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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hoosier School-boy, by Edward Eggleston
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Hoosier School-boy
+
+Author: Edward Eggleston
+
+Release Date: December 8, 2007 [EBook #23771]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOOSIER SCHOOL-BOY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "NOT THERE, NOT THERE, MY CHILD!"]
+
+THE HOOSIER SCHOOL-BOY
+
+By
+EDWARD EGGLESTON
+
+New York
+Charles Scribner's Sons
+1919
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Copyright, 1883, By
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+Copyright, 1910, By
+FRANCES G. EGGLESTON
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   CHAPTER                                                PAGE
+
+         I. The New Scholar                                  3
+        II. King Milkmaid                                   15
+       III. Answering Back                                  23
+        IV. Little Christopher Columbus                     34
+         V. Whiling Away Time                               43
+        VI. A Battle                                        48
+       VII. Hat-ball and Bull-pen                           58
+      VIII. The Defender                                    70
+        IX. Pigeon Pot-pie                                  80
+         X. Jack and His Mother                             97
+        XI. Columbus and His Friends                       102
+       XII. Greenbank Wakes Up                             113
+      XIII. Professor Susan                                119
+       XIV. Crowing After Victory                          127
+        XV. An Attempt To Collect                          137
+       XVI. An Exploring Expedition                        148
+      XVII. Housekeeping Experiences                       154
+     XVIII. Ghosts                                         166
+       XIX. The Return Home                                177
+        XX. A Foot-race for Money                          189
+       XXI. The New Teacher                                203
+      XXII. Chasing the Fox                                210
+     XXIII. Called To Account                              222
+      XXIV. An Apology                                     229
+       XXV. King's Base and a Spelling-lesson              238
+      XXVI. Unclaimed Top-strings                          243
+     XXVII. The Last Day of School, and The Last
+            Chapter of the Story                           252
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"Not there, not there, my child!"                Frontispiece
+
+                                                  FACING PAGE
+Jack amusing the small boys with stories of
+hunting, fishing, and frontier adventure                   44
+
+"Cousin Sukey," said little Columbus, "I want to
+ask a favor of you"                                       120
+
+Bob Holliday carries home his friend                      258
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+THE HOOSIER SCHOOL-BOY
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE NEW SCHOLAR
+
+
+While the larger boys in the village school of Greenbank were having a
+game of "three old cat" before school-time, there appeared on the
+playground a strange boy, carrying two books, a slate, and an atlas
+under his arm.
+
+He was evidently from the country, for he wore a suit of brown jeans, or
+woollen homespun, made up in the natural color of the "black" sheep, as
+we call it. He shyly sidled up to the school-house door, and looked
+doubtfully at the boys who were playing, watching the familiar game as
+though he had never seen it before.
+
+The boys who had the "paddles" were standing on three bases, while three
+others stood each behind a base and tossed the ball around the triangle
+from one hole or base to another. The new-comer soon perceived that, if
+one with a paddle, or bat, struck at the ball and missed it, and the
+ball was caught directly, or "at the first bounce," he gave up his bat
+to the one who had "caught him out." When the ball was struck, it was
+called a "tick," and when there was a tick, all the batters were obliged
+to run one base to the left, and then the ball thrown between a batter
+and the base to which he was running "crossed him out," and obliged him
+to give up his "paddle" to the one who threw the ball.
+
+"Four old cat," "two old cat," and "five old cat" are, as everybody
+knows, played in the same way, the number of bases or holes increasing
+with the addition of each pair of players.
+
+It is probable that the game was once--some hundreds of years ago,
+maybe--called "three hole catch," and that the name was gradually
+corrupted into "three hole cat," as it is still called in the interior
+States, and then became changed by mistake to "three old cat." It is, no
+doubt, an early form of our present game of base-ball.
+
+It was this game which the new boy watched, trying to get an inkling of
+how it was played. He stood by the school-house door, and the girls who
+came in were obliged to pass near him. Each of them stopped to scrape
+her shoes, or rather the girls remembered the foot-scraper because they
+were curious to see the new-comer. They cast furtive glances at him,
+noting his new suit of brown clothes, his geography and atlas, his
+arithmetic, and, last of all, his face.
+
+"There's a new scholar," said Peter Rose, or, as he was called, "Pewee"
+Rose, a stout and stocky boy of fourteen, who had just been caught out
+by another.
+
+"I say, Greeny, how did you get so brown?" called out Will Riley, a
+rather large, loose-jointed fellow.
+
+Of course, all the boys laughed at this. Boys will sometimes laugh at
+any one suffering torture, whether the victim be a persecuted cat or a
+persecuted boy. The new boy made no answer, but Joanna Merwin, who, just
+at that moment, happened to be scraping her shoes, saw that he grew red
+in the face with a quick flush of anger.
+
+"Don't stand there, Greeny, or the cows'll eat you up!" called Riley, as
+he came round again to the base nearest to the school-house.
+
+Why the boys should have been amused at this speech, the new scholar
+could not tell--the joke was neither new nor witty--only impudent and
+coarse. But the little boys about the door giggled.
+
+"It's a pity something wouldn't eat you, Will Riley--you are good for
+nothing but to be mean." This sharp speech came from a rather tall and
+graceful girl of sixteen, who came up at the time, and who saw the
+annoyance of the new boy at Riley's insulting words. Of course the boys
+laughed again. It was rare sport to hear pretty Susan Lanham "take down"
+the impudent Riley.
+
+"The bees will never eat you for honey, Susan," said Will.
+
+Susan met the titter of the playground with a quick flush of temper and
+a fine look of scorn.
+
+"Nothing would eat you, Will, unless, maybe, a turkey-buzzard, and a
+very hungry one at that."
+
+This sharp retort was uttered with a merry laugh of ridicule, and a
+graceful toss of the head, as the mischievous girl passed into the
+school-house.
+
+"That settles you, Will," said Pewee Rose. And Bob Holliday began
+singing, to a doleful tune:
+
+  "Poor old Pidy,
+  She died last Friday."
+
+Just then, the stern face of Mr. Ball, the master, appeared at the door;
+he rapped sharply with his ferule, and called: "Books, books, books!"
+The bats were dropped, and the boys and girls began streaming into the
+school, but some of the boys managed to nudge Riley, saying:
+
+  "Poor old creetur,
+  The turkey-buzzards eat her,"
+
+and such like soft and sweet speeches. Riley was vexed and angry, but
+nobody was afraid of him, for a boy may be both big and mean and yet
+lack courage.
+
+The new boy did not go in at once, but stood silently and faced the
+inquiring looks of the procession of boys as they filed into the
+school-room with their faces flushed from the exercise and excitement of
+the games.
+
+"I can thrash him easy," thought Pewee Rose.
+
+"He isn't a fellow to back down easily," said Harvey Collins to his next
+neighbor.
+
+Only good-natured, rough Bob Holliday stopped and spoke to the new-comer
+a friendly word. All that he said was "Hello!" But how much a boy can
+put into that word "Hello!" Bob put his whole heart into it, and there
+was no boy in the school that had a bigger heart, a bigger hand, or half
+so big a foot as Bob Holliday.
+
+The village school-house was a long one built of red brick. It had taken
+the place of the old log institution in which one generation of
+Greenbank children had learned reading, writing, and Webster's
+spelling-book. There were long, continuous writing-tables down the sides
+of the room, with backless benches, so arranged that when the pupil was
+writing his face was turned toward the wall--there was a door at each
+end, and a box stove stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by a
+rectangle of four backless benches. These benches were for the little
+fellows who did not write, and for others when the cold should drive
+them nearer the stove.
+
+The very worshipful master sat at the east end of the room, at one side
+of the door; there was a blackboard--a "newfangled notion" in 1850--at
+the other side of the door. Some of the older scholars, who could afford
+private desks with lids to them, suitable for concealing smuggled apples
+and maple-sugar, had places at the other end of the room from the
+master. This arrangement was convenient for quiet study, for talking on
+the fingers by signs, for munching apples or gingerbread, and for
+passing little notes between the boys and girls.
+
+When the school had settled a little, the master struck a sharp blow on
+his desk for silence, and looked fiercely around the room, eager to find
+a culprit on whom to wreak his ill-humor. Mr. Ball was one of those
+old-fashioned teachers who gave the impression that he would rather beat
+a boy than not, and would even like to eat one, if he could find a good
+excuse. His eye lit upon the new scholar.
+
+"Come here," he said, severely, and then he took his seat.
+
+The new boy walked timidly up to a place in front of the master's desk.
+He was not handsome, his face was thin, his eyebrows were prominent, his
+mouth was rather large and good-humored, and there was that shy twinkle
+about the corners of his eyes which always marks a fun-loving spirit.
+But his was a serious, fine-grained face, with marks of suffering in it,
+and he had the air of having been once a strong fellow; of late,
+evidently, shaken to pieces by the ague.
+
+"Where do you live?" demanded Mr. Ball.
+
+"On Ferry Street."
+
+"What do they call you?" This was said with a contemptuous, rasping
+inflection that irritated the new scholar. His eyes twinkled, partly
+with annoyance and partly with mischief.
+
+"They _call_ me Jack, for the most part,"--then catching the titter that
+came from the girls' side of the room, and frightened by the rising
+hurricane on the master's face, he added quickly: "My name is John
+Dudley, sir."
+
+"Don't you try to show your smartness on me, young man. You are a
+new-comer, and I let you off this time. Answer me that way again, and
+you will remember it as long as you live." And the master glared at him
+like a savage bull about to toss somebody over a fence.
+
+The new boy turned pale, and dropped his head.
+
+"How old are you?" "Thirteen."
+
+"Have you ever been to school?"
+
+"Three months."
+
+"Three months. Do you know how to read?"
+
+"Yes, sir," with a smile.
+
+"Can you cipher?" "Yes, sir."
+
+"In multiplication?" "Yes, sir."
+
+"Long division?"
+
+"Yes, sir; I've been half through fractions."
+
+"You said you'd been to school but three months!" "My father taught
+me."
+
+There was just a touch of pride in his voice as he said this--a sense of
+something superior about his father. This bit of pride angered the
+master, who liked to be thought to have a monopoly of all the knowledge
+in the town.
+
+"Where have you been living?"
+
+"In the Indian Reserve, of late; I was born in Cincinnati."
+
+"I didn't ask you where you were born. When I ask you a question, answer
+that and no more."
+
+"Yes, sir." There was a touch of something in the tone of this reply
+that amused the school, and that made the master look up quickly and
+suspiciously at Jack Dudley, but the expression on Jack's face was as
+innocent as that of a cat who has just lapped the cream off the milk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+KING MILKMAID
+
+
+Pewee Rose, whose proper name was Peter Rose, had also the nickname of
+King Pewee. He was about fourteen years old, square built and active, of
+great strength for his size, and very proud of the fact that no boy in
+town cared to attack him. He was not bad-tempered, but he loved to be
+master, and there were a set of flatterers who followed him, like
+jackals about a lion.
+
+As often happens, Nature had built for King Pewee a very fine body, but
+had forgotten to give him any mind to speak of. In any kind of chaff or
+banter, at any sort of talk or play where a good head was worth more
+than a strong arm and a broad back, King Pewee was sure to have the
+worst of it. A very convenient partnership had therefore grown up
+between him and Will Riley. Riley had muscle enough, but Nature had made
+him mean-spirited. He had--not exactly wit--but a facility for using his
+tongue, which he found some difficulty in displaying, through fear of
+other boys' fists. By forming a friendship with Pewee Rose, the two
+managed to keep in fear the greater part of the school. Will's rough
+tongue, together with Pewee's rude fists, were enough to bully almost
+any boy. They let Harvey Collins alone, because he was older, and,
+keeping to himself, awed them by his dignity; good-natured Bob Holliday,
+also, was big enough to take care of himself. But the rest were all as
+much afraid of Pewee as they were of the master, and as Riley managed
+Pewee, it behooved them to be afraid of the prime minister, Riley, as
+well as of King Pewee.
+
+From the first day that Jack Dudley entered the school, dressed in brown
+jeans, Will Riley marked him for a victim. The air of refinement about
+his face showed him to be a suitable person for teasing.
+
+Riley called him "milksop," and "sap-head"; words which seemed to the
+dull intellect of King Pewee exceedingly witty. And as Pewee was Riley's
+defender, he felt as proud of these rude nicknames as he would had he
+invented them and taken out a patent.
+
+But Riley's greatest stroke of wit came one morning when he caught Jack
+Dudley milking the cow. In the village of Greenbank, milking a cow was
+regarded as a woman's work; and foolish men and boys are like
+savages,--very much ashamed to be found doing a woman's work. Fools
+always think something else more disgraceful than idleness. So, having
+seen Jack milking, Riley came to school happy. He had an arrow to shoot
+that would give great delight to the small boys.
+
+"Good-morning, milkmaid!" he said to Jack Dudley, as he entered the
+school-house before school. "You milk the cow at your house, do you?
+Where's your apron?"
+
+"Oh-h! Milkmaid! milkmaid! That's a good one," chimed in Pewee Rose and
+all his set.
+
+Jack changed color.
+
+"Well, what if I do milk my mother's cow? I don't milk anybody's cow but
+ours, do I? Do you think I'm ashamed of it? I'd be ashamed not to. I
+can"--but he stopped a minute and blushed--"I can wash dishes, and make
+good pancakes, too. Now if you want to make fun, why, make fun. I don't
+care." But he did care, else why should his voice choke in that way?
+
+"Oh, girl-boy; a pretty girl-boy you are--" but here Will Riley stopped
+and stammered. There right in front of him was the smiling face of Susan
+Lanham, with a look in it which made him suddenly remember something.
+Susan had heard all the conversation, and now she came around in front
+of Will, while all the other girls clustered about her with a vague
+expectation of sport.
+
+"Come, Pewee, let's play ball," said Will.
+
+"Ah, you're running away, now; you're afraid of a girl," said Susan,
+with a cutting little laugh, and a toss of her black curls over her
+shoulder.
+
+Will had already started for the ball-ground, but at this taunt he
+turned back, thrust his hands into his pockets, put on a swagger, and
+stammered: "No, I'm not afraid of a girl, either."
+
+"That's about all that he isn't afraid of," said Bob Holliday.
+
+"Oh! you're not afraid of a girl?" said Susan. "What did you run away
+for, when you saw me? You know that Pewee won't fight a girl. You're
+afraid of anybody that Pewee can't whip."
+
+"You've got an awful tongue, Susan. We'll call you Sassy Susan," said
+Will, laughing at his own joke.
+
+"Oh, it isn't my tongue you're afraid of now. You know I can tell on
+you. I saw you drive your cow into the stable last week. You were
+ashamed to milk outside, but you looked all around----"
+
+"I didn't do it. How could you see? It was dark," and Will giggled
+foolishly, seeing all at once that he had betrayed himself.
+
+"It was nearly dark, but I happened to be where I could see. And as I
+was coming back, a few minutes after, I saw you come out with a pail of
+milk, and look around you like a sneak-thief. You saw me and hurried
+away. You are such a coward that you are ashamed to do a little honest
+work. Milkmaid! Girl-boy! Coward! And Pewee Rose lets you lead him
+around by the nose!"
+
+"You'd better be careful what you say, Susan," said Pewee,
+threateningly.
+
+"You won't touch me. You go about bullying little boys, and calling
+yourself King Pewee, but you can't do a sum in long division, nor in
+short subtraction, for that matter, and you let fellows like Riley make
+a fool of you. Your father's poor, and your mother can't keep a girl,
+and you ought to be ashamed to let her milk the cows. Who milked your
+cow this morning, Pewee?"
+
+"I don't know," said the king, looking like the king's fool.
+
+"You did it," said Susan. "Don't deny it. Then you come here and call a
+strange boy a milkmaid!"
+
+"Well, I didn't milk in the street, anyway, and he did." At this, all
+laughed aloud, and Susan's victory was complete. She only said, with a
+pretty toss of her head, as she turned away: "King Milkmaid!"
+
+Pewee found the nickname likely to stick. He was obliged to declare on
+the playground the next day, that he would "thrash" any boy that said
+anything about milkmaids. After that, he heard no more of it. But one
+morning he found "King Milkmaid" written on the door of his father's
+cow-stable. Some boy who dared not attack Pewee, had vented his
+irritation by writing the hateful words on the stable, and on the
+fence-corners near the school-house, and even on the blackboard.
+
+Pewee could not fight with Susan Lanham, but he made up his mind to
+punish the new scholar when he should have a chance. He must give
+somebody a beating.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ANSWERING BACK
+
+
+It is hard for one boy to make a fight. Even your bully does not like to
+"pitch on" an inoffensive school-mate. You remember AEsop's fable of the
+wolf and the lamb, and what pains the wolf took to pick a quarrel with
+the lamb. It was a little hard for Pewee to fight with a boy who walked
+quietly to and from the school, without giving anybody cause for
+offence.
+
+But the chief reason why Pewee did not attack him with his fists was
+that both he and Riley had found out that Jack Dudley could help them
+over a hard place in their lessons better than anybody else. And
+notwithstanding their continual persecution of Jack, they were mean
+enough to ask his assistance, and he, hoping to bring about peace by
+good-nature, helped them to get out their geography and arithmetic
+almost every day. Unable to appreciate this, they were both convinced
+that Jack only did it because he was afraid of them, and as they found
+it rare sport to abuse him, they kept it up. By their influence Jack was
+shut out of the plays. A greenhorn would spoil the game, they said. What
+did a boy that had lived on Wildcat Creek, in the Indian Reserve, know
+about playing bull-pen, or prisoner's base, or shinny? If he was brought
+in, they would go out.
+
+But the girls, and the small boys, and good-hearted Bob Holliday liked
+Jack's company very much. Yet, Jack was a boy, and he often longed to
+play games with the others. He felt very sure that he could dodge and
+run in "bull-pen" as well as any of them. He was very tired of Riley's
+continual ridicule, which grew worse as Riley saw in him a rival in
+influence with the smaller boys.
