It really seemed as though each worker had an uncle, or brother, or cousin, of whom she had not given a thought in this connection, who yet grew interested and offered help.

It was Anna Graves who started this special form of help, by an announcement that she made one morning:

"Girls, what do you think! My uncle Will is coming to stay two weeks, and he says he will fresco the church ceiling for us, if we will be content with plain work that he can do rapidly."

It did not take the eager listeners long to promise to be content with the very plainest work that could be imagined. Their imagination had not thought of reaching after frescoed ceilings.

"That is an idea!" said Nettie Burdick. "I wonder if Joe and Charlie would not help us?"

Now Joe and Charlie were wall-paperers in the city; and it was only a few days thereafter that Nettie announced with great satisfaction that they would come out and paper the old church, for their share in the good work.

Then came Ruth Jennings' brother-in-law who was in business in a more distant city, and having called for Ruth and waited for her on the evening when that perplexing question of window-shades was being discussed, he volunteered a delightful bit of information:

"Didn't they know about the new paper in imitation of stained glass? So good an imitation that when well laid it would take an expert to distinguish the difference."

No, indeed, they had never heard of such a thing; and all other business was suspended while the brother-in-law was plied with questions, the conclusion of the matter being that he said "their firm" dealt quite largely in this new invention, and he could have enough for this little church supplied at cost, if they would like to go into it. And being able to give in round numbers the probable cost, the girls gleefully voted to "go into it," provided they could secure any person who knew how to manage it. This at once developed further resources belonging to the brother-in-law. He knew all about it, and would lay the paper for them with pleasure, if some of the "fellows" would help. He would just as soon spend a day in that way as not.

"Stained-glass windows!" said Ruth Jennings, with a long-drawn sigh of satisfaction. "As if South Plains had ever dreamed of attaining to such heights! Girls, will the old red curtains do for dusters, do you believe, if we wash them tremendously?"

The very next day brought them another surprise. Miss Benedict read part of a letter from "mamma," wherein it appeared that a certain Mr. Stuart, of the firm of Stuart, Greenough & Co., had become interested in the church at South Plains, through Dora's reports of what absorbed her sister's energies, and in grateful remembrance of certain helps which Claire's father had given their church in its struggling infancy, he had selected a walnut desk and two pulpit chairs, which he had taken the liberty to ship to Miss Claire Benedict, with his kind regards and earnest wish that her efforts might be prospered, even as her father's had been before her.

Over this astonishing piece of news some of the girls actually cried. The pulpit desk and chairs had represented a formidable bill of expense looming up before them.

Each had been privately sure that they would be obliged at last to take those which would jar on their esthetic tastes, out of respect to the leanness of the church purse. And here was solid walnut, selected by a man of undoubted taste and extensive knowledge in this direction. I don't think it strange that they cried!

Mary Burton, while she wiped her eyes, made a remark which was startling to some of the girls:

"How much your father has done for us this winter!" and she looked directly at Claire Benedict. Didn't Mary remember that the dear father was dead?

But Miss Benedict understood. Her eyes which had remained bright with excitement until then, suddenly dimmed; but her smile and her voice were very sweet.

"Oh, Mary! thank you!" was all she said.

Among the workers it would have been hard to find one more faithful or more energetic than Bud. He was full of eager, happy life. Much depended upon him. He could blacken stoves with the skill of a professional, and none were ever more vigorously rubbed than those rusty, ash-be-strewn ones which had so long disgraced the church. It had been good for Bud to have others awaken to the fact that there were certain things which he could do, and do well.

An eventful winter this was to him. Having made an actual start toward Jerusalem, it was found that he put more energy into the journey than many who had been long on the way; and, as a matter of course, before long it became apparent that he was taking rapid strides.

Miss Alice Ansted was among the first to realize it. She came to Claire one evening with embarrassed laughter, and a half-serious, half-amused request for instruction:

"I'm trying to follow out some of your hints, and they are getting me into more trouble than anything I ever undertook. Sewing societies and charity parties are as nothing in comparison. I am trying to teach Bud! He wants to study arithmetic; it is an absurd idea, I think; what will he ever want of arithmetic? But he was determined, and you were determined, and between you I have been foolish enough to undertake it, and now it appears that arithmetic is a very small portion of what he wants to learn. He wants to know everything that there is in the Bible; and where church-members get their ideas about all sorts of things, and what the ministers study in the theological seminary, and why all the people in the world don't attend prayer-meeting, and I don't know what not! He acts as though his brain had been under a paralysis all his life, which had just been removed. I must say he astonishes me with his questions; but it is easier to ask questions than it is to answer them. What, for instance, am I to say to ideas like these? Since you have gotten me into this scrape, it is no more than fair that you should help me to see daylight."

And then would follow a discussion, nearly always pertaining to some of the practical truths of the Christian life, or to some direction that Bud had found in the course of his daily Bible verse, which seemed to him at variance with the life which was being lived by the professing Christians about him, and which he turned to his arithmetic-teacher to reconcile.

Bud, being ignorant, found it impossible to understand why people who professed to take the Bible for their rule of life, did not follow its teachings, and he brought each fresh problem to Alice Ansted with such confident expectation that she knew all about it, that she, who had only volunteered to explain to him the rules of arithmetic, was in daily embarrassment. From these conversations, which constantly grew more close and searching as Bud stumbled on new verses, Claire Benedict used to turn with a smile of satisfaction, as well as with almost a feeling of awe, over the wisdom of the Great Teacher. Alice Ansted might be teaching Bud the principles of arithmetic, but he was certainly daily teaching her the principles of the religion which she professed, but did not live.

