"I don't care," he said suddenly, after a few moments of troubled thought. "I guess I ain't ashamed of my Bible,--it's the only thing I've got that I needn't be ashamed of. I'll _do_ it. The boys have got to know that I've turned over a new leaf. I wish they did; the sooner they know it the better. I say, my lamp shall help me out of this scrape, that's as true as can be; it helps me whenever I give it a chance." He fumbled in his pocket and drew out an old stump of a pencil. The next thing was a piece of paper; he dived his hand down into another pocket, producing a rusty knife, pieces of string, a chestnut or two, and, finally, a crumpled piece of paper on which Bob Turner had scrawled what he called a likeness of Mr. Burrows, and given to Tip for a keepsake. He spread it out on a flat stone which lay near him, and began his work. A long, slow work it was for Tip. Hours of that day, and the next, and 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 eager boys had spelled out B O B,--which was the only name the boy saw fit to own,--the schoolroom fairly shook with their laughter. Next to his lay a paper which Tip knew, and his heart beat so loudly when Mr. Burrows took it up, that he thought every one in the room must notice.