+
+"Catch Will alone sometimes," said Bob Holliday, "when Pewee isn't with
+him, and then thrash him. He'll back right down if you bristle up to
+him. If Pewee makes a fuss about it, I'll look after Pewee. I'm bigger
+than he is, and he won't fight with me. What do you say?"
+
+"I shan't fight unless I have to."
+
+"Afraid?" asked Bob, laughing.
+
+"It isn't that. I don't think I'm much afraid, although I don't like to
+be pounded or to pound anybody. I think I'd rather be whipped than to be
+made fun of, though. But my father used to say that people who fight
+generally do so because they are afraid of somebody else, more than they
+are of the one they fight with."
+
+"I believe that's a fact," said Bob. "But Riley aches for a good
+thrashing."
+
+"I know that, and I feel like giving him one, or taking one myself, and
+I think I shall fight him before I've done. But father used to say that
+fists could never settle between right and wrong. They only show which
+is the stronger, and it is generally the mean one that gets the best of
+it."
+
+"That's as sure as shootin'," said Bob. "Pewee could use you up. Pewee
+thinks he's the king, but laws! he's only Riley's bull-dog. Riley is
+afraid of him, but he manages to keep the dog on his side all the time."
+
+"My father used to say," said Jack, "that brutes could fight with force,
+but men ought to use their wits."
+
+"You seem to think a good deal of what your father says,--like it was
+your Bible, you know."
+
+"My father's dead," replied Jack.
+
+"Oh, that's why. Boys don't always pay attention to what their father
+says when he's alive."
+
+"Oh, but then my father was--" Here Jack checked himself, for fear of
+seeming to boast. "You see," he went on, "my father knew a great deal.
+He was so busy with his books that he lost 'most all his money, and then
+we moved to the Indian Reserve, and there he took the fever and died;
+and then we came down here, where we owned a house, so that I could go
+to school."
+
+"Why don't you give Will Riley as good as he sends?" said Bob, wishing
+to get away from melancholy subjects. "You have got as good a tongue as
+his."
+
+"I haven't his stock of bad words, though."
+
+"You've got a power of fun in you, though,--you keep everybody laughing
+when you want to, and if you'd only turn the pumps on him once, he'd
+howl like a yellow dog that's had a quart o' hot suds poured over him
+out of a neighbor's window. Use your wits, like your father said. You've
+lived in the woods till you're as shy as a flying-squirrel. All you've
+got to do is to talk up and take it rough and tumble, like the rest of
+the world. Riley can't bear to be laughed at, and you can make him
+ridiculous as easy as not."
+
+The next day, at the noon recess, about the time that Jack had finished
+helping Bob Holliday to find some places on the map, there came up a
+little shower, and the boys took refuge in the school-house. They must
+have some amusement, so Riley began his old abuse.
+
+"Well, greenhorn from the Wildcat, where's the black sheep you stole
+that suit of clothes from?"
+
+"I hear him bleat now," said Jack,--"about the blackest sheep I have
+ever seen."
+
+"You've heard the truth for once, Riley," said Bob Holliday.
+
+Riley, who was as vain as a peacock, was very much mortified by the
+shout of applause with which this little retort of Jack's was greeted.
+It was not a case in which he could call in King Pewee. The king, for
+his part, shut up his fists and looked silly, while Jack took courage to
+keep up the battle.
+
+But Riley tried again.
+
+"I say, Wildcat, you think you're smart, but you're a double-distilled
+idiot, and haven't got brains enough to be sensible of your misery."
+
+This kind of outburst on Riley's part always brought a laugh from the
+school. But before the laugh had died down, Jack Dudley took the word,
+saying, in a dry and quizzical way:
+
+"Don't you try to claim kin with me that way, Riley. No use; I won't
+stand it. I don't belong to your family. I'm neither a fool nor a
+coward."
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted Bob Holliday, bringing down first one and then the
+other of his big feet on the floor. "It's your put-in now, Riley."
+
+"Don't be backward in coming forward, Will, as the Irish priest said to
+his people," came from grave Harvey Collins, who here looked up from his
+book, thoroughly enjoying the bully's discomfiture.
+
+"That's awfully good," said Joanna Merwin, clasping her hands and
+giggling with delight.
+
+King Pewee doubled up his fists and looked at Riley to see if he ought
+to try his sort of wit on Jack. If a frog, being pelted to death by
+cruel boys, should turn and pelt them again, they could not be more
+surprised than were Riley and King Pewee at Jack's repartees.
+
+"You'd better be careful what you say to Will Riley," said Pewee. "I
+stand by him."
+
+But Jack's blood was up now, and he was not to be scared.
+
+"All the more shame to him," said Jack. "Look at me, shaken all to
+pieces with the fever and ague on the Wildcat, and look at that great
+big, bony coward of a Riley. I've done him no harm, but he wants to
+abuse me, and he's afraid of me. He daren't touch me. He has to coax you
+to stand by him, to protect him from poor little me. He's a great
+big----"
+
+"Calf," broke in Bob Holliday, with a laugh.
+
+"You'd better be careful," said Pewee to Jack, rising to his feet. "I
+stand by Riley."
+
+"Will you defend him if I hit him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, then, I won't hit him. But you don't mean that he is to abuse me,
+while I am not allowed to answer back a word?"
+
+"Well--" said Pewee hesitatingly.
+
+"Well," said Bob Holliday hotly, "I say that Jack has just as good a
+right to talk with his tongue as Riley. Stand by Riley if he's hit,
+Pewee; he needs it. But don't you try to shut up Jack." And Bob got up
+and put his broad hand on Jack's shoulder. Nobody had ever seen the big
+fellow angry before, and the excitement was very great. The girls
+clapped their hands.
+
+"Good for you, Bob, I say," came from Susan Lanham, and poor, ungainly
+Bob blushed to his hair to find himself the hero of the girls.
+
+"I don't mean to shut up Jack," said Pewee, looking at Bob's size, "but
+I stand by Riley."
+
+"Well, do your standing sitting down, then," said Susan. "I'll get a
+milking-stool for you, if that'll keep you quiet."
+
+It was well that the master came in just then, or Pewee would have had
+to fight somebody or burst.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+LITTLE CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
+
+
+Jack's life in school was much more endurable now that he had a friend
+in Bob Holliday. Bob had spent his time in hard work and in rough
+surroundings, but he had a gentleman's soul, although his manners and
+speech were rude. More and more Jack found himself drawn to him. Harvey
+Collins asked Jack to walk down to the river-bank with him at recess.
+Both Harvey and Bob soon liked Jack, who found himself no longer lonely.
+The girls also sought his advice about their lessons, and the younger
+boys were inclined to come over to his side.
+
+As winter came on, country boys, anxious to learn something about
+"reading, writing, and ciphering," came into the school. Each of
+these new-comers had to go through a certain amount of teasing from
+Riley and of bullying from Pewee.
+
+One frosty morning in December there appeared among the new scholars a
+strange little fellow, with a large head, long straight hair, an
+emaciated body, and legs that looked like reeds, they were so slender.
+His clothes were worn and patched, and he had the look of having been
+frost-bitten. He could not have been more than ten years old, to judge
+by his size, but there was a look of premature oldness in his face.
+
+"Come here!" said the master, when he caught sight of him. "What is your
+name?" And Mr. Ball took out his book to register the new-comer, with
+much the same relish that the Giant Despair showed when he had bagged a
+fresh pilgrim.
+
+"Columbus Risdale." The new-comer spoke in a shrill, piping voice, as
+strange as his weird face and withered body.
+
+"Is that your full name?" asked the master.
+
+"No, sir," piped the strange little creature.
+
+"Give your full name," said Mr. Ball, sternly.
+
+"My name is Christopher Columbus George Washington Marquis de Lafayette
+Risdale." The poor lad was the victim of that mania which some people
+have for "naming after" great men. His little shrunken body and high,
+piping voice made his name seem so incongruous that all the school
+tittered, and many laughed outright. But the dignified and eccentric
+little fellow did not observe it.
+
+"Can you read?"
+
+"Yes, sir," squeaked the lad, more shrilly than ever.
+
+"Umph," said the master, with a look of doubt on his face. "In the first
+reader?"
+
+"No, sir; in the fourth reader."
+
+Even the master could not conceal his look of astonishment at this
+claim. At that day, the fourth reader class was the highest in the
+school, and contained only the largest scholars. The school laughed at
+the bare notion of little Christopher Columbus reading in the fourth
+reader, and the little fellow looked around the room, puzzled to guess
+the cause of the merriment.
+
+"We'll try you," said the master, with suspicion. When the fourth-reader
+class was called, and Harvey Collins and Susie Lanham and some others of
+the nearly grown-up pupils came forward, with Jack Dudley as quite the
+youngest of the class, the great-eyed, emaciated little Columbus Risdale
+picked himself up on his pipe-stems and took his place at the end of
+this row.
+
+It was too funny for anything!
+
+Will Riley and Pewee and other large scholars, who were yet reading in
+that old McGuffey's Third Reader, which had a solitary picture of
+Bonaparte crossing the Alps, looked with no kindly eyes on this
+preposterous infant in the class ahead of them.
+
+The piece to be read was the poem of Mrs. Hemans's called "The Better
+Land." Poems like this one are rather out of fashion nowadays, and
+people are inclined to laugh a little at Mrs. Hemans. But thirty years
+ago her religious and sentimental poetry was greatly esteemed. This one
+presented no difficulty to the readers. In that day, little or no
+attention was paid to inflection--the main endeavor being to pronounce
+the words without hesitation or slip, and to "mind the stops." Each one
+of the class read a stanza ending with a line:
+
+  "Not there, not there, my child!"
+
+The poem was exhausted before all had read, so that it was necessary to
+begin over again in order to give each one his turn. All waited to hear
+the little Columbus read. When it came his turn, the school was as still
+as death. The master, wishing to test him, told him, with something like
+a sneer, that he could read three stanzas, or "verses," as Mr. Ball
+called them.
+
+The little chap squared his toes, threw his head back, and more fluently
+even than the rest, he read, in his shrill, eager voice, the remaining
+lines, winding up each stanza in a condescending tone, as he read:
+
+  "Not there, not there, my child!"
+
+The effect of this from the hundred-year-old baby was so striking and so
+ludicrous that everybody was amused, while all were surprised at the
+excellence of his reading. The master proceeded, however, to whip one or
+two of the boys for laughing.
+
+When recess-time arrived, Susan Lanham came to Jack with a request.
+
+"I wish you'd look after little Lummy Risdale. He's a sort of cousin of
+my mother's. He is as innocent and helpless as the babes in the wood."
+
+"I'll take care of him," said Jack.
+
+So he took the little fellow walking away from the school-house; Will
+Riley and some of the others calling after them: "Not there, not there,
+my child!"
+
+But Columbus did not lay their taunts to heart. He was soon busy talking
+to Jack about things in the country, and things in town. On their
+return, Riley, crying out: "Not there, my child!" threw a snow-ball
+from a distance of ten feet and struck the poor little Christopher
+Columbus George Washington Lafayette so severe a blow as to throw him
+off his feet. Quick as a flash, Jack charged on Riley, and sent a
+snow-ball into his face. An instant later he tripped him with his foot
+and rolled the big, scared fellow into the snow and washed his face
+well, leaving half a snow-bank down his back.
+
+"What makes you so savage?" whined Riley. "I didn't snow-ball you." And
+Riley looked around for Pewee, who was on the other side of the
+school-house, and out of sight of the scuffle.
+
+"No, you daren't snow-ball me," said Jack, squeezing another ball and
+throwing it into Riley's shirt-front with a certainty of aim that showed
+that he knew how to play ball. "Take that one, too, and if you bother
+Lum Risdale again, I'll make you pay for it. Take a boy of your size."
+And with that he moulded yet another ball, but Riley retreated to the
+other side of the school-house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WHILING AWAY TIME
+
+
+Excluded from the plays of the older fellows, Jack drew around him a
+circle of small boys, who were always glad to be amused with the stories
+of hunting, fishing, and frontier adventure that he had heard from old
+pioneers on Wildcat Creek. Sometimes he played "tee-tah-toe, three in a
+row," with the girls, using a slate and pencil in a way well known to
+all school-children. And he also showed them a better kind of
+"tee-tah-toe," learned on the Wildcat, and which may have been in the
+first place an Indian game, as it is played with grains of Indian corn.
+A piece of board is grooved with a jack-knife in the manner shown in the
+diagram.
+
+[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF TEE-TAH-TOE BOARD.]
+
+One player has three red or yellow grains of corn, and the other an
+equal number of white ones. The player who won the last game has the
+"go"--that is, he first puts down a grain of corn at any place where the
+lines intersect, but usually in the middle, as that is the best point.
+Then the other player puts down one, and so on until all are down. After
+this, the players move alternately along any of the lines, in any
+direction, to the next intersection, provided it is not already
+occupied. The one who first succeeds in getting his three grains in a
+row wins the point, and the board is cleared for a new start. As there
+are always three vacant points, and as the rows may be formed in any
+direction along any of the lines, the game gives a chance for more
+variety of combinations than one would expect from its appearance.
+
+[Illustration: JACK AMUSING THE SMALL BOYS WITH STORIES OF HUNTING,
+FISHING, AND FRONTIER ADVENTURE.]
+
+Jack had also an arithmetical puzzle which he had learned from his
+father, and which many of the readers of this story will know, perhaps.
+
+"Set down any number, without letting me know what it is," said he to
+Joanna Merwin.
+
+She set down a number.
+
+"Now add twelve and multiply by two."
+
+"Well, that is done," said Joanna.
+
+"Divide by four, subtract half of the number first set down, and your
+answer will be six."
+
+"Oh, but how did you know that I put down sixty-four?" said Joanna.
+
+"I didn't," said Jack.
+
+"How could you tell the answer, then?"
+
+"That's for you to find out."
+
+This puzzle excited a great deal of curiosity. To add to the wonder of
+the scholars, Jack gave each time a different number to be added in, and
+sometimes he varied the multiplying and dividing. Harvey Collins, who
+was of a studious turn, puzzled over it a long time, and at last he
+found it out; but he did not tell the secret. He contented himself with
+giving out a number to Jack and telling his result. To the rest it was
+quite miraculous, and Riley turned green with jealousy when he found the
+girls and boys refusing to listen to his jokes, but gathering about Jack
+to test his ability to "guess the answer," as they phrased it. Riley
+said he knew how it was done, and he was even foolish enough to try to
+do it, by watching the slate-pencil, or by sheer guessing, but this only
+brought him into ridicule.
+
+"Try me once," said the little C. C. G. W. M. de L. Risdale, and Jack
+let Columbus set down a figure and carry it through the various
+processes until he told him the result. Lummy grew excited, pushed his
+thin hands up into his hair, looked at his slate a minute, and then
+squeaked out:
+
+"Oh--let me see--yes--no--yes--Oh, I see! Your answer is just half the
+amount added in, because you have----"
+
+But here Jack placed his hand over Columbus's mouth.
+
+"You can see through a pine door, Lummy, but you mustn't let out my
+secret," he said.
+
+But Jack had a boy's heart in him, and he longed for some more boy-like
+amusement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A BATTLE
+
+
+One morning, when Jack proposed to play a game of ball with the boys,
+Riley and Pewee came up and entered the game, and objected.
+
+"It isn't interesting to play with greenhorns," said Will. "If Jack
+plays, little Christopher Columbus Andsoforth will want to play, too;
+and then there'll be two babies to teach. I can't be always helping
+babies. Let Jack play two-hole cat or Anthony-over with the little
+fellows." To which answer Pewee assented, of course.
+
+That day at noon Riley came to Jack, with a most gentle tone and winning
+manner, and whiningly begged Jack to show him how to divide 770 by 14.
+
+"It isn't interesting to show greenhorns," said Jack, mimicking Riley's
+tone on the playground that morning. "If I show you, Pewee Rose will
+want me to show him; then there'll be two babies to teach. I can't be
+always helping babies. Go and play two-hole cat with the First-Reader
+boys."
+
+That afternoon, Mr. Ball had the satisfaction of using his new beech
+switches on both Riley and Pewee, though indeed Pewee did not deserve to
+be punished for not getting his lesson. It was Nature's doing that his
+head, like a goat's, was made for butting and not for thinking.
+
+But if he had to take whippings from the master and his father, he made
+it a rule to get satisfaction out of somebody else. If Jack had helped
+him he wouldn't have missed. If he had not missed his lesson badly, Mr.
+Ball would not have whipped him. It would be inconvenient to whip Mr.
+Ball in return, but Jack would be easy to manage, and as somebody must
+be whipped, it fell to Jack's lot to take it.
+
+King Pewee did not fall upon his victim at the school-house door; this
+would have insured him another beating from the master. Nor did he
+attack Jack while Bob Holliday was with him. Bob was big and strong--a
+great fellow of sixteen. But after Jack had passed the gate of Bob's
+house, and was walking on toward home alone, Pewee came out from behind
+an alley fence, accompanied by Ben Berry and Will Riley.
+
+"I'm going to settle with you now," said King Pewee, sidling up to Jack
+like an angry bull-dog.
+
+It was not a bright prospect for Jack, and he cast about him for a
+chance to escape a brutal encounter with such a bully, and yet avoid
+actually running away.
+
+"Well," said Jack, "if I must fight, I must. But I suppose you won't let
+Riley and Berry help you."
+
+"No, I'll fight fair." And Pewee threw off his coat, while Jack did the
+same.
+
+"You'll quit when I say 'enough,' won't you?" said Jack.
+
+"Yes, I'll fight fair, and hold up when you've got enough."
+
+"Well, then, for that matter, I've got enough now. I'll take the will
+for the deed and just say 'enough' before you begin," and he turned to
+pick up his coat.
+
+"No, you don't get off that way," said Pewee. "You've got to stand up
+and see who is the best man, or I'll kick you all the way home."
+
+"Didn't you ever hear about Davy Crockett's 'coon?" said Jack. "When the
+'coon saw him taking aim, it said: 'Is that you, Crockett? Well, don't
+fire--I'll come down anyway. I know you'll hit anything you shoot at.'
