the next, every day, until the fading light drove him home, did he sit
under the elm-tree turning the leaves of his Bible, poring over its
contents, writing words carefully now and then on his bit of paper.
Remember it was new work to him.

At last, one evening, the sun went down in the bright red west, the stars
shone out in all their twinkling, sparkling glory, the shadows began to
fall thick and fast around the old tree, when Tip, with a little sigh of
relief, folded the precious piece of paper, laid it carefully away in his
Bible, and turned his steps homeward. His acrostic was finished, and into
his heart had crept some of the beauty of those precious words, which he
had found for the first time. Words they were which would go with him
through all his life, and sweetly comfort some dark and weary hours.

The school-books were all piled neatly on the desks that Friday
afternoon; the shades were dropped to shut out the low afternoon sun; and
forty boys were still and expectant. The acrostics lay in a great white
heap on Mr. Burrows' desk, not a name written on any of them. Mr.
Burrows was to read, and the boys were to have the pleasure of spelling
out the names of the owners as he read.

A merry time they had of it that afternoon. Some wonderful acrostics were
read. Ellis Holbrook had a very clever one, arranged from his lesson in
Virgil. Howard Minturn had borrowed from his father's library a copy of
Shakespeare, and worked hard over his; the boys and their teacher thought
it a success.

Even Bob Turner had written; the idea had happened to strike him as a
very funny one, and Bob always did everything that he thought funny. He
had found three lines in rhyme which just suited him, and by the time the