This was the end of the talk, for that time, and it made more impression upon Jim and Johnny than it did upon Tiny, for Jim, as we have said, carried his sensitiveness too far, often—as in the case of little Taffy—allowing it to hinder him from asking for help for others, when he had come to the end of his own ability, but not the needs of the case, and when such help would have been most gladly and efficiently given; as for Johnny, he was foolishly alive to ridicule, and many of the slips of temper which he afterwards lamented were due solely to this cause. A jeering laugh or a mocking speech always had power to make his face flush and his hands clinch, and the effect did not always stop there—he often said things for which he was bitterly sorry as soon as the rush of angry feeling was past. And somehow it seemed to him that the attacks upon his temper always took place when he was unusually off his guard, and open to them.
The effect of this talk upon Jim was very marked. He began, from that time, shyly to take Mrs. Leslie into his confidence, whenever he felt that she could help him, and he schooled himself to bear, without wincing, any and all allusions to the various and unobtrusive acts of kindness which he was able to perform. And he very soon had the encouragement of finding his usefulness greatly increased, while he still had the satisfaction of doing many things which were known only to himself and those whom he helped. To his firm and resolute character, the plan of the campaign was more than half the battle, while Johnny, who was naturally more heedless and forgetful, found great difficulty in keeping his good resolutions where he could find them in a hurry.
He had, for the time being, quite forgotten this talk about the wise men, when, one day during the following week, as he was playing with the boys at recess, a little girl strayed into the playground, with a basket of apples and cakes, hoping to sell some of her wares to the schoolboys. Johnny remembered her at once, for she was one of the many people whom Mrs. Leslie had helped and befriended; she had found the poor child in great trouble and destitution, a few months before, and had put her to board with an old woman who only demanded a very moderate amount of work in payment for the care which she gave the little girl.