+Now, I'm that 'coon. If it was anybody but you, I'd fight. But as it's
+you, Pewee, I might just as well come down before you begin."
+
+Pewee was flattered by this way of putting the question. Had he been
+alone, Jack would have escaped. But Will Riley, remembering all he had
+endured from Jack's retorts, said:
+
+"Oh, give it to him, Pewee; he's always making trouble."
+
+At which Pewee squared himself off, doubled up his fists, and came at
+the slenderer Jack. The latter prepared to meet him, but, after all, it
+was hard for Pewee to beat so good-humored a fellow as Jack. The king's
+heart failed him, and suddenly he backed off, saying:
+
+"If you'll agree to help Riley and me out with our lessons hereafter,
+I'll let you off. If you don't, I'll thrash you within an inch of your
+life." And Pewee stood ready to begin.
+
+Jack wanted to escape the merciless beating that Pewee had in store for
+him. But it was quite impossible for him to submit under a threat. So he
+answered:
+
+"If you and Riley will treat me as you ought to, I'll help you when you
+ask me, as I always have. But even if you pound me into jelly I won't
+agree to help you, unless you treat me right. I won't be bullied into
+helping you."
+
+"Give it to him, Pewee," said Ben Berry; "he's too sassy."
+
+Pewee was a rather good-natured dog--he had to be set on. He now began
+to strike at Jack. Whether he was to be killed or not, Jack did not
+know, but he was resolved not to submit to the bully. Yet he could not
+do much at defence against Pewee's hard fists. However, Jack was active
+and had long limbs; he soon saw that he must do something more than
+stand up to be beaten. So, when King Pewee, fighting in the irregular
+Western fashion, and hoping to get a decided advantage at once, rushed
+upon Jack and pulled his head forward, Jack stooped lower than his enemy
+expected, and, thrusting his head between Pewee's knees, shoved his legs
+from under him, and by using all his strength threw Pewee over his own
+back, so that the king's nose and eyes fell into the dust of the village
+street.
+
+"I'll pay you for that," growled Pewee, as he recovered himself, now
+thoroughly infuriated; and with a single blow he sent Jack flat on his
+back, and then proceeded to pound him. Jack could do nothing now but
+shelter his eyes from Pewee's blows.
+
+Joanna Merwin had seen the beginning of the battle from her father's
+house, and feeling sure that Jack would be killed, she had run swiftly
+down the garden walk to the back gate, through which she slipped into
+the alley; and then she hurried on, as fast as her feet would carry her,
+to the blacksmith-shop of Pewee Rose's father.
+
+"Oh, please, Mr. Rose, come quick! Pewee's just killing a boy in the
+street."
+
+"Vitin' ag'in," said Mr. Rose, who was a Pennsylvanian from the
+limestone country, and spoke English with difficulty. "He ees a leetle
+ruffen, dat poy. I'll see apout him right avay a'ready, may be."
+
+And without waiting to put off his leathern apron, he walked briskly in
+the direction indicated by Joanna. Pewee was hammering Jack without
+pity, when suddenly he was caught by the collar and lifted sharply to
+his feet.
+
+"Wot you doin' down dare in de dirt wunst a'ready? Hey?" said Mr. Rose,
+as he shook his son with the full force of his right arm, and cuffed him
+with his left hand. "Didn't I dells you I'd gill you some day if you
+didn't gwit vitin' mit oder poys, a'ready?"
+
+"He commenced it," whimpered Pewee.
+
+"You dells a pig lie a'ready, I beleefs, Peter, and I'll whip you fur
+lyin' besides wunst more. Fellers like _him_," pointing to Jack, who was
+brushing the dust off his clothes,--"fellers like him don't gommence on
+such a poy as you. You're such anoder viter I never seed." And he shook
+Pewee savagely.
+
+"I won't do it no more," begged Pewee--"'pon my word and honor I won't."
+
+"Oh, you don't gits off dat away no more, a'ready. You know what I'll
+giff you when I git you home, you leedle ruffen. I shows you how to
+vite, a'ready."
+
+And the king disappeared down the street, begging like a spaniel, and
+vowing that he "wouldn't do it no more." But he got a severe whipping, I
+fear;--it is doubtful if such beatings ever do any good. The next
+morning Jack appeared at school with a black eye, and Pewee had some
+scratches, so the master whipped them both for fighting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+HAT-BALL AND BULL-PEN
+
+
+Pewee did not renew the quarrel with Jack--perhaps from fear of the
+rawhide that hung in the blacksmith's shop, or of the master's ox-goad,
+or of Bob Holliday's fists, or perhaps from a hope of conciliating Jack
+and getting occasional help in his lessons. Jack was still excluded from
+the favorite game of "bull-pen." I am not sure that he would have been
+rejected had he asked for admission, but he did not want to risk another
+refusal. He planned a less direct way of getting into the game. Asking
+his mother for a worn-out stocking, and procuring an old boot-top, he
+ravelled the stocking, winding the yarn into a ball of medium hardness.
+Then he cut from the boot-top a square of leather large enough for his
+purpose. This he laid on the kitchen-table, and proceeded to mark off
+and cut it into the shape of an orange-peel that has been quartered off
+the orange, leaving the four quarters joined together at the middle.
+This leather he put to soak over night. The next morning, bright and
+early, with a big needle and some strong thread he sewed it around his
+yarn-ball, stretching the wet leather to its utmost, so that when it
+should contract the ball should be firm and hard, and the leather well
+moulded to it. Such a ball is far better for all play in which the
+player is to be hit than those sold in the stores nowadays. I have
+described the manufacture of the old-fashioned home-made ball, because
+there are some boys, especially in the towns, who have lost the art of
+making yarn balls.
+
+When Jack had finished his ball, he let it dry, while he ate his
+breakfast and did his chores. Then he sallied out and found Bob
+Holliday, and showed him the result of his work. Bob squeezed it, felt
+its weight, bounced it against a wall, tossed it high in the air, caught
+it, and then bounced it on the ground. Having thus "put it through its
+paces," he pronounced it an excellent ball,--"a good deal better than
+Ben Berry's ball. But what are you going to do with it?" he asked. "Play
+Anthony-over? The little boys can play that."
+
+I suppose there are boys in these days who do not know what
+"Anthony-over" is. How, indeed, can anybody play Anthony-over in a
+crowded city?
+
+The old one-story village school-houses stood generally in an open
+green. The boys divided into two parties, the one going on one side, and
+the other on the opposite side of the school-house. The party that had
+the ball would shout "Anthony!" The others responded, "Over!" To this,
+answer was made from the first party, "Over she comes!" and the ball was
+immediately thrown over the school-house. If any of the second party
+caught it, they rushed, pell-mell, around both ends of the school-house
+to the other side, and that one of them who held the ball essayed to hit
+some one of the opposite party before they could exchange sides. If a
+boy was hit by the ball thus thrown he was counted as captured to the
+opposite party, and he gave all his efforts to beat his old allies. So
+the game went on, until all the players of one side were captured by the
+others. I don't know what Anthony means in this game, but no doubt the
+game is hundreds of years old, and was played in English villages before
+the first colony came to Jamestown.
+
+"I'm not going to play Anthony-over," said Jack. "I'm going to show King
+Pewee a new trick."
+
+"You can't get up a game of bull-pen on your own hook, and play the four
+corners and the ring all by yourself."
+
+"No, I don't mean that. I'm going to show the boys how to play
+hat-ball--a game they used to play on the Wildcat."
+
+"I see your point. You are going to make Pewee ask you to let him in,"
+said Bob, and the two boys set out for school together, Jack explaining
+the game to Bob. They found one or two boys already there, and when Jack
+showed his new ball and proposed a new game, they fell in with it.
+
+The boys stood their hats in a row on the grass. The one with the ball
+stood over the row of hats, and swung his hand to and fro above them,
+while the boys stood by him, prepared to run as soon as the ball should
+drop into a hat. The boy who held the ball, after one or two false
+motions,--now toward this hat, and now toward that one,--would drop the
+ball into Somebody's hat. Somebody would rush to his hat, seize the
+ball, and throw it at one of the other boys, who were fleeing in all
+directions. If he hit Somebody-Else, Somebody-Else might throw from
+where the ball lay, or from the hats, at the rest, and so on, until some
+one missed. The one who missed took up his hat and left the play, and
+the boy who picked up the ball proceeded to drop it into a hat, and the
+game went on until all but one were put out.
+
+Hat-ball is so simple that any number can play at it, and Jack's friends
+found it so full of boisterous fun, that every new-comer wished to set
+down his hat. And thus, by the time Pewee and Riley arrived, half the
+larger boys in the school were in the game, and there were not enough
+left to make a good game of bull-pen.
+
+At noon, the new game drew the attention of the boys again, and Riley
+and Pewee tried in vain to coax them away.
+
+"Oh, I say, come on, fellows!" Riley would say. "Come--let's play
+something worth playing."
+
+But the boys stayed by the new game and the new ball. Neither Riley, nor
+Pewee, nor Ben Berry liked to ask to be let into the game, after what
+had passed. Not one of them had spoken to Jack since the battle between
+him and Pewee, and they didn't care to play with Jack's ball in a game
+of his starting.
+
+Once the other boys had broken away from Pewee's domination, they were
+pleased to feel themselves free. As for Pewee and his friends, they
+climbed up on a fence, and sat like three crows, watching the play of
+the others. After a while they got down in disgust, and went off, not
+knowing just what to do. When once they were out of sight, Jack winked
+at Bob, who said:
+
+"I say, boys, we can play hat-ball at recess when there isn't time for
+bull-pen. Let's have a game of bull-pen now, before school takes up."
+
+It was done in a minute. Bob Holliday and Tom Taylor "chose up sides,"
+the bases were all ready, and by the time Pewee and his aides-de-camp
+had walked disconsolately to the pond and back, the boys were engaged in
+a good game of bull-pen.
+
+Perhaps I ought to say something about the principles of a game so
+little known over the country at large. I have never seen it played
+anywhere but in a narrow bit of country on the Ohio River, and yet there
+is no merrier game played with a ball.
+
+The ball must not be too hard. There should be four or more corners.
+The space inside is called the pen, and the party winning the last game
+always has the corners. The ball is tossed from one corner to another,
+and when it has gone around once, any boy on a corner may, immediately
+after catching the ball thrown to him from any of the four corners,
+throw it at any one in the pen. He must throw while "the ball is
+hot,"--that is, instantly on catching it. If he fails to hit anybody on
+the other side, he goes out. If he hits, his side leave the corners and
+run as they please, for the boy who has been hit may throw from where
+the ball fell, or from any corner, at any one of the side holding the
+corners. If one of them is hit, he has the same privilege; but now the
+men in the pen are allowed to scatter, also. Whoever misses is "out,"
+and the play is resumed from the corners until all of one side is out.
+When but two are left on the corners the ball is smuggled,--that is,
+one hides the ball in his bosom, and the other pretends that he has it
+also. The boys in the ring do not know which has it, and the two "run
+the corners," throwing from any corner. If but one is left on the
+corners, he is allowed, also, to run from corner to corner.
+
+It happened that Jack's side lost on the toss-up for corners, and he got
+into the ring, where his play showed better than it would have done on
+the corners. As Jack was the greenhorn and the last chosen on his side,
+the players on the corners expected to make light work of him; but he
+was an adroit dodger, and he put out three of the boys on the corners by
+his unexpected way of evading a ball. Everybody who has ever played this
+fine old game knows that expertness in dodging is worth quite as much as
+skill in throwing. Pewee was a famous hand with a ball, Riley could
+dodge well, Ben Berry had a happy knack of dropping flat upon the ground
+and letting a ball pass over him, Bob Holliday could run well in a
+counter charge; but nothing could be more effective than Jack Dudley's
+quiet way of stepping forward or backward, bending his lithe body or
+spreading his legs to let the ball pass, according to the course which
+it took from the player's hand.
+
+King Pewee and company came back in time to see Jack dodge three balls
+thrown point-blank at him from a distance of fifteen feet. It was like
+witchcraft--he seemed to be charmed. Every dodge was greeted with a
+shout, and when once he luckily caught the ball thrown at him, and thus
+put out the thrower, there was no end of admiration of his playing. It
+was now evident to all that Jack could no longer be excluded from the
+game, and that, next to Pewee himself, he was already the best player on
+the ground.
+
+At recess that afternoon Pewee set his hat down in the hat-ball row, and
+as Jack did not object, Riley and Ben Berry did the same. The next day
+Pewee chose Jack first in bull-pen, and the game was well played.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE DEFENDER
+
+
+If Jack had not about this time undertaken the defence of the little boy
+in the Fourth Reader, whose name was large enough to cover the principal
+points in the history of the New World, he might have had peace, for
+Jack was no longer one of the newest scholars, his courage was respected
+by Pewee, and he kept poor Riley in continual fear of his
+ridicule--making him smart every day. But, just when he might have had a
+little peace and happiness, he became the defender of Christopher
+Columbus George Washington Marquis de la Fayette Risdale--little
+"Andsoforth," as Riley and the other boys had nicknamed him.
+
+The strange, pinched little body of the boy, his eccentric ways, his
+quickness in learning, and his infantile simplicity had all conspired to
+win the affection of Jack, so that he would have protected him even
+without the solicitation of Susan Lanham. But since Susan had been
+Jack's own first and fast friend, he felt in honor bound to run all
+risks in the care of her strange little cousin.
+
+I think that Columbus's child-like ways might have protected him even
+from Riley and his set, if it had not been that he was related to Susan
+Lanham, and under her protection. It was the only chance for Riley to
+revenge himself on Susan. She was more than a match for him in wit, and
+she was not a proper subject for Pewee's fists. So with that
+heartlessness which belongs to the school-boy bully, he resolved to
+torment the helpless fellow in revenge for Susan's sarcasms.
+
+One morning, smarting under some recent taunt of Susan's, Riley caught
+little Columbus almost alone in the school-room. Here was a boy who
+certainly would not be likely to strike back again. His bamboo legs, his
+spindling arms, his pale face, his contracted chest, all gave the coward
+a perfect assurance of safety. So, with a rude pretence at play,
+laughing all the time, he caught the lad by the throat, and in spite of
+his weird dignity and pleading gentleness, shoved him back against the
+wall behind the master's empty chair. Holding him here a minute in
+suspense, he began slapping him, first on this side of the face and then
+on that. The pale cheeks burned red with pain and fright, but Columbus
+did not cry out, though the constantly increasing sharpness of the
+blows, and the sense of weakness, degradation, and terror, stung him
+severely. Riley thought it funny. Like a cat playing with a condemned
+mouse, the cruel fellow actually enjoyed finding one person weak enough
+to be afraid of him.
+
+Columbus twisted about in a vain endeavor to escape from Riley's
+clutches, getting only a sharper cuff for his pains. Ben Berry, arriving
+presently, enjoyed the sport, while some of the smaller boys and girls,
+coming in, looked on the scene of torture in helpless pity. And ever, as
+more and more of the scholars gathered, Columbus felt more and more
+mortified; the tears were in his great sad eyes, but he made no sound of
+crying or complaint.
+
+Jack Dudley came in at last, and marched straight up to Riley, who let
+go his hold and backed off. "You mean, cowardly, pitiful villain!" broke
+out Jack, advancing on him.
+
+"I didn't do anything to you," whined Riley, backing into a corner.
+
+"No, but I mean to do something to you. If there's an inch of man in
+you, come right on and fight with me. You daren't do it."
+
+"I don't want any quarrel with you."
+
+"No, you quarrel with babies."
+
+Here all the boys and girls jeered.
+
+"You're too hard on a fellow, Jack," whined the scared Riley, slipping
+out of the corner and continuing to back down the school-room, while
+Jack kept slowly following him.
+
+"You're a great deal bigger than I am," said Jack. "Why don't you try to
+corner me? Oh, I could just beat the breath out of you, you great, big,
+good-for-nothing----"
+
+Here Riley pulled the west door open, and Jack, at the same moment,
+struck him. Riley half dropped, half fell, through the door-way, scared
+so badly that he went sprawling on the ground.
+
+The boys shouted "coward" and "baby" after him as he sneaked off, but
+Jack went back to comfort Columbus and to get control of his temper. For
+it is not wise, as Jack soon reflected, even in a good cause to lose
+your self-control.
+
+"It was good of you to interfere," said Susan, when she had come in and
+learned all about it.
+
+"I should have been a brute if I hadn't," said Jack, pleased none the
+less with her praise. "But it doesn't take any courage to back Riley out
+of a school-house. One could get more fight out of a yearling calf. I
+suppose I've got to take a beating from Pewee, though."
+
+"Go and see him about it, before Riley talks to him," suggested Susan.
+And Jack saw the prudence of this course. As he left the school-house at
+a rapid pace, Ben Berry told Riley, who was skulking behind a fence,
+that Jack was afraid of Pewee.
+
+"Pewee," said Jack, when he met him starting to school, after having
+done his "chores," including the milking of his cow,--"Pewee, I want to
+say something to you."
+
+Jack's tone and manner flattered Pewee. One thing that keeps a rowdy a
+rowdy is the thought that better people despise him. Pewee felt in his
+heart that Jack had a contempt for him, and this it was that made him
+hate Jack in turn. But now that the latter sought him in a friendly way,
+he felt himself lifted up into a dignity hitherto unknown to him. "What
+is it?"
+
+"You are a kind of king among the boys," said Jack. Pewee grew an inch
+taller.
+
+"They are all afraid of you. Now, why don't you make us fellows behave?
+You ought to protect the little boys from fellows that impose on them.
+Then you'd be a king worth the having. All the boys and girls would
+like you."
+
+"I s'pose may be that's so," said the king.
+
+"There's poor little Columbus Risdale----"
+
+"I don't like him," said Pewee.
+
+"You mean you don't like Susan. She _is_ a little sharp with her tongue.
+But you wouldn't fight with a baby--it isn't like you."
+
+"No, sir-ee," said Pewee.