In fact, others beside Alice Ansted were being taught, or, at least, were being roused, by the newly-awakened mind. The minister had by no means forgotten the visit which had glorified the study for that day, and he was still bathing his almost discouraged heart in the brightness of its memory, when a vigorous knock one morning again interrupted his studies. His eyes brightened when he saw that the visitor was Bud, and he invited him in with cordial tone. But no, Bud was in haste. There was not a trace of the hesitancy and embarrassment which had characterized his first visit. He spoke with the confidence of one who had obtained great and sufficient help at this source before, and who knew that it was the place where help could be found.

"I haven't any time this morning," he said, speaking with a rapidity which had begun to characterize his newly awakened life. "I'm down at Snyder's, waiting for the pony to be shod, and there is a fellow there talking. He says the Bible ain't true; that it is just a lot of made-up stories to cheat women and children and folks that don't know nothing, like me. Well, now, I know that it is no such a thing. I know the Bible is true, because I've tried it; but he hasn't tried it, you see, sir, and he won't because he don't believe in it, and I thought I would just run up here and ask you to give me something to show him that it is all true; something that I can tell him in a hurry, because the pony will be ready in a few minutes."

What in the world was that minister to say? Was ever such an embarrassing question thrust at him?

The evidences of Christianity—yes, he had studied them carefully; of course he had. He had written sermons to prove the truth of the Holy Scriptures; he had a row of books on the upper shelf of his library, all of them treating more or less of this subject. He turned and looked at them; ponderous volumes; it was not possible to take down even the smallest of them and set Bud to reading it. In the first place, Bud would no more understand the language in which it was written than he would understand the Greek Testament which stood by its side; and, in the second place, Bud wanted knowledge that could be transmitted while the pony was being shod!

Certainly, this dilemma had its ludicrous side, but had it not also its humiliating one? Ought there not to be some word which an educated man like himself could give in haste to an ignorant boy like Bud? Something so plain that even the pony need not wait while it was being explained? Suppose the man at the blacksmith-shop had chosen to sneer over the fact that the earth is round, and Bud had come for an argument to prove the truth of this fact, how easy it would be to produce one!

Ought he not to be equally ready to defend this much-slandered Bible? Thoughts are very rapid in their transit. Something like these ideas rushed through the scholar's mind while he stood looking up at his row of books, and Bud stood looking up at him with an air of confident expectation.

"Bud," said the minister, turning suddenly away from his book-shelves, "how many persons are there at Snyder's?"

"Eight or nine, sir; maybe more."

"Are they from around here?"

"No, sir; mostly from the country; I don't know any of 'em."

"Well, Bud, I want you to listen carefully while I ask two or three questions. Suppose you had been there before any of those men, and as one after another began to come in, each should tell of a fire there had been last night in the city. Suppose you knew that they were not acquainted with each other, and had not met until they reached the blacksmith's shop, and suppose they told the same story, without contradicting one another in any of the important particulars, what do you believe you would conclude about them? Would you think that they had told the truth or a made-up story?"

"I reckon it would be the truth, sir; cause how would they know how to make it up alike?"

"That is just the point," said the gratified minister. While he talked he had been watching Bud carefully, much in doubt as to whether he had mind enough to grasp the illustration, but so far it had evidently been grasped; now he must see if it could be applied.

"Listen! Did you know that thirty-six people told the story of the Bible, and that many of them not only never saw one another, but many of them died before others of them were born; and that they told the same story, without contradicting one another at all?"

"No, sir," said Bud, "I didn't know nothing about it. Is that so?" Extreme delight glowed in his honest eyes, and he clutched at his cap and made a movement toward the door. "I thank you, sir; I'll go back and tell him; it will be a stunner!"

Away went the newly awakened preacher of the Evidences of Christianity, and the minister went back to his Greek Testament with great satisfaction. Bud might not be able to convince the scoffer at the blacksmith's shop; Mr. Ramsey did not expect that he would; he knew that Satan had many skillful ways of using false weapons and making them flash like true steel. The thing which gave him pleasure was, that Bud had understood. He felt nearly certain that the boy's mind would not leave the question there; it would have to be investigated, and he, the minister, would have to get ready to help him.

"We ought to be careful to speak about all these things in such a way that uneducated people could follow us," he said.

And all that morning, while he worked over his sermon for the following Sabbath, he worked to secure simple words in which to clothe his thought; he sought illustrations to give it clearness; in short, he preached to Bud; almost unconsciously he brought the boy before his mind's eye, cap in hand—a symbol of the people whose thoughts rested for a moment on what you were saying, and then flitted away to something else—unless, indeed, the owners were caught during that moment. This particular minister had never before so fully realized this truth. He had never before labored so hard to catch the attention of the unskilled listener; nor had he ever become so intensely interested in any sermon as he did in that one. If he was to preach it for Bud, it must be very simple; and in making it very simple, his own heart took hold of it as a tremendous reality, instead of a thought out of a book.

I hope I shall be understood when I say that Bud wrote the greater part of the minister's sermon that week; though he of course, was utterly unconscious of the fact.