about book knowledge like that. He gave his answers in class with an assurance that none of them ever had, no matter how well they knew their lessons. He spoke of matters of science and the geographical world with an odd manner of imparting information that he felt even the teacher didn’t know. And sometimes he included an incident that Ariel had told him out of her store of knowledge gleaned from her father’s library. The members of his class, even the girl who was denominated the teacher’s pet, began to expect something interesting of him when he got up to recite, instead of giving him the superior smile of ridicule that had been the custom when he was called upon.
All this Ariel did for him quite unconsciously just by being interested in what he was supposed to be doing at school. He saw what importance she attached to learning, and he forthwith set up learning as a thing to be followed and conquered.
She began to teach him to play on the old cabinet organ that graced the stuffy parlor, and before many lessons had passed, he exhibited his skill on the school piano to the intense admiration of his ring of boy followers who already worshipped him from an athletic standpoint. There was no doubt whatever but that the advent of Ariel was the best thing that ever came into little Dick Smalley’s
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