+
+"You'd rather take a big boy than a little one. Now, you ought to make
+Riley let Lummy alone."
+
+"I'll do that," said Pewee. "Riley's about a million times bigger than
+Lum."
+
+"I went to the school-house this morning," continued Jack, "and I found
+Riley choking and beating him. And I thought I'd just speak to you, and
+see if you can't make him stop it."
+
+"I'll do that," said Pewee, walking along with great dignity.
+
+When Ben Berry and Riley saw Pewee coming in company with Jack, they
+were amazed and hung their heads, afraid to say anything even to each
+other. Jack and Pewee walked straight up to the fence-corner in which
+they stood.
+
+"I thought I'd see what King Pewee would say about your fighting with
+babies, Riley," said Jack.
+
+"I want you fellows to understand," said Pewee, "that I'm not going to
+have that little Lum Risdale hurt. If you want to fight, why don't you
+fight somebody your own size? I don't fight babies myself," and here
+Pewee drew his head up, "and I don't stand by any boy that does."
+
+Poor Riley felt the last support drop from under him. Pewee had deserted
+him, and he was now an orphan, unprotected in an unfriendly world!
+
+Jack knew that the truce with so vain a fellow as Pewee could not last
+long, but it served its purpose for the time. And when, after school,
+Susan Lanham took pains to go and thank Pewee for standing up for
+Columbus, Pewee felt himself every inch a king, and for the time he
+was--if not a "reformed prize-fighter," such as one hears of sometimes,
+at least an improved boy. The trouble with vain people like Pewee is,
+that they have no stability. They bend the way the wind blows, and for
+the most part the wind blows from the wrong quarter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+PIGEON POT-PIE
+
+
+Happy boys and girls that go to school nowadays! You have to study
+harder than the generations before you, it is true; you miss the jolly
+spelling-schools, and the good old games that were not half so
+scientific as base-ball, lawn tennis, or lacrosse, but that had ten
+times more fun and frolic in them; but all this is made up to you by the
+fact that you escape the tyrannical old master. Whatever the faults the
+teachers of this day may have, they do not generally lacerate the backs
+of their pupils, as did some of their fore-runners.
+
+At the time of which I write, thirty years ago, a better race of
+school-masters was crowding out the old, but many of the latter class,
+with their terrible switches and cruel beatings, kept their ground until
+they died off one by one, and relieved the world of their odious ways.
+
+Mr. Ball wouldn't die to please anybody. He was a bachelor, and had no
+liking for children, but taught school five or six months in winter to
+avoid having to work on a farm in the summer. He had taught in Greenbank
+every winter for a quarter of a century, and having never learned to win
+anybody's affection, had been obliged to teach those who disliked him.
+This atmosphere of mutual dislike will sour the sweetest temper, and Mr.
+Ball's temper had not been strained honey to begin with. Year by year he
+grew more and more severe--he whipped for poor lessons, he whipped for
+speaking in school, he took down his switch for not speaking loud enough
+in class, he whipped for coming late to school, he whipped because a
+scholar made a noise with his feet, and he whipped because he himself
+had eaten something unwholesome for his breakfast. The brutality of a
+master produces like qualities in scholars. The boys drew caricatures on
+the blackboard, put living cats or dead ones into Mr. Ball's desk, and
+tried to drive him wild by their many devices.
+
+He would walk up and down the school-room seeking a victim, and he had as
+much pleasure in beating a girl or a little boy as in punishing an
+overgrown fellow.
+
+And yet I cannot say that Mr. Ball was impartial. There were some pupils
+that escaped. Susan Lanham was not punished, because her father, Dr.
+Lanham, was a very influential man in the town; and the faults of Henry
+Weathervane and his sister were always overlooked after their father
+became a school trustee.
+
+Many efforts had been made to put a new master into the school. But Mr.
+Ball's brother-in-law was one of the principal merchants in the place,
+and the old man had had the school so long that it seemed like robbery
+to deprive him of it. It had come, in some sort, to belong to him.
+People hated to see him moved. He would die some day, they said, and
+nobody could deny that, though it often seemed to the boys and girls
+that he would never die; he was more likely to dry up and blow away. And
+it was a long time to wait for that.
+
+And yet I think Greenbank might have had to wait for something like that
+if there hadn't come a great flight of pigeons just at this time. For
+whenever Susan Lanham suggested to her father that he should try to get
+Mr. Ball removed and a new teacher appointed, Dr. Lanham smiled and
+said "he hated to move against the old man; he's been there so long,
+you know, and he probably wouldn't live long, anyhow. Something ought to
+be done, perhaps, but he couldn't meddle with him." For older people
+forgot the beatings they had endured, and remembered the old man only as
+one of the venerable landmarks of their childhood.
+
+And so, by favor of Henry Weathervane's father, whose children he did
+not punish, and by favor of other people's neglect and forgetfulness,
+the Greenbank children might have had to face and fear the old ogre down
+to this day, or until he dried up and blew away, if it hadn't been, as I
+said, that there came a great flight of pigeons.
+
+A flight of pigeons is not uncommon in the Ohio River country. Audubon,
+the great naturalist, saw them in his day, and in old colonial times
+such flights took place in the settlements on the sea-board, and
+sometimes the starving colonists were able to knock down pigeons with
+sticks. The mathematician is not yet born who can count the number of
+pigeons in one of these sky-darkening flocks, which are often many miles
+in length, and which follow one another for a whole day. The birds, for
+the most part, fly at a considerable height from the earth, but when
+they are crossing a wide valley, like that of the Ohio River, they drop
+down to a lower level, and so reach the hills quite close to the ground,
+and within easy gunshot.
+
+When the pigeon flight comes on Saturday, it is very convenient for
+those boys that have guns. If these pigeons had only come on Saturday
+instead of on Monday, Mr. Ball might have taught the Greenbank school
+until to-day,--that is to say, if he hadn't died or quite dried up and
+blown off meanwhile.
+
+For when Riley and Ben Berry saw this flight of pigeons begin on Monday
+morning, they remembered that the geography lesson was a hard one, and
+so they played "hooky," and, taking their guns with them, hid in the
+bushes at the top of the hill. Then, as the birds struck the hill, and
+beat their way up over the brow of it, the boys, lying in ambush, had
+only to fire into the flock without taking aim, and the birds would drop
+all around them. The discharge of the guns made Bob Holliday so hungry
+for pigeon pot-pie, that he, too, ran away from school, at recess, and
+took his place among the pigeon-slayers in the paw-paw patch on the hill
+top.
+
+Tuesday morning, Mr. Ball came in with darkened brows, and three extra
+switches. Riley, Berry, and Holliday were called up as soon as school
+began. They had pigeon pot-pie for dinner, but they also had sore backs
+for three days, and Bob laughingly said that he knew just how a pigeon
+felt when it was basted.
+
+The day after the whipping and the pigeon pot-pie, when the sun shone
+warm at noon, the fire was allowed to go down in the stove. All were at
+play in the sunshine, excepting Columbus Risdale, who sat solitary, like
+a disconsolate screech-owl, in one corner of the room. Riley and Ben
+Berry, still smarting from yesterday, entered, and without observing
+Lummy's presence, proceeded to put some gunpowder in the stove, taking
+pains to surround it with cool ashes, so that it should not explode
+until the stirring of the fire, as the chill of the afternoon should
+come on. When they had finished this dangerous transaction, they
+discovered the presence of Columbus in his corner, looking at them with
+large-eyed wonder and alarm.
+
+"If you ever tell a living soul about that, we'll kill you," said Ben
+Berry.
+
+Riley also threatened the scared little rabbit, and both felt safe from
+detection.
+
+An hour after school had resumed its session. Columbus, who had sat
+shivering with terror all the time, wrote on his slate:
+
+"Will Riley and Ben B. put something in the stove. Said they would kill
+me if I told on them."
+
+This he passed to Jack, who sat next to him. Jack rubbed it out as soon
+as he had read it, and wrote:
+
+"Don't tell anybody."
+
+Jack could not guess what they had put in. It might be coffee-nuts,
+which would explode harmlessly; it might be something that would give a
+bad smell in burning, such as chicken-feathers. If he had thought that
+it was gunpowder, he would have plucked up courage enough to give the
+master some warning, though he might have got only a whipping for his
+pains. While Jack was debating what he should do, the master called the
+Fourth-Reader class. At the close of the lesson he noticed that Columbus
+was shivering, though indeed it was more from terror than from cold.
+
+"Go to the stove and stir up the fire, and get warm," he said, sternly.
+
+"I'd--I'd rather not," said Lum, shaking with fright at the idea.
+
+"Umph!" said Mr. Ball, looking hard at the lad, with half a mind to make
+him go. Then he changed his purpose and went to the stove himself, raked
+forward the coals, and made up the fire. Just as he was shutting the
+stove-door, the explosion came--the ashes flew out all over the master,
+the stove was thrown down from the bricks on which its four legs rested,
+the long pipe fell in many pieces on the floor, and the children set up
+a general howl in all parts of the room.
+
+As soon as Mr. Ball had shaken off the ashes from his coat, he said: "Be
+quiet--there's no more danger. Columbus Risdale, come here."
+
+"He did not do it," spoke up Susan Lanham.
+
+"Be quiet, Susan. You know all about this," continued the master to poor
+little Columbus, who was so frightened as hardly to be able to stand.
+After looking at Columbus a moment, the master took down a great beech
+switch. "Now, I shall whip you until you tell me who did it. You were
+afraid to go to the stove. You knew there was powder there. Who put it
+there? That's the question. Answer, quick, or I shall make you."
+
+The little skin-and-bones trembled between two terrors, and Jack, seeing
+his perplexity, got up and stood by him.
+
+"He didn't do it, Mr. Ball. I know who did it. If Columbus should tell
+you, he would be beaten for telling. The boy who did it is just mean
+enough to let Lummy get the whipping. Please let him off."
+
+"_You_ know, do you? I shall whip you both. You knew there was gunpowder
+in the fire, and you gave no warning. I shall whip you both--the
+severest whipping you ever had, too."
+
+And the master put up the switch he had taken down, as not effective
+enough, and proceeded to take another.
+
+"If we had known it was gunpowder," said Jack, beginning to tremble,
+"you would have been warned. But we didn't. We only knew that something
+had been put in."
+
+"If you'll tell all about it, I'll let you off easier; if you don't, I
+shall give you all the whipping I know how to give." And by way of
+giving impressiveness to his threat he took a turn about the room, while
+there was an awful stillness among the terrified scholars.
+
+I do not know what was in Bob Holliday's head, but about this time he
+managed to open the western door while the master's back was turned.
+Bob's desk was near the door.
+
+Poor little Columbus was ready to die, and Jack was afraid that, if the
+master should beat him as he threatened to do, the child would die
+outright. Luckily, at the second cruel blow, the master broke his switch
+and turned to get another. Seeing the door open, Jack whispered to
+Columbus:
+
+"Run home as fast as you can go."
+
+The little fellow needed no second bidding. He tottered on his
+trembling legs to the door, and was out before Mr. Ball had detected the
+motion. When the master saw his prey disappearing out of the door, he
+ran after him, but it happened curiously enough, in the excitement, that
+Bob Holliday, who sat behind the door, rose up, as if to look out, and
+stumbled against the door, thus pushing it shut, so that by the time Mr.
+Ball got his stiff legs outside the door, the frightened child was under
+such headway that, fearing to have the whole school in rebellion, the
+teacher gave over the pursuit, and came back prepared to wreak his
+vengeance on Jack.
+
+While Mr. Ball was outside the door, Bob Holliday called to Jack, in a
+loud whisper, that he had better run, too, or the old master would "skin
+him alive." But Jack had been trained to submit to authority, and to run
+away now would lose him his winter's schooling, on which he had set
+great store. He made up his mind to face the punishment as best he
+could, fleeing only as a last resort if the beating should be
+unendurable.
+
+"Now," said the master to Jack, "will you tell me who put that gunpowder
+in the stove? If you don't, I'll take it out of your skin."
+
+Jack could not bear to tell, especially under a threat. I think that
+boys are not wholly right in their notion that it is dishonorable to
+inform on a school-mate, especially in the case of so bad an offence as
+that of which Will and Ben were guilty. But, on the other hand, the last
+thing a master ought to seek is to turn boys into habitual spies and
+informers on one another. In the present instance, Jack ought, perhaps,
+to have told, for the offence was criminal; but it is hard for a
+high-spirited lad to yield to a brutal threat.
+
+Jack caught sight of Susan Lanham telegraphing from behind the master,
+by spelling with her fingers:
+
+"Tell or run."
+
+But he could not make up his mind to do either, though Bob Holliday had
+again mysteriously opened the western door.
+
+The master summoned all his strength and struck him half a dozen blows,
+that made poor Jack writhe. Then he walked up and down the room awhile,
+to give the victim time to consider whether he would tell or not.
+
+"Run," spelled out Susan on her fingers.
+
+"The school-house is on fire!" called out Bob Holliday. Some of the
+coals that had spilled from the capsized stove were burning the
+floor--not dangerously, but Bob wished to make a diversion. He rushed
+for a pail of water in the corner, and all the rest, aching with
+suppressed excitement, crowded around the fallen stove, so that it was
+hard for the master to tell whether there was any fire or not. Bob
+whispered to Jack to "cut sticks," but Jack only went to his seat.
+
+"Lay hold, boys, and let's put up the stove," said Bob, taking the
+matter quite out of the master's hands. Of course, the stove-pipe would
+not fit without a great deal of trouble. Did ever stove-pipe go together
+without trouble? Somehow, all the joints that Bob joined together flew
+asunder over and over again, though he seemed to work most zealously to
+get the stove set up. After half an hour of this confusion, the pipe was
+fixed, and the master, having had time, like the stove, to cool off, and
+seeing Jack bent over his book, concluded to let the matter drop. But
+there are some matters that, once taken up, are hard to drop.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+JACK AND HIS MOTHER
+
+
+Jack went home that night very sore on his back and in his feelings. He
+felt humiliated to be beaten like a dog, and even a dog feels degraded
+in being beaten. He told his mother about it--the tall, dignified,
+sweet-faced mother, patient in trouble and full of a goodness that did
+not talk much about goodness. She always took it for granted that _her_
+boy would not do anything mean, and thus made a healthy atmosphere for a
+brave boy to grow in. Jack told her of his whipping, with some heat,
+while he sat at supper. She did not say much then, but after Jack's
+evening chores were all finished, she sat down by the candle where he
+was trying to get out some sums, and questioned him carefully.
+
+"Why didn't you tell who did it?" she asked.
+
+"Because it makes a boy mean to tell, and all the boys would have
+thought me a sneak."
+
+"It is a little hard to face a general opinion like that," she said.
+
+"But," said Jack, "if I had told, the master would have whipped Columbus
+all the same, and the boys would probably have pounded him, too. I ought
+to have told beforehand," said Jack, after a pause. "But I thought it
+was only some coffee-nuts that they had put in. The mean fellows, to let
+Columbus take a whipping for them! But the way Mr. Ball beats us is
+enough to make a boy mean and cowardly."
+
+After a long silence, the mother said: "I think we shall have to give it
+up, Jack."
+
+"What, mother?"
+
+"The schooling for this winter. I don't want you to go where boys are
+beaten in that way. In the morning, go and get your books and see what
+you can do at home."
+
+Then, after a long pause, in which neither liked to speak, Mrs. Dudley
+said:
+
+"I want you to be an educated man. You learn quickly; you have a taste
+for books, and you will be happier if you get knowledge. If I could
+collect the money that Gray owes your father's estate, or even a part of
+it, I should be able to keep you in school one winter after this. But
+there seems to be no hope for that."
+
+"But Gray is a rich man, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes, he has a good deal of property, but not in his own name. He
+persuaded your father, who was a kind-hearted and easy-natured man, to
+release a mortgage, promising to give him some other security the next
+week. But, meantime, he put his property in such a shape as to cheat all
+his creditors. I don't think we shall ever get anything."
+
+"I am going to be an educated man, anyhow."
+
+"But you will have to go to work at something next fall," said the
+mother.
+
+"That will make it harder, but I mean to study a little every day. I
+wish I could get a chance to spend next winter in school."
+
+"We'll see what can be done."
+
+And long after Jack went to bed that night the mother sat still by the
+candle with her sewing, trying to think what she could do to help her
+boy to get on with his studies.
+
+Jack woke up after eleven o'clock, and saw her light still burning in
+the sitting-room.
+
+"I say, mother," he called out, "don't you sit there worrying about me.
+We shall come through this all right."
+
+Some of Jack's hopefulness got into the mother's heart, and she took her
+light and went to bed.
+
+Weary, and sore, and disappointed, Jack did not easily get to sleep
+himself after his cheerful speech to his mother. He lay awake long,
+making boy's plans for his future. He would go and collect money by some
+hook or crook from the rascally Gray; he would make a great invention;
+he would discover a gold mine; he would find some rich cousin who would
+send him through college; he would----, but just then he grew more
+wakeful and realized that all his plans had no foundation of
+probability.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+COLUMBUS AND HIS FRIENDS
+
+
+When he waked up in the morning, Jack remembered that he had not seen
+Columbus Risdale go past the door after his cow the evening before, and
+he was afraid that he might be ill. Why had he not thought to go down
+and drive up the cow himself? It was yet early, and he arose and went
+down to the little rusty, brown, unpainted house in which the Risdales,
+who were poor people, had their home. Just as he pushed open the gate,
+Bob Holliday came out of the door, looking tired and sleepy.
+
+"Hello, Bob!" said Jack. "How's Columbus? Is he sick?"
+
+"Awful sick," said Bob. "Clean out of his head all night."
+
+"Have you been here all night?"
+
+"Yes, I heerd he was sick last night, and I come over and sot up with
+him."
+
+"You good, big-hearted Bob!" said Jack. "You're the best fellow in the
+world, I believe."
+
+"What a quare feller you air to talk, Jack," said Bob, choking up. "Air
+you goin' to school to-day?"
+
+"No. Mother'd rather have me not go any more."
