He had almost forgotten the base-ball match, and his brief, but very sharp feeling of disappointment. The “reward” is sure; not praise and petting, not the giving back to you that which you have foregone, but “the answer of a good conscience,” the “peace which the world cannot give,” the fresh strength which comes with every victory, however small, and which may, by God’s grace, be wrested even from defeat, when defeat is made the stepping-stone to conquest.
It was Sunday, and Jim was walking home from church with the Leslies. A gradual, but very great change had come over him since Taffy’s death. He had grown nearly as cheerful as he was before it happened, and did not seem to be exactly unhappy, but only the day before, Johnny had said to his mother,—
“I don’t think Jim can be well, mamma; he let slip the best kind of a chance for taking me off, the way he’s so fond of doing, this morning, and when I come to think of it, he hasn’t said any of those things for a good while.”
Mrs. Leslie smiled at Johnny’s conclusion; she did not think that was the reason, and she said,—
“He looks perfectly well, dear. He is growing fast, and so getting thinner, but I don’t see any signs of ill health about him.”
“There’s something about him,” said Johnny, in puzzled tones, “I never knew him to miss a chance of saying one of his sharp things, till lately; in fact, I used to think he was watching out for them!”
Johnny had not been mistaken in thinking so. Somebody has said that if we look to the very root of our ill-will against anyone, we shall find that it is envy; and though this does not, perhaps, always hold good, it certainly does in many instances. Ever since Jim had known Johnny, there had been in his heart an unacknowledged feeling of envy, of which he was himself only dimly aware. Why should Johnny have been given that safe, pleasant home, with a father and mother and sister of whom he could be both fond and proud, while he, Jim, was left to fight for even his daily bread, with no ready-made home and friends, such as most people had? For even among the boys with whom he was chiefly thrown, many had some place which they called home, and somebody who cared, were it ever so little, whether they lived or died. He persuaded himself that it was because Johnny was “foolish,” and “needed taking down” that he said disagreeable things to him, but, since Taffy died, he had, as he expressed it to himself, been “sorting himself out, and didn’t think much of the stock.”