Worthy of his Name by Eglanton Thorne

IT was not often that Gus could get away from the baby for a whole afternoon; but on the following Sunday, he found himself once more at liberty. Sally Dent had gone to visit a relative who lived in London, and had taken the baby with her. So Gus started forth for a ramble with a delightful sense of freedom. It was a lovely June day, lovely with that first freshness of the summer, which in the neighbourhood of London so quickly sullies.

Glensford looked its best on such a day. There were daisies and even a few lingering buttercups in the fields; the hedges were green; the stream, in which boys were bathing and paddling, rippled clear and bright in the sunshine. It was warm enough to make the ice-creams, which a man was selling at a corner of the green, very tempting to the youth of the place.

Gus had seldom a penny in his pocket, so ice-creams were not for him. He passed them by, turned his back on the boys noisily disporting themselves in the stream, and walked off in the direction he had taken with Lucas and his son a few days earlier. He thought he should like to go over some of the ground again, and look at his leisure on the large houses and pretty gardens along the road.

He found the way without difficulty. He saw much to interest him as he went along. Numbers of bright, neat-looking children passed him on their way to Sunday school. Some of them carried flowers in their hands. Gus had never been to Sunday school, and he wondered as he heard them talking what it could be like. Here and there a church bell was tinkling to summon people to the afternoon service.

Gus walked on briskly for some time; but when he had gained the top of a long hill, he felt hot and tired. Looking round, he saw on the left a small iron building, about which a number of children were gathering, like bees hovering and buzzing about a hive. Gus crossed the road and stood by the palings watching them curiously, and they looked at him with equal curiosity; but not one addressed him, for his clothes looked so very old, whilst they were all arrayed in their "Sunday things."

But suddenly Gus felt a light touch on his shoulder, and turning, saw a young lady standing beside him.

She was very pretty, with an abundance of fair hair neatly braided beneath her white straw hat, and soft blue eyes that were looking at him with the kindest of glances. They were indeed very like Gus' own eyes; but he did not know that. He was accustomed to make his toilette without the aid of a looking-glass, and had but the vaguest notion of the appearance he presented to the world.

But as he gazed into the young lady's kind eyes, he had a confused notion that he had seen them before. And trying to recall when and how they had met, he hardly heeded the words she addressed to him.

"Why are you standing here, little boy? Will you not come into school?"

The sweet, gentle voice, too, seemed familiar. The next moment there flashed on Gus a recollection of the day preceding his father's death, the cart covered with flaring posters, and the frightened pony he had led past it. This was the young lady who had driven the pony. He was so surprised at the discovery that he stared at her without speaking.

"Won't you come in? " she said again. "Do; I am sure you will like it."

"I'll come if you like," Gus answered then, "but I don't know nothing about it."

"That's right; come along."

And he followed her into the schoolroom, and to the corner where she held her class, and where already several boys were seated. Most of them were older, and all of them far more respectable in appearance than Gus. In the conscious glory of Sunday coats and clean collars, they looked askance at the little stranger their teacher brought with her. They drew away from him as he entered, and nudged each other as they eyed the rents in his garments.

Their teacher appeared unaware of the sensation the new scholar created. She gave him a place beside her. Perhaps she saw that though ragged, he was perfectly clean. Early that morning, when few other boys were astir, and the water was deliciously fresh, Gus had taken a good dip in the Glensford stream. It was his habit to do so every morning.

There were several other classes in the room, and for a while Gus was too much interested in observing all that was going on and the strange place in which he found himself, to be aware of the ill-will his companions began to manifest towards him.

It was a pleasant room, with pictures on the walls, and prettily coloured screens stood at hand, by which the classes would be partitioned off from each other when the teaching began. But first the superintendent, standing on a small platform at the end of the room, gave out a hymn, which was sung, and then he prayed.

The prayer was not a comfortable time for Gus. First he received a kick, and then a sharp pinch on the arm; and then some one inflicted on him the peculiar torture which is caused by seizing a single hair growing on a person's head, and tugging it out by one mighty pull. In vain Gus tried to discover and avenge himself on his persecutors. The boys were too quick for him, and all alike presented a devout appearance the instant he turned.

When the class began to read the lesson, it appeared that Gus, despite his poverty-stricken aspect, could read as well as any boy present, and better than some of them could. The teacher praised his reading, and the boys did not like him the better in consequence. Soon the young lady perceived the treatment to which Gus was being slyly subjected.

"For shame, boys! " she said. "Is that the way to treat a stranger? I am really ashamed. And I hoped I was going to make gentlemen of you."