Come thy ways, Tim;
let's be sharp, for I've my potatoes to hoe when I get home to-night.'
The boys walked briskly on for a few minutes, past the end of Red Lane,
though Stephen cast a wistful glance up it, and gave an impatient jerk to
the load upon his shoulders. Tim had been walking beside him in silent
reflection; but at last he came to a sudden halt.
'I can't make it out,' he said. 'What art thee up to, Stephen? Tell me
out plain, or I'll fight thee here, if Black Thompson does lick me for
it.'
'Why, I've been learning to read,' answered Stephen, with some pride,
'and of course I know things I didn't used to know, and what thee doesn't
know now.'
'And what's that to do with it?' inquired Tim.
'My chapter says that if any man forces me to go one mile, I am to go
two,' replied Stephen; 'it doesn't say why exactly, but I'm going to try
what good it will be to me to do everything that my book tells me.'
'It's a queer book,' said Tim, after a pause. 'Does it say a chap may
make another chap do his work for him?'
'No,' Stephen answered; 'but it says we are to love our enemies, and do
good to them that hate us, that we may be the children of our Father
which is in heaven--that is God, Tim.
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