The two little gardens were thoroughly dug by the time that it was too dark to work any more, and Johnny had hoed and raked Tiny’s smooth, while Jim was digging his. Then they went into the playroom, and Mrs. Leslie brought them a lamp to light up the lesson.
“We will have a little singing first,” she said, opening the organ. “Tiny and I will sing the evening hymn, and you must listen, Jim, and try to catch the tune.”
Jim listened, and by the time they reached the Doxology, he had joined them, and went through the tune without a mistake, seeming even to know the words. His voice was a very sweet tenor, and Tiny exclaimed delightedly,—
“It will be just as easy as anything to teach him to sing, mamma!”
“I’d have come in sooner,” said Jim, looking very much pleased, “but that last verse was the only one I knew. I went to Sunday-school a few times when I was a little boy, and that verse came back to me as soon as you began to sing it.”
Then Johnny and his pupil sat down by the table, and Mrs. Leslie took Tiny’s hand and went to the parlor, thinking that the two boys would manage their undertaking better without an audience.
Johnny felt very much embarrassed, but he plunged in boldly, as the best way of overcoming his feelings.
“I’ll do you the way they did me, the first day I went to school,” he began, and taking his First Reader, he opened it, and handed it to Jim, saying,—
“It’s heathen Greek to me,” he said. “I don’t know more than half the letters. Why, if I’d known how to read, I could have picked up the rest somehow, and that’s why I asked you to teach me.”
Johnny was about to whistle, but he suddenly recollected his mother’s warning.
“All right,” he said, composedly; “we’ll begin with the letters, and I’ll teach you the way mamma teaches Tiny—it’s easier than the way they do in school. Wait a minute, and I’ll borrow her card, the letters are so much larger than they are in the spelling-book.”
He came back with a large card, covered with letters in bright colors, and pointing to A, asked,
“It looks something like the tents those soldiers put up when they camped near here,” said Jim, after looking at it for a moment.
“Very well; that’s A. Now, when you say ‘_A_ tent,’ there you have it, all right.”