+
+"I'm not going any more. I hate old Ball. Neither's Susan Lanham going.
+She's in there," and Bob made a motion toward the house with his thumb,
+and passed out of the gate, while Jack knocked at the door. He was
+admitted by Susan.
+
+"Oh, Jack! I'm so glad to see you," she whispered. "Columbus has asked
+for you a good many times during the night. You've stood by him
+splendidly."
+
+Jack blushed, but asked how Lummy was now.
+
+"Out of his head most of the time. Bob Holliday stayed with him all
+night. What a good fellow Bob Holliday is!"
+
+"I almost hugged him, just now," said Jack, and Susan couldn't help
+smiling at this frank confession.
+
+Jack passed into the next room as stealthily as possible, that he might
+not disturb his friend, and paused by the door. Mrs. Risdale sat by the
+bedside of Columbus, who was sleeping uneasily, his curious big head and
+long, thin hair making a strange picture against the pillow. His face
+looked more meagre and his eyes more sunken than ever before, but there
+was a feverish flush on his wan cheeks, and the slender hands moved
+uneasily on the outside of the blue coverlet, the puny arms were bare to
+the elbows.
+
+Mrs. Risdale beckoned Jack to come forward, and he came and stood at the
+bed-foot. Then Columbus opened his large eyes and fixed them on Jack for
+a few seconds.
+
+"Come, Jack, dear old fellow," he whispered.
+
+Jack came and bent over him with tearful eyes, and the poor little
+reed-like arms were twined about his neck.
+
+"Jack," he sobbed, "the master's right over there in the corner all the
+time, straightening out his long switches. He says he's going to whip me
+again. But you won't let him, will you, Jack, you good old fellow?"
+
+"No, he shan't touch you."
+
+"Let's run away, Jack," he said, presently. And so the poor little
+fellow went on, his great, disordered brain producing feverish images of
+terror from which he continually besought "dear good old Jack" to
+deliver him.
+
+When at last he dropped again into a troubled sleep, Jack slipped away
+and drove up the Risdale cow, and then went back to his breakfast. He
+was a boy whose anger kindled slowly; but the more he thought about it,
+the more angry he became at the master who had given Columbus such a
+fright as to throw him into a brain fever, and at the "mean, sneaking
+contemptible villains," as he hotly called them, who wouldn't come
+forward and confess their trick, rather than to have the poor little lad
+punished.
+
+"I suppose we ought to make some allowances," his mother said, quietly.
+
+"That's what you always say, mother. You're always making allowances."
+
+After breakfast and chores, Jack thought to go again to see his little
+friend. On issuing from the gate, he saw Will Riley and Ben Berry
+waiting for him at the corner. Whether they meant to attack him or not
+he could not tell, but he felt too angry to care.
+
+"I say, Jack," said Riley, "how did you know who put the powder in the
+stove? Did Columbus tell you?"
+
+"Mind your own business," said Jack, in a tone not so polite as it might
+be. "The less you say about gunpowder, hereafter, the better for you
+both. Why didn't you walk up and tell, and save that little fellow a
+beating?"
+
+"Look here, Jack," said Berry, "don't you tell what you know about it.
+There's going to be a row. They say that Doctor Lanham's taken Susan,
+and all the other children, out of school, because the master thrashed
+Lummy, and they say Bob Holliday's quit, and that you're going to quit,
+and Doctor Lanham's gone to work this morning to get the master put out
+at the end of the term. Mr. Ball didn't know that Columbus was kin to
+the Lanhams, or he'd have let him alone, like he does the Lanhams and
+the Weathervanes. There is going to be a big row, and everybody'll want
+to know who put the powder in the stove. We want you to be quiet about
+it."
+
+"You _do_?" said Jack, with a sneer. "_You_ do?"
+
+"Yes, we do," said Riley, coaxingly.
+
+"You do? _You_ come to _me_ and ask me to keep it secret, after letting
+me and that poor little baby take your whipping! You want me to hide
+what you did, when that poor little Columbus lies over there sick abed
+and like to die, all because you sneaking scoundrels let him be whipped
+for what you did!"
+
+"Is he sick?" said Riley, in terror.
+
+"Going to die, I expect," said Jack, bitterly.
+
+"Well," said Ben Berry, "you be careful what you say about us, or we'll
+get Pewee to get even with you."
+
+"Oh, that's your game! You think you can scare me, do you?"
+
+Jack grew more and more angry. Seeing a group of school-boys on the
+other side of the street, he called them over.
+
+"Look here, boys," said Jack, "I took a whipping yesterday to keep from
+telling on these fellows, and now they have the face to ask me not to
+tell that they put the powder in the stove, and they promise me a
+beating from Pewee if I do. These are the two boys that let a poor
+sickly baby take the whipping they ought to have had. They have just as
+good as killed him, I suppose, and now they come sneaking around here
+and trying to scare me in keeping still about it. I didn't back down
+from the master, and I won't from Pewee. Oh, no! I won't tell anybody.
+But if any of you boys should happen to guess that Will Riley and Ben
+Berry were the cowards who did that mean trick, I am not going to say
+they weren't. It wouldn't be of any use to deny it. There are only two
+boys in school mean enough to play such a contemptible trick as that."
+
+Riley and Berry stood sheepishly silent, but just here Pewee came in
+sight, and seeing the squad of boys gathered around Jack, strode over
+quickly and pushed his sturdy form into the midst.
+
+"Pewee," said Riley, "I think you ought to pound Jack. He says you can't
+back him down."
+
+"I didn't," said Jack. "I said _you_ couldn't scare me out of telling
+who tried to blow up the school-house stove, and let other boys take
+the whipping, by promising me a drubbing from Pewee Rose. If Pewee wants
+to put himself in as mean a crowd as yours, and be your puppy-dog to
+fight for you, let him come on. He's a fool if he does, that's all I
+have to say. The whole town will want to ship you two fellows off before
+night, and Pewee isn't going to fight your battles. What do you think,
+Pewee, of fellows that put powder in a stove where they might blow up a
+lot of little children? What do you think of two fellows that want me to
+keep quiet after they let little Lum Risdale take a whipping for them,
+and that talk about setting you on to me if I tell?"
+
+Thus brought face to face with both parties, King Pewee only looked
+foolish and said nothing.
+
+Jack had worked himself into such a passion that he could not go to
+Risdale's, but returned to his own home, declaring that he was going to
+tell everybody in town. But when he entered the house and looked into
+the quiet, self-controlled face of his mother, he began to feel cooler.
+
+"Let us remember that some allowances are to be made for such boys," was
+all that she said.
+
+"That's what you always say, Mother," said Jack, impatiently. "I believe
+you'd make allowances for the Old Boy himself."
+
+"That would depend on his bringing up," smiled Mrs. Dudley. "Some people
+have bad streaks naturally, and some have been cowed and brutalized by
+ill-treatment, and some have been spoiled by indulgence."
+
+Jack felt more calm after a while. He went back to the bedside of
+Columbus, but he couldn't bring himself to make allowances.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+GREENBANK WAKES UP
+
+
+If the pigeons had not crossed the valley on Monday, nobody would have
+played truant, and if nobody had played truant on Monday, there would
+not have been occasion to whip three boys on Tuesday morning, and if Ben
+Berry and Riley had escaped a beating on Tuesday morning, they would not
+have thought of putting gunpowder into the stove on Wednesday at noon,
+and if they had omitted that bad joke, Columbus would not have got into
+trouble and run away from school, and if he had escaped the fright and
+the flight, he might not have had the fever, and the town would not have
+been waked up, and other things would not have happened.
+
+So then, you see, this world of ours is just like the House that Jack
+Built: one thing is tied to another and another to that, and that to
+this, and this to something, and something to something else, and so on
+to the very end of all things.
+
+So it was that the village was thrown into a great excitement as the
+result of a flock of innocent pigeons going over the heads of some lazy
+boys. In the first place, Susan Lanham talked about things. She talked
+to her aunts, and she talked to her uncles, and, above all, she talked
+to her father. Now Susan was the brightest girl in the town, and she had
+a tongue, as all the world knew, and when she set out to tell people
+what a brute the old master was, how he had beaten two innocent boys,
+how bravely Jack had carried himself, how frightened little Columbus
+was, and how sick it had made him, and how mean the boys were to put
+the powder there, and then to let the others take the whipping,--I say,
+when Susan set out to tell all these things, in her eloquent way, to
+everybody she knew, you might expect a waking up in the sleepy old town.
+Some of the people took Susan's side and removed their children from the
+school, lest they, too, should get a whipping and run home and have
+brain fever. But many stood up for the old master, mostly because they
+were people of the sort that never can bear to see anything changed.
+"The boys ought to have told who put the powder in the stove," they
+said. "It served them right."
+
+"How could the master know that Jack and Columbus did not do it
+themselves?" said others. "Maybe they did!"
+
+"Don't tell me!" cried old Mrs. Horne. "Don't tell me! Boys can't be
+managed without whipping, and plenty of it. 'Bring up a child and away
+he goes,' as the Bible says. When you hire a master, you want a
+_master_, says I."
+
+"What a tongue that Sue Lanham has got!" said Mr. Higbie, Mr. Ball's
+brother-in-law.
+
+The excitement spread over the whole village. Doctor Lanham talked about
+it, and the ministers, and the lawyers, and the loafers in the stores,
+and the people who came to the post-office for their letters. Of course,
+it broke out furiously in the "Maternal Association," a meeting of
+mothers held at the house of one of the ministers.
+
+"Mr. Ball can do every sum in the arithmetic," urged Mrs. Weathervane.
+
+"He's a master hand at figures, they do say," said Mother Brownson.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Dudley, "I don't doubt it. Jack's back is covered with
+figures of Mr. Ball's making. For my part, I should rather have a
+master that did his figuring on a slate."
+
+Susan Lanham got hold of this retort, and took pains that it should be
+known all over the village.
+
+When Greenbank once gets waked up on any question, it never goes to
+sleep until that particular question is settled. But it doesn't wake up
+more than once or twice in twenty years. Most of the time it is only
+talking in its sleep. Now that Greenbank had its eyes open for a little
+time, it was surprised to see that while the cities along the river had
+all adopted graded schools,--_de_-graded schools, as they were called by
+the people opposed to them,--and while even the little villages in the
+hill country had younger and more enlightened teachers, the county-town
+of Greenbank had made no advance. It employed yet, under the rule of
+President Fillmore, the same hard old stick of a master that had beaten
+the boys in the log school-house in the days of John Quincy Adams and
+Andrew Jackson. But, now it was awake, Greenbank kept its eyes open on
+the school question. The boys wrote on the fences, in chalk:
+
+  DOWN WITH OLD BAWL!
+
+and thought the bad spelling of the name a good joke, while men and
+women began to talk about getting a new master.
+
+Will Riley and Ben Berry had the hardest time. For the most part they
+stayed at home during the excitement, only slinking out in the evening.
+The boys nicknamed them "Gunpowder cowards," and wrote the words on the
+fences. Even the loafers about the street asked them whether Old Ball
+had given them that whipping yet, and how they liked "powder and Ball."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+PROFESSOR SUSAN
+
+
+Mr. Ball did not let go easily. He had been engaged for the term, and he
+declared that he would go on to the end of the term, if there should be
+nothing but empty benches. In truth, he and his partisans hoped that the
+storm would blow over and the old man be allowed to go on teaching and
+thrashing as heretofore. He had a great advantage in that he had been
+trained in all the common branches better than most masters, and was
+regarded as a miracle of skill in arithmetical calculations. He even
+knew how to survey land.
+
+Jack was much disappointed to miss his winter's schooling, and there was
+no probability that he would be able to attend school again. He went on
+as best he could at home, but he stuck fast on some difficult problems
+in the middle of the arithmetic. Columbus had by this time begun to
+recover his slender health, and he was even able to walk over to Jack's
+house occasionally. Finding Jack in despair over some of his "sums," he
+said:
+
+"Why don't you ask Susan Lanham to show you? I believe she would; and
+she has been clean through the arithmetic, and she is 'most as good as
+the master himself."
+
+"I don't like to," said Jack. "She wouldn't want to take the trouble."
+
+But the next morning Christopher Columbus managed to creep over to the
+Lanhams:
+
+"Cousin Sukey," he said, coaxingly, "I wish you'd do something for me. I
+want to ask a favor of you."
+
+[Illustration: "COUSIN SUKEY," SAID LITTLE COLUMBUS, "I WANT TO ASK A
+FAVOR OF YOU."]
+
+"What is it, Columbus?" said Sue. "Anything you ask shall be given, to
+the half of my kingdom!" and she struck an attitude, as Isabella of
+Castile, addressing the great Columbus, with the dust-brush for a
+sceptre, and the towel, which she had pinned about her head, for a
+crown.
+
+"You are so funny," he said, with a faint smile. "But I wish you'd be
+sober a minute."
+
+"Haven't had but one cup of coffee this morning. But what do you want?"
+
+"Jack----"
+
+"Oh, yes, it's always Jack with you. But that's right--Jack deserves
+it."
+
+"Jack can't do his sums, and he won't ask you to help him."
+
+"And so he got you to ask?"
+
+"No, he didn't. He wouldn't let me, if he knew. He thinks a young lady
+like you wouldn't want to take the trouble to help him."
+
+"Do you tell that stupid Jack, that if he doesn't want to offend me so
+that I'll never, never forgive him, he is to bring his slate and pencil
+over here after supper this evening. And you'll come, too, with your
+geography. Yours truly, Susan Lanham, Professor of Mathematics and
+Natural Science in the Greenbank Independent and Miscellaneous Academy.
+Do you hear?"
+
+"All right." And Columbus, smiling faintly, went off to tell Jack the
+good news. That evening Susan had, besides her own brother and two
+sisters, two pupils who learned more arithmetic than they would have
+gotten in the same time from Mr. Ball, though she did keep them laughing
+at her drollery. The next evening, little Joanna Merwin joined the
+party, and Professor Susan felt quite proud of her "academy," as she
+called it.
+
+Bob Holliday caught the infection, and went to studying at home. As he
+was not so far advanced as Jack, he contented himself with asking Jack's
+help when he was in trouble. At length, he had a difficulty that Jack
+could not solve.
+
+"Why don't you take that to the professor?" asked Jack. "I'll ask her to
+show you."
+
+"I dursn't," said Bob, with a frightened look.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Jack.
+
+That evening, when the lessons were ended, Jack said:
+
+"Professor Susan, there was a story in the old First Reader we had in
+the first school that I went to, about a dog who had a lame foot. A
+doctor cured his foot, and some time after, the patient brought another
+lame dog to the doctor, and showed by signs that he wanted this other
+dog cured, too."
+
+"That's rather a good dog-story," said Susan. "But what made you think
+of it?"
+
+"Because I'm that first dog."
+
+"You are?"
+
+"Yes. You've helped me, but there's Bob Holliday. I've been helping him,
+but he's got to a place where I don't quite understand the thing myself.
+Now Bob wouldn't dare ask you to help him----"
+
+"Bring him along. How the Greenbank Academy grows!" laughed Susan,
+turning to her father.
+
+Bob was afraid of Susan at first--his large fingers trembled so much
+that he had trouble to use his slate-pencil. But by the third evening
+his shyness had worn off, so that he got on well.
+
+One evening, after a week of attendance, he was missing. The next
+morning he came to Jack's house with his face scratched and his eye
+bruised.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Jack.
+
+"Well, you see, yesterday I was at the school-house at noon, and Pewee,
+egged on by Riley, said something he oughtn't to, about Susan, and I
+couldn't stand there and hear that girl made fun of, and so I up and
+downed him, and made him take it back. I can't go till my face looks
+better, you know, for I wouldn't want her to know anything about it."
+
+But the professor heard all about it from Joanna, who had it from one of
+the school-boys. Susan sent Columbus to tell Bob that she knew all about
+it, and that he must come back to school.
+
+"So you've been fighting, have you?" she said, severely, when Bob
+appeared. The poor fellow was glad she took that tone--if she had
+thanked him he wouldn't have been able to reply.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, don't you do it any more. It's very wrong to fight. It
+makes boys brutal. A girl with ability enough to teach the Greenbank
+Academy can take care of herself, and she doesn't want her scholars to
+fight."
+
+"All right," said Bob. "But," he muttered, "I'll thrash him all the
+same, and more than ever, if he ever says anything like that again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CROWING AFTER VICTORY
+
+
+Greenbank was awake, and the old master had to go. Mr. Weathervane stood
+up for him as long as he thought that the excitement was temporary. But
+when he found that Greenbank really was awake, and not just talking in
+its sleep, as it did for the most part, he changed sides,--not all at
+once, but by degrees. At first he softened down a little, "hemmed and
+hawed," as folks say. He said he did not know but that Mr. Ball had been
+hasty, but he meant well. The next day he took another step, and said
+that the old master meant well, but he was _often_ too hasty in his
+temper. The next week he let himself down another peg in saying that
+"maybe" the old man meant well, but he was altogether too hot in his
+temper for a school-master. A little while later, he found out that Mr.
+Ball's way of teaching was quite out of date. Before a month had
+elapsed, he was sure that the old curmudgeon ought to be put out, and
+thus at last Mr. Weathervane found himself where he liked to be, in the
+popular party.
+
+And so the old master came to his last day in the brick school-house.
+Whatever feelings he may have had in leaving behind him the scenes of
+his twenty-five years of labor, he said nothing. He only compressed his
+lips a little more tightly, scowled as severely as ever, removed his
+books and pens from his desk, gave a last look at his long beech
+switches on the wall, turned the key in the door of the school-house,
+carried it to Mr. Weathervane, received his pay, and walked slowly home
+to the house of his brother-in-law, Mr. Higbie.
+
+The boys had resolved to have a demonstration. All their pent-up wrath
+against the master now found vent, since there was no longer any danger
+that the old man would have a chance to retaliate. They would serenade
+him. Bob Holliday was full of it. Harry Weathervane was very active. He
+was going to pound on his mother's bread-pan. Every sort of instrument
+for making a noise was brought into requisition. Dinner-bells,
+tin-pails, conch-shell dinner-horns, tin-horns, and even the village
+bass-drum, were to be used.
