VIII.

"Why, here you are!" she exclaimed in a joyous burst.

"The fellows are in some sort of a scrape," gasped the boy, careful of his words; "can't get home—I'm going to tell their mothers—"

Mrs. Allen looked at her empty arms, turned and went out to the kitchen.

"Ann, you may put on the tea; we will not wait for George Edward."

"Land! he just raced in, red as a boiled lobster," cried Ann with the privilege of a favored servant.

"I know; but he is off again, on an errand that had to be attended to—put on the tea, and ring the bell."

It was some time before the son of the family made his appearance in the Allen household again. When he did come, it was to bring a face so utterly miserable, and a pair of feet so incapacitated for further movement, that his mother began to seriously question if she had done the wise thing to allow him to be the deliverer of the several messages.

The first thing to do now, however, was to get the boy to bed; so with the aid of Ann's hot oatmeal gruel, George Edward was assisted by father and mother on either side, up to his pretty room, where he was rubbed down, pretty much as one would perform that same operation on a tired horse, till each separate and distinct joint seemed supple and elastic as was their ordinary condition, and the boy was tumbled into bed, fast asleep before his head touched the pillow. Mr. and Mrs. Allen looked at each other as they sat down in the library, and drew a long breath.

"What shall we do with such a boy?" cried the mother. "He seems to carry the burdens of other boys, old people, animals, and everything that comes in his way."

"Let him alone," said Father Allen shortly.

"Oh! I wouldn't dare say anything," exclaimed Mother Allen, alarmed at being misunderstood; "I was only mentioning the fact."

"You asked a question," said Father Allen, who was nothing if not exact; "you asked 'What shall we do with him?'"

"And I ask it again," said Mrs. Allen, rubbing her forehead in a perplexed way, "whatever in the world shall we do with him?"

"And I answer in the same words that the immortal Mr. Dick employed on a similar occasion to Miss Betsey Trotwood's question, 'Wash him and put him to bed.'"

"We have done that," said his wife with a laugh, "now, what next?"

"Oh! as to that," replied Father Allen with a yawn, "I must confess, I don't see my way clear to furnishing you with an additional answer. The only one I should suggest is, let us go to bed."

So the matter was left precisely as it always remained, for George Edward to follow out his own instincts, and grow up in his own way to solve life's greatest problem, "How can I best serve mankind, and carry out Christ's command 'To do unto others as I would that they should do to me.'"

This narrative, more devoted to the interests of St. George and his doings, than to records of any other boys, will simply state that the morrow's morning train brought home the recreant crowd to the bosoms of their waiting families. The boys of this crowd always mentioned the old farmer who had passed the night with them, with an air, though not of fondness, of great respect. What he did to them to thus inspire them, I am in no position to know—I can only relate that he had great satisfaction in his part of the evening's entertainment, and that he simply remarked to Betsey on his return, "I don't think they'll do that thing again right away," and that Thomas when recalling the event, would often pause in his work to allow himself the brief respite of a smile after careful observation that revealed no on-looker.

"I don't think it pays," some voice at my elbow might say, as a pair of bright young eyes have traced thus far George Edward's career, "to be always watching to help other people out of scrapes. 'Look out for yourself' is going to be my motto."

Just wait, dear little friend. The "boy is father to the man" we are told, and we recognize the fact from the first time we meet the phrase in our readers and copy books. Isn't it better to be a good father, and turn out a worthy representative of your family name, that no chance in life will make one ashamed to meet in after life? What you call "fun" and "a good time" and "looking out for yourself" now, will perhaps carry a different name ten or twenty years later. It may possibly be known among men as selfishness, indifference to public good; or uglier still, sharp, shrewd handling of moneyed interests committed to your care, to make them yield benefits to the one who manipulates them. It may get even to be found deserving the name of a man who recognizes only the Ego of human existence, than which, you will quite agree with me, there is no more hateful being under the sun. Think well before you give up the habit of doing the good you can now to those who are your neighbors, whether at home or at school.

And this brings me to a second period of George Edward's life, which was fraught with new responsibilities and pleasures, and which brought him into a wider field of boyish activity. He was to go away to boarding-school; the narrow educational advantages of his home demanding it.

Before the important decision was reached—where to send their boy—Mr. and Mrs. Allen allowed themselves a whole year to consideration of the matter. There was not a school of prominence in the length and breadth of the land, that in some way did not pass under the keen-eyed watchfulness of the two parents. Not that they personally visited them all—oh dear, no! how could they? But that in some way, reliable information of the different school methods, and the principles and standing of the instructors, was given into their keeping.

"We never shall find a school where we can say confidently we will place our boy; never in all this world," cried Mrs. Allen one day, when a letter from a friend upset an almost decided plan of accepting the "Halloway School for Boys" as the arena for George Edward's activity. The letter was from a good friend whom they could trust. It said, "Don't you do it; the system of instruction is faulty, and the knowledge obtained is shallow."

Father Allen only said, "Don't worry," buttoned up his coat and went out to try other fields.

At last came the day when those interested could announce the thing settled. "George Edward Allen is going to Doctor Bugbee's school in Rockboro," and great grief and lamentation fell upon his old friends—and who in that town in which his life was spent, was not glad to claim that friendship?