“Mr. Walton, the meeting will begin at half past seven.  If—­if—­say about quarter after seven—­you should let Charlie and the other boys go down to the church door and sing one or two of their pieces, it might draw folks in.”

“Why, that’s a good idea, and I wish you would ask them.”

At a quarter after seven the next night the White Shields, each carrying a neat cross of blue on his badge, appeared at the church door and began to sing.  It was the night when Dr. Tilton was accustomed to close his store earlier than usual, if customers did not appear; and at a quarter after seven Will Somers was accustomed that night to pass the church door on his way home.  Would he fall into the trap that Aunt Stanshy had ingeniously set for him?  The club began to sing their hymns.  There was the touching plea containing the lines: 

  “O what are you going to do, brother? 
    Say, what are you going to do? 
  You have thought of some useful labor,
    But what is the end in view?”

Tony sang this.  It seemed that night as if some of Italy’s sweet singers must have lent him their notes.  The people began to gather about the club.  Aunt Stanshy was there on the watch, eager to see if Will Somers might be coming down the street.  Tony’s voice warbled away.  Now it was an exultant note that he touched, and then his voice sank to a plaintive appeal: 

  “Is your heart in the Saviour’s keeping? 
    Remember, he died for you;
  Then what are you going to do, brother? 
    Say, what are you going to do?”

As Tony sang, there was a young man leaning against the fence adjoining the church door.  It was somebody listlessly leaning, lifting to the light of the street lamp a face on which rested the shadow of a great sadness.

“It’s he!” said Aunt Stanshy, excitedly.

Charlie heard her.  He guessed that it was some one out on the sidewalk whom she had discovered, and he stretched his small head beyond the ring of singers, anxiously looking out into the shadows.  His sharp eye saw that form leaning against the fence.  He could not wait until the song was finished.  He ran out upon the sidewalk, and Aunt Stanshy followed.

“Do come, do come,” pleaded Charlie, as he seized Will’s hand and gently drew him toward the church.

“Yes, yes,” said Aunt Stanshy, “We all want you.”

And Will Somers irresolutely yielded to the gentle hands that were drawing him, and entered the church.

What a meeting that was!

“Never seed the beat of it in my life,” said Simes Badger, who was off duty at the lighthouse that night, and having attended the meeting, reported it soon after to a band of his old cronies.  “Why, when the pledge was offered that meetin’, it seemed as if every man, woman, and child would go for it at once.  No matter if they was as innocent of liquor as a baby a day old; they jest walked up and took that pledge.  And Dr. Tilton, he couldn’t stand it, and he hopped down and he jined the pledge.  And his clerk, that Will Somers, he did write his name handsome.  O, it was a meetin’, I tell ye!”