+
+Would Jack go? Bob came over to inquire. All the boys were going to
+celebrate the downfall of a harsh master. He deserved it for beating
+Columbus. So Jack resolved to go.
+
+But after the boys had departed, Jack began to doubt whether he ought
+to go or not. It did not seem quite right; yet his feelings had become
+so enlisted in the conflict for the old man's removal, that he had grown
+to be a bitter partisan, and the recollection of all he had suffered,
+and of all Columbus had endured during his sickness, reconciled Jack to
+the appearance of crowing over a fallen foe, which this burlesque
+serenade would have. Nevertheless, his conscience was not clear on the
+point, and he concluded to submit the matter to his mother, when she
+should come home to supper.
+
+Unfortunately for Jack, his mother stayed away to tea, sending Jack word
+that he would have to get his own supper, and that she would come home
+early in the evening. Jack ate his bowl of bread and milk in solitude,
+trying to make himself believe that his mother would approve of his
+taking part in the "shiveree" of the old master. But when he had
+finished his supper, he concluded that if his mother did not come home
+in time for him to consult her, he would remain at home. He drew up by
+the light and tried to study, but he longed to be out with the boys.
+After a while Bob Holliday and Harry Weathervane came to the door and
+importuned Jack to come with them. It was lonesome at home; it would be
+good fun to celebrate the downfall of the old master's cruel rule, so,
+taking down an old dinner-bell, Jack went off to join the rest. He was a
+little disgusted when he found Riley, Pewee, and Ben Berry in the
+company, but once in the crowd, there was little chance to back out with
+credit. The boys crept through the back alleys until they came in front
+of Mr. Higbie's house, at half past eight o'clock. There was but one
+light visible, and that was in Mr. Ball's room. Jack dropped behind, a
+little faint of heart about the expedition. He felt sure in himself that
+his mother would shake her head if she knew of it. At length, at a
+signal from Bob, the tin pans, big and little, the skillet-lids grinding
+together, the horns, both conch-shell and tin, and the big bass-drum,
+set up a hideous clattering, banging, booming, roaring, and racketing.
+Jack rang his dinner-bell rather faintly, and stood back behind all the
+rest
+
+"Jack's afraid," said Pewee. "Why don't you come up to the front, like a
+man?"
+
+Jack could not stand a taunt like this, but came forward into the
+cluster of half-frightened peace-breakers. Just then, the door of Mr.
+Higbie's house was opened, and some one came out.
+
+"It's Mr. Higbie," said Ben Berry. "He's going to shoot."
+
+"It's Bugbee, the watchman, going to arrest us," said Pewee.
+
+"It's Mr. Ball himself," said Riley, "and he'll whip us all." And he
+fled, followed pell-mell by the whole crowd, excepting Jack, who had a
+constitutional aversion to running away. He only slunk up close to the
+fence and so stood still.
+
+"Hello! Who are you?" The voice was not that of Mr. Higbie, nor that of
+the old master, nor of the watchman, Bugbee. With some difficulty, Jack
+recognized the figure of Doctor Lanham. "Oh, it's Jack Dudley, is it?"
+said the doctor, after examining him in the feeble moonlight.
+
+"Yes," said Jack, sheepishly.
+
+"You're the one that got that whipping from the old master. I don't
+wonder you came out to-night."
+
+"I do," said Jack, "and I would rather now that I had taken another such
+whipping than to find myself here."
+
+"Well, well," said the doctor, "boys will be boys."
+
+"And fools will be fools, I suppose," said Jack.
+
+"Mr. Ball is very ill," continued the doctor. "Find the others and tell
+them they mustn't come here again to-night, or they'll kill him. I
+wouldn't have had this happen for anything. The old man's just broken
+down by the strain he has been under. He has deserved it all, but I
+think you might let him have a little peace now."
+
+"So do I," said Jack, more ashamed of himself than ever.
+
+The doctor went back into the house, and Jack Dudley and his dinner-bell
+started off down the street in search of Harry Weathervane and his tin
+pan, and Bob Holliday and his skillet-lids, and Ben Berry and the
+bass-drum.
+
+"Hello, Jack!" called out Bob from an alley. "You stood your ground the
+best of all, didn't you?"
+
+"I wish I'd stood my ground in the first place against you and Harry,
+and stayed at home."
+
+"Why, what's the matter? Who was it?"
+
+By this time the other boys were creeping out of their hiding-places and
+gathering about Jack.
+
+"Well, it was the doctor," said Jack. "Mr. Ball's very sick and we've
+'most killed him; that's all. We're a pack of cowards to go tooting at a
+poor old man when he's already down, and we ought to be kicked, every
+one of us. That's the way I feel about it," and Jack set out for home,
+not waiting for any leave-taking with the rest, who, for their part,
+slunk away in various directions, anxious to get their instruments of
+noise and torment hidden away out of sight.
+
+Jack stuck the dinner-bell under the hay in the stable-loft, whence he
+could smuggle it into the house before his mother should get down-stairs
+in the morning. Then he went into the house.
+
+"Where have you been?" asked Mrs. Dudley. "I came home early so that you
+needn't be lonesome."
+
+"Bob Holliday and Harry Weathervane came for me, and I found it so
+lonesome here that I went out with them."
+
+"Have you got your lessons?"
+
+"No, ma'am," said Jack, sheepishly.
+
+He was evidently not at ease, but his mother said no more. He went off
+to bed early, and lay awake a good part of the night. The next morning
+he brought the old dinner-bell and set it down in the very middle of the
+breakfast-table. Then he told his mother all about it. And she agreed
+with him that he had done a very mean thing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+AN ATTEMPT TO COLLECT
+
+
+Three times a week the scholars of the "Greenbank Academy" met at the
+house of Dr. Lanham to receive instruction from Professor Susan, for the
+school trustees could not agree on a new teacher. Some of the people
+wanted one thing, and some another; a lady teacher was advocated and
+opposed; a young man, an old man, a new-fashioned man, an old-fashioned
+man, and no teacher at all for the rest of the present year, so as to
+save money, were projects that found advocates. The division of opinion
+was so great that the plan of no school at all was carried because no
+other could be. So Susan's class went on for a month, and grew to be
+quite a little society, and then it came to an end.
+
+One evening, when the lessons were finished, Professor Susan said: "I am
+sorry to tell you that this is the last lesson I can give."
+
+And then they all said "Aw-w-w-w-w!" in a melancholy way.
+
+"I am going away to school myself," Susan went on. "My father thinks I
+ought to go to Mr. Niles's school at Port William."
+
+"I shouldn't think you'd need to go any more," said Joanna Merwin. "I
+thought you knew everything."
+
+"Oh, bless me!" cried Susan.
+
+In former days the people of the interior--the Mississippi Valley--which
+used then to be called "the West," were very desirous of education for
+their children. But good teachers were scarce. Ignorant and pretentious
+men, incompetent wanderers from New England, who had grown tired of
+clock-peddling, or tin-peddling, and whose whole stock was assurance,
+besides impostors of other sorts, would get places as teachers because
+teachers were scarce and there were no tests of fitness. Now and then a
+retired Presbyterian minister from Scotland or Pennsylvania, or a
+college graduate from New England, would open a school in some country
+town. Then people who could afford it would send their children from
+long distances to board near the school, and learn English grammar,
+arithmetic, and, in some cases, a little Latin, or, perhaps, to fit
+themselves for entrance to some of the sturdy little country colleges
+already growing up in that region. At Port William, in Kentucky, there
+was at this time an old minister, Mr. Niles, who really knew what he
+professed to teach, and it was to his school that Dr. Lanham was now
+about to send Susan; Harvey Collins and Henry Weathervane had already
+entered the school. But for poor boys like Jack, and Bob Holliday, and
+Columbus, who had no money with which to pay board, there seemed no
+chance.
+
+The evening on which Susan's class broke up, there was a long and
+anxious discussion between Jack Dudley and his mother.
+
+"You see, Mother, if I could get even two months in Mr. Niles's school,
+I could learn some Latin, and if I once get my fingers into Latin, it is
+like picking bricks out of a pavement; if I once get a start, I can dig
+it out myself. I am going to try to find some way to attend that
+school."
+
+But the mother only shook her head.
+
+"Couldn't we move to Port William?" said Jack.
+
+"How could we? Here we have a house of our own, which couldn't easily be
+rented. There we should have to pay rent, and where is the money to come
+from?"
+
+"Can't we collect something from Gray?"
+
+Again Mrs. Dudley shook her head.
+
+But Jack resolved to try the hardhearted debtor, himself. It was now
+four years since Jack's father had been persuaded to release a mortgage
+in order to relieve Francis Gray from financial distress. Gray had
+promised to give other security, but his promise had proved worthless.
+Since that time he had made lucky speculations and was now a man rather
+well off, but he kept all his property in his wife's name, as scoundrels
+and fraudulent debtors usually do. All that Jack and his mother had to
+show for the one thousand dollars with four years' interest due them,
+was a judgment against Francis Gray, with the sheriff's return of "no
+effects" on the back of the writ of execution against the property "of
+the aforesaid Francis Gray." For how could you get money out of a man
+who was nothing in law but an agent for his wife?
+
+But Jack believed in his powers of persuasion, and in the softness of
+the human heart. He had never had to do with a man in whom the greed for
+money had turned the heart to granite.
+
+Two or three days later Jack heard that Francis Gray, who lived in
+Louisville, had come to Greenbank. Without consulting his mother, lest
+she should discourage him, Jack went in pursuit of the slippery debtor.
+He had left town, however, to see his fine farm, three miles away, a
+farm which belonged in law to Mrs. Gray, but which belonged of right to
+Francis Gray's creditors.
+
+Jack found Mr. Gray well-dressed and of plausible manners. It was hard
+to speak to so fine a gentleman on the subject of money. For a minute,
+Jack felt like backing out. But then he contrasted his mother's pinched
+circumstances with Francis Gray's abundance, and a little wholesome
+anger came to his assistance. He remembered, too, that his cherished
+projects for getting an education were involved, and he mustered courage
+to speak.
+
+"Mr. Gray, my name is John Dudley."
+
+Jack thought that there was a sign of annoyance on Gray's face at this
+announcement.
+
+"You borrowed a thousand dollars of my father once, I believe."
+
+"Yes, that is true. Your father was a good friend of mine."
+
+"He released a mortgage so that you could sell a piece of property when
+you were in trouble."
+
+"Yes, your father was a good friend to me. I acknowledge that. I wish I
+had money enough to pay that debt. It shall be the very first debt paid
+when I get on my feet again, and I expect to get on my feet, as sure as
+I live."
+
+"But, you see, Mr. Gray, while my mother is pinched for money, you have
+plenty."
+
+"It's all Mrs. Gray's money. She has plenty. I haven't anything."
+
+"But I want to go to school to Port William. My mother is too poor to
+help me. If you could let me have twenty-five dollars----"
+
+"But, you see, I can't. I haven't got twenty-five dollars to my name,
+that I can control. But by next New Year's I mean to pay your mother the
+whole thousand that I owe her."
+
+This speech impressed Jack a little, but remembering how often Gray had
+broken such promises, he said:
+
+"Don't you think it a little hard that you and Mrs. Gray are well off,
+while my mother is so poor, all because you won't keep your word given
+to my father?"
+
+"But, you see, I haven't any money, excepting what Mrs. Gray lets me
+have," said Mr. Gray.
+
+"She seems to let you have what you want. Don't you think, if you coaxed
+her, she would lend you twenty-five dollars till New Year's, to help me
+go to school one more term?"
+
+Francis Gray was a little stunned by this way of asking it. For a
+moment, looking at the entreating face of the boy, he began to feel a
+disposition to relent a little. This was new and strange for him. To pay
+twenty-five dollars that he was not obliged by any self-interest to pay,
+would have been an act contrary to all his habits and to all the
+business maxims in which he had schooled himself. Nevertheless, he
+fingered his papers a minute in an undecided way, and then he said that
+he couldn't do it. If he began to pay creditors in that way "it would
+derange his business."
+
+"But," urged Jack, "think how much my father deranged his business to
+oblige you, and now you rob me of my own money, and of my chance to get
+an education."
+
+Mr. Gray was a little ruffled, but he got up and went out of the room.
+When Jack looked out of the window a minute later, Gray was riding away
+down the road without so much as bidding the troublesome Jack
+good-morning.
+
+There was nothing for Jack to do but to return to town and make the best
+of it. But all the way back, the tired and discouraged boy felt that
+his last chance of becoming an educated man had vanished. He told his
+mother about his attempt on Mr. Gray's feelings and of his failure. They
+discussed the matter the whole evening, and could see no chance for Jack
+to get the education he wanted.
+
+"I mean to die a-trying," said Jack, doggedly, as he went off to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+AN EXPLORING EXPEDITION
+
+
+The next day but one, there came a letter to Mrs. Dudley that increased
+her perplexity.
+
+"Your Aunt Hannah is sick," she said to Jack, "and I must go to take
+care of her. I don't know what to do with you."
+
+"I'll go to Port William to school," said Jack. "See if I don't."
+
+"How?" asked his mother. "We don't know a soul on that side of the
+river. You couldn't make any arrangement."
+
+"Maybe I can," said Jack. "Bob Holliday used to live on the Indiana
+side, opposite Port William. I mean to talk with him."
+
+Bob was setting onions in one of the onion-patches which abounded about
+Greenbank, and which were, from March to July, the principal sources of
+pocket-money to the boys. Jack thought best to wait until the day's work
+was finished. Then he sat, where Greenbank boys were fond of sitting, on
+the sloping top-board of a broad fence, and told his friend Bob of his
+eager desire to go to Port William.
+
+"I'd like to go, too," said Bob. "This is the last year's schooling I'm
+to have."
+
+"Don't you know any house, or any place, where we could keep 'bach'
+together?"
+
+"W'y, yes," said Bob; "if you didn't mind rowing across the river every
+day, I've got a skiff, and there's the old hewed-log house on the
+Indianny side where we used to live. A body might stay as long as he
+pleased in that house, I guess. Judge Kane owns it, and he's one of the
+best-hearted men in the country."
+
+"It's eight miles down there," said Jack.
+
+"Only seven if you go by water," said Bob. "Let's put out to-morry
+morning early. Let's go in the skiff; we can row and cordelle it up the
+river again, though it is a job."
+
+Bright and early, the boys started down the river, rowing easily with
+the strong, steady current of the Ohio, holding their way to Judge
+Kane's, whose house was over against Port William. This Judge Kane was
+an intelligent and wealthy farmer, liked by everybody. He was not a
+lawyer, but had once held the office of "associate judge," and hence the
+title, which suited his grave demeanor. He looked at the two boys out of
+his small, gray, kindly eyes, hardly ever speaking a word. He did not
+immediately answer when they asked permission to occupy the old, unused
+log-house, but got them to talk about their plans, and watched them
+closely. Then he took them out to see his bees. He showed them his
+ingenious hives and a bee-house which he had built to keep out the moths
+by drawing chalk-lines about it, for over these lines the wingless grub
+of the moth could not crawl. Then he showed them a glass hive, in which
+all the processes of the bees' housekeeping could be observed. After
+that, he took the boys to the old log-house, and pointed out some holes
+in the roof that would have to be fixed. And even then he did not give
+them any answer to their request, but told them to stay to dinner and he
+would see about it, all of which was rather hard on boyish impatience.
+They had a good dinner of fried chicken and biscuits and honey, served
+in the neatest manner by the motherly Mrs. Kane. Then the Judge
+suggested that they ought to see Mr. Niles about taking them into the
+school. So his skiff was launched, and he rowed with them across the
+river, which is here about a mile wide, to Port William. Here he
+introduced them to Mr. Niles, an elderly man, a little bent and a little
+positive in his tone, as is the habit of teachers, but with true
+kindness in his manner. The boys had much pleasure at recess time in
+greeting their old school-mates, Harvey Collins, Henry Weathervane, and,
+above all, Susan Lanham, whom they called Professor. These three took a
+sincere interest in the plans of Bob and Jack, and Susan spoke a good
+word for them to Mr. Niles, who, on his part, offered to give Jack Latin
+without charging him anything more than the rates for scholars in the
+English branches. Then they rowed back to Judge Kane's landing, where he
+told them they could have the house without rent, and that they could
+get slabs and other waste at his little sawmill to fix up the cracks.
+Then he made kindly suggestions as to the furniture they should
+bring--mentioning a lantern, an ax, and various other articles necessary
+for a camp life. They bade him good-bye at last, and started home, now
+rowing against the current and now cordelling along the river shore,
+when they grew tired of rowing. In cordelling, one sits in the skiff and
+steers, while the other walks on the shore, drawing the boat by a rope
+over the shoulders. The work of rowing and cordelling was hard, but they
+carried light and hopeful hearts. Jack was sure now that he should
+overcome all obstacles and get a good education. As for Bob, he had no
+hope higher than that of worrying through vulgar fractions before
+settling down to hard work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+HOUSEKEEPING EXPERIENCES
+
+
+Mrs. Dudley having gone to Cincinnati the next day to attend her sister,
+who was ill, Jack was left to make his arrangements for housekeeping
+with Bob. Each of the boys took two cups, two saucers, two plates, and
+two knives and forks. Things were likely to get lost or broken, and
+therefore they provided duplicates. Besides, they might have company to
+dinner some day, and, moreover, they would need the extra dishes to
+"hold things," as Jack expressed it. They took no tumblers, but each was
+provided with a tin cup. Bob remembered the lantern, and Jack put in an
+ax. They did not take much food; they could buy that of farmers or in
+Port William. They got a "gang," or, as they called it, a "trot-line,"
+to lay down in the river for catfish, perch, and shovel-nose sturgeon,
+for there was no game-law then. Bob provided an iron pot to cook the
+fish in, and Jack a frying-pan and tea-kettle. Their bedding consisted
+of an empty tick, to be filled with straw in Judge Kane's barn, some
+equally empty pillow-ticks, and a pair of brown sheets and two blankets.
