“Why don’t you go to Sunday-school?” she questioned at last, with a timid air.  She could at least ask that.  They were not the least timid as to answering; the older and the dirtier of the two turned his roguish eyes on her and surveyed her from head to foot before he said: 

“Why don’t you?”

Flossy was unprepared for this question, but she answered quickly and truthfully: 

“Because I am afraid to go.”

Both boys stared, and then laughed, and the other younger one said: 

“So be we.”

“I suppose we are both very silly,” Flossy said.  “But I have not been to Sunday-school for so long that I have forgotten all about it.  Let’s have one of our own that we are not afraid to go to.”

And she sat bravely down on the stump at her feet; her mood had changed very suddenly; only yesterday she had read a verse in that Bible, and it thrilled her then, and came to her now: 

“The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him whole.”

Suppose she were the man, and these were the Jews, could she not say to them, “He has made me whole”?  She could tell them about that pool, and about the sick man.  It wouldn’t be teaching in Sunday-school, but it would be doing the best thing that she could.

It suddenly occurred to her to wonder where the lesson was that was being taught this morning, and she consulted the lesson leaf that Mr. Roberts had left in her hand.  The glow on her face deepened and spread as she recognized the very story which had so filled her heart the day before!  What if the great Physician had actually selected her to tell of that miracle of healing to these two neglected ones!  Surely they were not so formidable as the Jews!  But how in the world to begin was a bewilderment.  Clearly she must decide at once if she was to have any class, for her two boys began to look about them, and show signs of flight.

“Did you ever hear about a wonderful spring that used to cure people?”

“Lots of ’em.  I used to live right by one that cured the rheumatiz.”

“But this one would cure other things, only it wouldn’t cure people all the time.  There was just one time in the year when it would do it; and then the one that got in first was the only one cured.”

Her listeners looked skeptical.

“What was that for?” queried the bolder of the two.  “Why didn’t it cure but one?”

“I don’t know,” Flossy said.  “There are ever so many things that I know that I can’t tell why they are so.  For instance, I don’t know why that spring you have been telling me about cures the rheumatism, but I know it does, for you told me so.”

“No more do I,” the boy said, promptly, having in his heart a rising respect for the young teacher and her story.