+But, with one thing and another, the skiff was well loaded.
+
+A good many boys stood on the bank as they embarked, and among them was
+Columbus, who had a feeling that his best friends were about to desert
+him, and who would gladly have been one of the party if he could have
+afforded the expense.
+
+In the little crowd which watched the embarkation was Hank Rathbone, an
+old hunter and pioneer, who made several good suggestions about their
+method of loading the boat.
+
+"But where's your stove?" he asked.
+
+"Stove?" said Bob. "We can't take a stove in this thing. There's a big
+old fire-place in the house that'll do to cook by."
+
+"But hot weather's comin' soon," said old Hank, "and then you'll want to
+cook out in the air, I reckon. Besides, it takes a power of wood for a
+fire-place. If one of you will come along with me to the tin-shop, I'll
+have a stove made for you, of the best paytent-right sort, that'll go
+into a skiff, and that won't weigh more'n three or four pounds and
+won't cost but about two bits."
+
+Jack readily agreed to buy as good a thing as a stove for twenty-five
+cents, and so he went with Hank Rathbone to the tin-shop, stopping to
+get some iron on the way. Two half-inch round rods of iron five feet
+long were cut and sharpened at each end. Then the ends were turned down
+so as to make on each rod two pointed legs of eighteen inches in length,
+and thus leave two feet of the rod for a horizontal piece.
+
+"Now," said the old hunter, "you drive about six inches of each leg into
+the ground, and stand them about a foot apart. Now for a top."
+
+[Illustration: OLD HANK'S PLAN FOR A STOVE]
+
+For this he had a piece of sheet-iron cut out two feet long and fourteen
+inches wide, with a round kettle-hole near one end. The edges of the
+long sides of the sheet-iron were bent down to fit over the rods.
+
+"Lay that over your rods," said Hank, "and you've got a stove two foot
+long, one foot high, and more than one foot wide, and you can build
+your fire of chips, instid of logs. You can put your tea-kittle, pot,
+pipkin, griddle, skillet, _or_ gridiron on to the hole"--the old man
+eyed it admiringly. "It's good for bilin', fryin', _or_ brilin', and all
+fer two bits. They ain't many young couples gits set up as cheap as
+that!"
+
+An hour and a half of rowing downstream brought the boys to the old
+cabin. The life there involved more hard work than they had expected.
+Notwithstanding Jack's experience in helping his mother, the baking of
+corn-bread, and the frying of bacon or fish were difficult tasks, and
+both the boys had red faces when supper was on the table. But, as time
+wore on, they became skilful, and though the work was hard, it was done
+patiently and pretty well. Between cooking, and cleaning, and fixing,
+and getting wood, and rowing to school and back, there was not a great
+deal of time left for study out of school, but Jack made a beginning in
+Latin, and Bob perspired quite as freely over the addition of fractions
+as over the frying-pan.
+
+They rarely had recreation, excepting that of taking the fish off their
+trot-line in the morning, when there were any on it. Once or twice they
+allowed themselves to visit an Indian mound or burial-place on the
+summit of a neighboring hill, where idle boys and other loungers had dug
+up many bones and thrown them down the declivity. Jack, who had thoughts
+of being a doctor, made an effort to gather a complete Indian skeleton,
+but the dry bones had become too much mixed up. He could not get any
+three bones to fit together, and his man, as he tried to put him
+together, was the most miscellaneous creature imaginable,--neither man,
+woman, nor child. Bob was a little afraid to have these human ruins
+stored under the house, lest he might some night see a ghost with
+war-paint and tomahawk; but Jack, as became a boy of scientific tastes,
+pooh-poohed all superstitions or sentimental considerations in the
+matter. He told Bob that, if he should ever see the ghost which that
+framework belonged to, it would be the ghost of the whole Shawnee tribe,
+for there were nearly as many individuals represented as there were
+bones in the skeleton.
+
+The one thing that troubled Jack was that he couldn't get rid of the
+image of Columbus as they had seen him when they left Greenbank,
+standing sorrowfully on the river bank. The boys often debated between
+themselves how they could manage to have him one of their party, but
+they were both too poor to pay the small tuition fees, though his board
+would not cost much. They could not see any way of getting over the
+difficulty, but they talked with Susan about it, and Susan took hold of
+the matter in her fashion by writing to her father on the subject.
+
+The result of her energetic effort was that one afternoon, as they came
+out of school, when the little packet-steamer was landing at the wharf,
+who should come ashore but Christopher Columbus, in his best but
+thread-bare clothes, tugging away at an old-fashioned carpet-bag, which
+was too much for him to carry. Bob seized the carpet-bag and almost
+lifted the dignified little lad himself off his feet in his joyful
+welcome, while Jack, finding nothing else to do, stood still and
+hurrahed. They soon had the dear little spindle-shanks and his great
+carpet-bag stowed away in the skiff. As they rowed to the north bank of
+the river, Columbus explained how Dr. Lanham had undertaken to pay his
+expenses, if the boys would take him into partnership, but he said he
+was 'most afraid to come, because he couldn't chop wood, and he wasn't
+good for much in doing the work.
+
+"Never mind, honey," said Bob. "Jack and I don't care whether you work
+or not. You are worth your keep, any time."
+
+"Yes," said Jack, "we even tried hard yesterday to catch a young owl to
+make a pet of, but we couldn't get it. You see, we're so lonesome."
+
+"I suppose I'll do for a pet owl, won't I?" said little Columbus, with a
+strange and quizzical smile on his meagre face. And as he sat there in
+the boat, with his big head and large eyes, the name seemed so
+appropriate that Bob and Jack both laughed outright.
+
+But the Pet Owl made himself useful in some ways. I am sorry to say that
+the housekeeping of Bob and Jack had not always been of the tidiest
+kind. They were boys, and they were in a hurry. But Columbus had the
+tastes of a girl about a house. He did not do any cooking or chopping to
+speak of, but he fixed up. He kept the house neat, cleaned the
+candlestick every morning, and washed the windows now and then, and as
+spring advanced he brought in handfuls of wild flowers. The boys
+declared that they had never felt at home in the old house until the Pet
+Owl came to be its mistress. He wouldn't let anything be left around out
+of place, but all the pots, pans, dishes, coats, hats, books, slates,
+the lantern, the boot-jack, and other slender furniture, were put in
+order before school time, so that when they got back in the afternoon
+the place was inviting and home-like. When Judge Kane and his wife
+stopped during their Sunday-afternoon stroll, to see how the lads got
+on, Mrs. Kane praised their housekeeping.
+
+"That is all the doings of the Pet Owl," said Bob.
+
+"Pet Owl? Have you one?" asked Mrs. Kane.
+
+The boys laughed, and Bob explained that Columbus was the pet.
+
+That evening, the boys had a box of white honey for supper, sent over by
+Mrs. Kane, and the next Saturday afternoon Jack and Bob helped Judge
+Kane finish planting his corn-field.
+
+One unlucky day, Columbus discovered Jack's box of Indian bones under
+the house, and he turned pale and had a fit of shivering for a long time
+afterward. It was necessary to move the box into an old stable to quiet
+his shuddering horror. The next Sunday afternoon, the Pet Owl came in
+with another fit of terror, shivering as before.
+
+"What's the matter now, Lummy?" said Jack. "Have you seen any more
+Indians?"
+
+"Pewee and his crowd have gone up to the Indian Mound," said Columbus.
+
+"Well, let 'em go," said Bob. "I suppose they know the way, don't they?
+I should like to see them. I've been so long away from Greenbank that
+even a yellow dog from there would be welcome."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+GHOSTS
+
+
+Jack and Bob had to amuse Columbus with stories, to divert his mind from
+the notion that Pewee and his party meant them some harm. The Indian
+burying-ground was not an uncommon place of resort on Sundays for
+loafers and idlers, and now and then parties came from as far as
+Greenbank, to have the pleasure of a ride and the amusement of digging
+up Indian relics from the cemetery on the hill. This hill-top commanded
+a view of the Ohio River for many miles in both directions, and of the
+Kentucky River, which emptied into the Ohio just opposite. I do not know
+whether the people who can find amusement in digging up bones and
+throwing them down-hill enjoy scenery or not, but I have heard it urged
+that even some dumb animals, as horses, enjoy a landscape; and I once
+knew a large dog, in Switzerland, who would sit enchanted for a long
+time on the brink of a mountain cliff, gazing off at the lake below. It
+is only fair to suppose, therefore, that even these idle diggers in
+Indian mounds had some pleasure in looking from a hill-top; at any rate,
+they were fond of frequenting this one. Pewee, and Riley, and Ben Berry,
+and two or three others of the same feather, had come down on this
+Sunday to see the Indian Mound and to find any other sport that might
+lie in their reach. When they had dug up and thrown away down the steep
+hill-side enough bones to satisfy their jackal proclivities, they began
+to cast about them for some more exciting diversion. As there were no
+water-melon patches nor orchards to be robbed at this season of the
+year, they decided to have an egg-supper, and then to wait for the moon
+to rise after midnight before starting to row and cordelle their two
+boats up the river again to Greenbank. The fun of an egg-supper to
+Pewee's party consisted not so much in the eggs as in the manner of
+getting them. Every nest in Judge Kane's chicken-house was rummaged that
+night, and Mrs. Kane found next day that all the nest-eggs were gone,
+and that one of her young hens was missing also.
+
+About dark, little Allen Mackay, a round-bodied, plump-faced, jolly
+fellow who lived near the place where the skiffs were landed, and who
+had spent the afternoon at the Indian Mound, came to the door of the old
+log-house.
+
+"I wanted to say that you fellows have always done the right thing by
+me. You've set me acrost oncet or twicet, and you've always been
+'clever' to me, and I don't want to see no harm done you. You'd better
+look out to-night. They's some chaps from Greenbank down here, and
+they're in for a frolic, and somebody's hen-roost'll suffer, I guess;
+and they don't like you boys, and they talked about routing you out
+to-night."
+
+"Thank you," said Jack.
+
+"Let 'em rout," said Bob.
+
+But the poor little Pet Owl was all in a cold shudder again.
+
+About eleven o'clock, King Pewee's party had picked the last bone of
+Mrs. Kane's chicken. It was yet an hour and a half before the moon would
+be up, and there was time for some fun. Two boys from the neighborhood,
+who had joined the party, agreed to furnish dough-faces for them all.
+Nothing more ghastly than masks of dough can well be imagined, and when
+the boys all put them on, and had turned their coats wrong-side out,
+they were almost afraid of one another.
+
+"Now," said Riley, "Pewee will knock at the door, and when they come
+with their lantern or candle, we'll all rush in and howl like Indians."
+
+"How do Indians howl?" asked Ben Berry.
+
+"Oh, any way--like a dog or a wolf, you know. And then they'll be scared
+to death, and we'll just pitch their beds, and dishes, and everything
+else out of the door, and show them how to clean house."
+
+Riley didn't know that Allen Mackay and Jack Dudley, hidden in the
+bushes, heard this speech, nor that Jack, as soon as he had heard the
+plan, crept away to tell Bob at the house what the enemy proposed to
+do.
+
+As the crowd neared the log-house, Riley prudently fell to the rear, and
+pushed Pewee to the front. There was just the faintest whitening of the
+sky from the coming moon, but the large apple-trees in front of the
+log-house made it very dark, and the dough-face crowd were obliged
+almost to feel their way as they came into the shadow of these trees.
+Just as Riley was exhorting Pewee to knock at the door, and the whole
+party was tittering at the prospect of turning Bob, Jack, and Columbus
+out of bed and out of doors, they all stopped short and held their
+breaths.
+
+"Good gracious! Julius Caesar! sakes alive!" whispered Riley.
+"What--wh--what is that?"
+
+Nobody ran. All stood as though frozen in their places. For out from
+behind the corner of the house came slowly a skeleton head. It was
+ablaze inside, and the light shone out of all the openings. The thing
+had no feet, no hands, and no body. It actually floated through the air,
+and now and then joggled and danced a little. It rose and fell, but
+still came nearer and nearer to the attacking party of dough-faces, who
+for their part could not guess that Bob Holliday had put a lighted
+candle into an Indian's skull, and then tied this ghost's lantern to a
+wire attached to the end of a fishing-rod, which he operated from behind
+the house.
+
+Pewee's party drew close together, and Riley whispered hoarsely:
+
+"The house is ha'nted."
+
+Just then the hideous and fiery death's-head made a circuit, and swung,
+grinning, into Riley's face, who could stand no more, but broke into a
+full run toward the river. At the same instant Jack tooted a
+dinner-horn, Judge Kane's big dog ran barking out of the log-house, and
+the enemy were routed like the Midianites before Gideon. Their
+consternation was greatly increased at finding their boats gone, for
+Allen Mackay had towed them into a little creek out of sight, and hidden
+the oars in an elder thicket. Riley and one of the others were so much
+afraid of the ghosts that "ha'nted" the old house, that they set out
+straightway for Greenbank, on foot. Pewee and the others searched
+everywhere for the boats, and at last sat down and waited for daylight.
+Just as day was breaking, Bob Holliday came down to the river with a
+towel, as though for a morning bath. Very accidentally, of course, he
+came upon Pewee and his party, all tired out, sitting on the bank in
+hope that day might throw some light on the fate of their boats.
+
+"Hello, Pewee! You here? What's the matter?" said Bob, with feigned
+surprise.
+
+"Some thief took our skiffs. We've been looking for them all night, and
+can't find them."
+
+"That's curious," said Bob, sitting down and leaning his head on his
+hand. "Where did you get supper last night?"
+
+"Oh! we brought some with us."
+
+"Look here, Pewee, I'll bet I can find your boats."
+
+"How?"
+
+"You give me money enough among you to pay for the eggs and the chicken
+you had for supper, and I'll find out who hid your boats and where the
+oars are, and it'll all be square."
+
+Pewee was now sure that the boat had been taken as indemnity for the
+chicken and the eggs. He made every one of the party contribute
+something until he had collected what Bob thought sufficient to pay for
+the stolen things, and Bob took it and went up and found Judge Kane,
+who had just risen, and left the money with him. Then he made a circuit
+to Allen Mackay's, waked him up, and got the oars, which they put into
+the boats; and pushing these out of their hiding-place, they rowed them
+into the river, delivering them to Pewee and company, who took them
+gratefully. Jack and Columbus had now made their appearance, and as
+Pewee got into his boat, he thought to repay Bob's kindness with a
+little advice.
+
+"I say, if I was you fellers, you know, I wouldn't stay in that old
+cabin a single night."
+
+"Why?" asked Jack.
+
+"Because," said Pewee, "I've heerd tell that it is ha'nted."
+
+"Ghosts aren't anything when you get used to them," said Jack. "We don't
+mind them at all."
+
+"Don't you?" said Pewee, who was now rowing against the current.
+
+"No," said Bob, "nor dough-faces, neither."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE RETURN HOME
+
+
+As Mr. Niles's school-term drew to a close, the two boys began to think
+of their future.
+
+"I expect to work with my hands, Jack," said Bob; "I haven't got a head
+for books, as you have. But I'd like to know a _leetle_ more before I
+settle down. I wish I could make enough at something to be able to go to
+school next winter."
+
+"If I only had your strength and size, Bob, I'd go to work for somebody
+as a farmer. But I have more than myself to look after. I must help
+mother after this term is out. I must get something to do, and then
+learning will be slow business. They talk about Ben Franklin studying
+at night and all that, but it's a little hard on a fellow who hasn't
+the constitution of a Franklin. Still, I'm going to have an education,
+by hook or crook."
+
+At this point in the conversation, Judge Kane came in. As usual, he said
+little, but he got the boys to talk about their own affairs.
+
+"When do you go home?" he asked.
+
+"Next Friday evening, when school is out," said Jack.
+
+"And what are you going to do?" he asked of Bob.
+
+"Get some work this summer, and then try to get another winter of
+schooling next year," was the answer.
+
+"What kind of work?"
+
+"Oh, I can farm better than I can do anything else," said Bob. "And I
+like it, too."
+
+And then Judge Kane drew from Jack a full account of his affairs, and
+particularly of the debt due from Gray, and of his interview with Gray.
+
+"If you could get a few hundred dollars, so as to make your mother feel
+easy for a while, living as she does in her own house, you could go to
+school next winter."
+
+"Yes, and then I could get on after that, somehow, by myself, I
+suppose," said Jack. "But the few hundred dollars is as much out of my
+reach as a million would be, and my father used to say that it was a bad
+thing to get into the way of figuring on things that we could never
+reach."
+
+The Judge sat still, and looked at Jack out of his half-closed gray eyes
+for a minute in silence.
+
+"Come up to the house with me," he said, rising.
+
+Jack followed him to the house, where the Judge opened his desk and took
+out a red-backed memorandum-book, and dictated while Jack copied in his
+own handwriting the description of a piece of land on a slip of paper.
+
+"If you go over to school, to-morrow, an hour earlier than usual," he
+said, "call at the county clerk's office, show him your memorandum, and
+find out in whose name that land stands. It is timber-land five miles
+back, and worth five hundred dollars. When you get the name of the
+owner, you will know what to do; if not, you can ask me, but you'd
+better not mention my name to anybody in this matter."
+
+Jack thanked Mr. Kane, but left him feeling puzzled. In fact, the
+farmer-judge seemed to like to puzzle people, or at least he never told
+anything more than was necessary.
+
+The next morning, the boys were off early to Port William. Jack wondered
+if the land might belong to his father, but then he was sure his father
+never had any land in Kentucky. Or, was it the property of some dead
+uncle or cousin, and was he to find a fortune, like the hero of a cheap
+story? But when the county clerk, whose office it is to register deeds
+in that county, took the little piece of paper, and after scanning it,
+took down some great deed-books and mortgage-books, and turned the pages
+awhile, and then wrote "Francis Gray, owner, no incumbrance," on the
+same slip with the description, Jack had the key to Mr. Kane's puzzle.
+
+It was now Thursday forenoon, and Jack was eager on all accounts to get
+home, especially to see the lawyer in charge of his father's claim
+against Mr. Gray. So the next day at noon, as there was nothing left but
+the closing exercises, the three boys were excused, and bade good-bye
+to their teacher and school-mates, and rowed back to their own side of
+the river. They soon had the skiff loaded, for all three were eager to
+see the folks at Greenbank. Jack's mother had been at home more than a
+week, and he was the most impatient of the three. But they could not
+leave without a good-bye to Judge Kane and his wife, to which good-bye
+they added a profusion of bashful boyish thanks for kindness received.
+The Judge walked to the boat-landing with them. Jack began to tell him
+about the land.
+
+"Don't say anything about it to me, nor to anybody else but your
+lawyer," said Mr. Kane; "and do not mention my name. You may say to your
+lawyer that the land has just changed hands, and the matter must be
+attended to soon. It won't stand exposed in that way long."
+
+When the boys were in the boat ready to start, Mr. Kane said to Bob:
+
+"You wouldn't mind working for me this summer at the regular price?"
+
+"I'd like to," said Bob.
+
+"How soon can you come?"
+
+"Next Wednesday evening."
+
+"I'll expect you," said the Judge, and he turned away up the bank, with
+a slight nod and a curt "Good-bye," while Bob said: "What a curious man
+he is!"
+
+"Yes, and as good as he's curious," added Jack.
+
+It was a warm day for rowing, but the boys were both a little homesick.
+Under the shelter of a point where the current was not too strong the
+two rowed and made fair headway, sometimes encountering an eddy which
+gave them a lift. But whenever the current set strongly toward their
+side of the river, and whenever they found it necessary to round a
+point, one of them would leap out on the pebbly beach and, throwing the
+boat-rope over his shoulder, set his strength against the stream. The
+rope, or _cordelle_,--a word that has come down from the first French
+travellers and traders in the great valley,--was tied to the row-locks.
+It was necessary for one to steer in the stern while the other played
+tow-horse, so that each had his turn at rest and at work. After three
+hours' toil the wharf-boat of the village was in sight, and all sorts of
+familiar objects gladdened their hearts. They reached the landing, and
+then, laden with things, they hurriedly cut across the commons to their
+homes.
+
+As soon as Jack's first greeting with his mother was over, she told him
+that she thought she might afford him one more quarter of school.
+
+"No," said Jack, "you've pinched yourself long enough for me; now it's
+time I should go to work. If you try to squeeze out another quarter of
+school for me you'll have to suffer for it. Besides, I don't see how
+you can do it, unless Gray comes down, and I think I have now in my
+pocket something that will make him come down." And Jack's face
+brightened at the thought of the slip of paper in the pocket of his
+roundabout.
+
+Without observing the last remark, nor the evident elation of Jack's
+feelings, Mrs. Dudley proceeded to tell him that she had been offered a
+hundred and twenty dollars for her claim against Gray.
+
+"Who offered it?" asked Jack.
+
+"Mr. Tinkham, Gray's agent. Maybe Gray is buying up his own debts,
+feeling tired of holding property in somebody else's name."
+
+"A hundred and twenty dollars for a thousand! The rascal! I wouldn't
+take it," broke out Jack, impetuously.
+
+"That's just the way I feel, Jack. I'd rather wait forever, if it
+wasn't for your education. I can't afford to have you lose that. I'm to
+give an answer this evening."
+
+"We won't do it," said Jack. "I've got a memorandum here," and he took
+the slip of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, "that'll bring more
+money out of him than that. I'm going to see Mr. Beal at once."
+
+Mrs. Dudley looked at the paper without understanding just what it was,
+and, without giving her any further explanation, but only a warning to
+secrecy, Jack made off to the lawyer's office.
+
+"Where did you get this?" asked Mr. Beal.
+
+"I promised not to mention his name--I mean the name of the one who gave
+me that. I went to the clerk's office with the description, and the
+clerk wrote the words: 'Francis Gray, owner, no incumbrance.'"
+
+"I wish I had had it sooner," said the lawyer. "It will be best to have
+our judgment recorded in that county to-morrow," he continued. "Could
+you go down to Port William?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Jack, a little reluctant to go back. "I could if I
+must."
+
+"I don't think the mail will do," added Mr. Beal. "This thing came just
+in time. We should have sold the claim to-night. This land ought to
+fetch five hundred dollars."
+
+Mr. Tinkham, agent for Francis Gray, was much disappointed that night
+when Mrs. Dudley refused to sell her claim against Gray.
+
+"You'll never get anything any other way," he said.
+
+"Perhaps not, but we've concluded to wait," said Mrs. Dudley. "We can't
+do much worse if we get nothing at all."
+
+After a moment's reflection, Mr. Tinkham said:
+
+"I'll do a little better by _you_, Mrs. Dudley. I'll give you a hundred
+and fifty. That's the very best I _can_ do."
+
+"I will not sell the claim at present," said Mrs. Dudley. "It is of no
+use to offer."
+
+It would have been better if Mrs. Dudley had not spoken so positively.
+Mr. Tinkham was set a-thinking. Why wouldn't the widow sell? Why had she
+changed her mind since yesterday? Why did Mr. Beal, the lawyer, not
+appear at the consultation? All these questions the shrewd little
+Tinkham asked himself, and all these questions he asked of Francis Gray
+that evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A FOOT-RACE FOR MONEY
+
+
+"They've got wind of something," said Mr. Tinkham to Mr. Gray, "or else
+they are waiting for you to resume payment,--or else the widow's got
+money from somewhere for her present necessities."
+
+"I don't know what hope they can have of getting money out of me," said
+Gray, with a laugh. "I've tangled everything up, so that Beal can't find
+a thing to levy on. I have but one piece of property exposed, and that's
+not in this State."
+
+"Where is it?" asked Tinkham.
+
+"It's in Kentucky, five miles back of Port William. I took it last week
+in a trade, and I haven't yet made up my mind what to do with it."
+
+"That's the very thing," said Tinkham, with his little face drawn to a
+point,--"the very thing. Mrs. Dudley's son came home from Port William
+yesterday, where he has been at school. They've heard of that land, I'm
+afraid; for Mrs. Dudley is very positive that she will not sell the
+claim at any price."
+
+"I'll make a mortgage to my brother on that land, and send it off from
+the mail-boat as I go down to-morrow," said Gray.
+
+"That'll be too late," said Tinkham. "Beal will have his judgment
+recorded as soon as the packet gets there. You'd better go by the
+packet, get off, and see the mortgage recorded yourself, and then take
+the mail-boat."
+
+To this Gray agreed, and the next day, when Jack went on board the
+packet "Swiftsure," he found Mr. Francis Gray going aboard also. Mr.
+Beal had warned Jack that he must not let anybody from the packet get
+to the clerk's office ahead of him,--that the first paper deposited for
+record would take the land. Jack wondered why Mr. Francis Gray was
+aboard the packet, which went no farther than Madison, while Mr. Gray's
+home was in Louisville. He soon guessed, however, that Gray meant to
+land at Port William, and so to head him off. Jack looked at Mr. Gray's
+form, made plump by good feeding, and felt safe. He couldn't be very
+dangerous in a foot-race. Jack reflected with much hopefulness that no
+boy in school could catch him in a straight-away run when he was fox. He
+would certainly leave the somewhat puffy Mr. Francis Gray behind.
+
+But in the hour's run down the river, including two landings at Minuit's
+and Craig's, Jack had time to remember that Francis Gray was a cunning
+man and might head him off by some trick or other. A vague fear took
+possession of him, and he resolved to be first off the boat before any
+pretext could be invented to stop him.
+
+Meantime, Francis Gray had looked at Jack's lithe legs with
+apprehension. "I can never beat that boy," he had reflected. "My running
+days are over." Finding among the deck passengers a young fellow who
+looked as though he needed money, Gray approached him with this
+question:
+
+"Do you belong in Port William, young man?"
+
+"I don't belong nowhere else, I reckon," answered the seedy fellow, with
+shuffling impudence.
+
+"Do you know where the county clerk's office is?" asked Mr. Gray.
+
+"Yes, and the market-house. I can show you the way to the jail, too, if
+you want to know; but I s'pose you've been there many a time," laughed
+the "wharf rat."
+
+Gray was irritated at this rudeness, but he swallowed his anger.
+
+"Would you like to make five dollars?"
+
+"Now you're talkin' interestin'. Why didn't you begin at that eend of
+the subjick? I'd like to make five dollars as well as the next feller,
+provided it isn't to be made by too much awful hard work."
+
+"Can you run well?"
+
+"If they's money at t'other eend of the race I can run like sixty _fer a
+spell_. 'Tain't my common gait, howsumever."
+
+"If you'll take this paper," said Gray, "and get it to the county
+clerk's office before anybody else gets there from this boat, I'll give
+you five dollars."
+
+"Honor bright?" asked the chap, taking the paper, drawing a long breath,
+and looking as though he had discovered a gold mine.
+
+"Honor bright," answered Gray. "You must jump off first of all, for
+there's a boy aboard that will beat you if he can. No pay if you don't
+win."
+
+"Which is the one that'll run ag'in' me?" asked the long-legged fellow.
+
+Gray described Jack, and told the young man to go out forward and he
+would see him. Gray was not willing to be seen with the "wharf-rat,"
+lest suspicions should be awakened in Jack Dudley's mind. But after the
+shabby young man had gone forward and looked at Jack, he came back with
+a doubtful air.
+
+"That's Hoosier Jack, as we used to call him," said the shabby young
+man. "He an' two more used to row a boat acrost the river every day to
+go to ole Niles's school. He's a hard one to beat,--they say he used to
+lay the whole school out on prisoners' base, and that he could leave 'em
+all behind on fox."
+
+"You think you can't do it, then?" asked Gray.
+
+"Gimme a little start and I reckon I'll fetch it. It's up-hill part of
+the way and he may lose his wind, for it's a good half-mile. You must
+make a row with him at the gang-plank, er do somethin' to kinder hold
+him back. The wind's down stream to-day and the boat's shore to swing in
+a little aft. I'll jump for it and you keep him back."
+
+To this Gray assented.
+
+As the shabby young fellow had predicted, the boat did swing around in
+the wind, and have some trouble in bringing her bow to the wharf-boat.
+The captain stood on the hurricane-deck calling to the pilot to "back
+her," "stop her," "go ahead on her," "go ahead on yer labberd," and
+"back on yer stabberd." Now, just as the captain was backing the
+starboard wheel and going ahead on his larboard, so as to bring the boat
+around right, Mr. Gray turned on Jack.
+
+"What are you treading on my toes for, you impudent young rascal?" he
+broke out.
+
+Jack colored and was about to reply sharply, when he caught sight of the
+shabby young fellow, who just then leaped from the gunwale of the boat
+amidships and barely reached the wharf. Jack guessed why Gray had tried
+to irritate him,--he saw that the well-known "wharf-rat" was to be his
+competitor. But what could he do? The wind held the bow of the boat out,
+the gang-plank which had been pushed out ready to reach the wharf-boat
+was still firmly grasped by the deck-hands, and the farther end of it
+was six feet from the wharf, and much above it. It would be some
+minutes before any one could leave the boat in the regular way. There
+was only one chance to defeat the rascally Gray. Jack concluded to take
+it.
+
+He ran out upon the plank amidst the harsh cries of the deck-hands, who
+tried to stop him, and the oaths of the mate, who thundered at him, with
+the stern order of the captain from the upper deck, who called out to
+him to go back.
+
+But, luckily, the steady pulling ahead of the larboard engine, and the
+backing of the starboard, began just then to bring the boat around, the
+plank sank down a little under Jack's weight, and Jack made the leap to
+the wharf, hearing the confused cries, orders, oaths, and shouts from
+behind him, as he pushed through the crowd.
+
+"Stop that thief!" cried Francis Gray to the people on the wharf-boat,
+but in vain. Jack glided swiftly through the people, and got on shore
+before anybody could check him. He charged up the hill after the shabby
+young fellow, who had a decided lead, while some of the men on the
+wharf-boat pursued them both, uncertain which was the thief. Such
+another pell-mell race Port William had never seen. Windows flew up and
+heads went out. Small boys joined the pursuing crowd, and dogs barked
+indiscriminately and uncertainly at the heels of everybody. There were
+cries of "Hurrah for long Ben!" and "Hurrah for Hoosier Jack!" Some of
+Jack's old school-mates essayed to stop him to find out what it was all
+about, but he would not relax a muscle, and he had no time to answer any
+questions. He saw the faces of the people dimly; he heard the crowd
+crying after him, "Stop, thief!" he caught a glimpse of his old teacher,
+Mr. Niles, regarding him with curiosity as he darted by; he saw an
+anxious look in Judge Kane's face as he passed him on a street corner.
+But Jack held his eyes on Long Ben, whom he pursued as a dog does a fox.
+He had steadily gained on the fellow, but Ben had too much the start,
+and, unless he should give out, there would be little chance for Jack to
+overtake him. One thinks quickly in such moments. Jack remembered that
+there were two ways of reaching the county clerk's office. To keep the
+street around the block was the natural way,--to take an alley through
+the square was neither longer nor shorter. But by running down the alley
+he would deprive Long Ben of the spur of seeing his pursuer, and he
+might even make him think that Jack had given out. Jack had played this
+trick when playing hound and fox, and at any rate he would by this turn
+shake off the crowd. So into the alley he darted, and the bewildered
+pursuers kept on crying "Stop, thief!" after Long Ben, whose reputation
+was none of the best. Somebody ahead tried to catch the shabby young
+fellow, and this forced Ben to make a slight curve, which gave Jack the
+advantage, so that just as Ben neared the office, Jack rounded a corner
+out of an alley, and entered ahead of him, dashed up to the clerk's desk
+and deposited the judgment.
+
+"For record," he gasped.
+
+The next instant the shabby young fellow pushed forward the mortgage.
+
+"Mine first!" cried Long Ben.
+
+"I'll take yours when I get this entered," said the clerk quietly, as
+became a public officer.
+
+"I got here first," said Long Ben.
+
+But the clerk looked at the clock and entered the date on the back of
+Jack's paper, putting "one o'clock and eighteen minutes" after the
+date. Then he wrote "one o'clock and nineteen minutes" on the paper
+which Long Ben handed him. The office was soon crowded with people
+discussing the result of the race, and a part of them were even now in
+favor of seizing one or the other of the runners for a theft, which some
+said had been committed on the packet, and others declared was committed
+on the wharf-boat. Francis Gray came in, and could not conceal his
+chagrin.
+
+"I meant to do the fair thing by you," he said to Jack, severely, "but
+now you'll never get a cent out of me."
+
+"I'd rather have the law on men like you, than have a thousand of your
+sort of fair promises," said Jack.
+
+"I've a mind to strike you," said Gray.
+
+"The Kentucky law is hard on a man who strikes a minor," said Judge
+Kane, who had entered at that moment.
+
+Mr. Niles came in to learn what was the matter, and Judge Kane, after
+listening quietly to the talk of the people, until the excitement
+subsided, took Jack over to his house, whence the boy trudged home in
+the late afternoon full of hopefulness.
+
+Gray's land realized as much as Mr. Beal expected, and Jack studied hard
+all summer, so as to get as far ahead as possible by the time school
+should begin in the autumn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE NEW TEACHER
+
+
+The new teacher who was employed to take the Greenbank school in the
+autumn was a young man from college. Standing behind the desk hitherto
+occupied by the grim-faced Mr. Ball, young Williams looked very mild by
+contrast. He was evidently a gentle-spirited man as compared with the
+old master, and King Pewee and his crowd were gratified in noting this
+fact. They could have their own way with such a master as that! When he
+called the school to order, there remained a bustle of curiosity and
+mutual recognition among the children. Riley and Pewee kept up a little
+noise by way of defiance. They had heard that the new master did not
+intend to whip. Now he stood quietly behind his desk, and waited a few
+moments in silence for the whispering group to be still. Then he slowly
+raised and levelled his finger at Riley and Pewee, but still said
+nothing. There was something so firm and quiet about his
+motion--something that said, "I will wait all day, but you must be
+still"--that the boys could not resist it.
+
+By the time they were quiet, two of the girls had got into a titter over
+something, and the forefinger was aimed at them. The silent man made the
+pupils understand that he was not to be trifled with.
+
+When at length there was quiet, he made every one lay down book or slate
+and face around toward him. Then with his pointing finger, or with a
+little slap of his hands together, or with a word or two at most, he got
+the school still again.
+
+"I hope we shall be friends," he said, in a voice full of kindliness.
+"All I want is to----"
+
+But at this point Riley picked up his slate and book, and turned away.
+The master snapped his fingers, but Riley affected not to hear him.
+
+"That young man will put down his slate." The master spoke in a low
+tone, as one who expected to be obeyed, and the slate was reluctantly
+put upon the desk.
+
+"When I am talking to you, I want you to hear," he went on, very
+quietly. "I am paid to teach you. One of the things I have to teach you
+is good manners. You," pointing to Riley, "are old enough to know better
+than to take your slate when your teacher is speaking, but perhaps you
+have never been taught what are good manners. I'll excuse you this time.
+Now, you all see those switches hanging here behind me. I did not put
+them there. I do not say that I shall not use them. Some boys have to
+be whipped, I suppose,--like mules,--and when I have tried, I may find
+that I cannot get on without the switches, but I hope not to have to use
+them."
+
+Here Riley, encouraged by the master's mildness and irritated by the
+rebuke he had received, began to make figures on his slate.
+
+"Bring me that slate," said the teacher.
+
+Riley was happy that he had succeeded in starting a row. He took his
+slate and his arithmetic, and shuffled up to the master in a
+half-indolent, half-insolent way.
+
+"Why do you take up your work when I tell you not to?" asked the new
+teacher.
+
+"Because I didn't want to waste all my morning. I wanted to do my sums."
+
+"You are a remarkably industrious youth, I take it." The young master
+looked Riley over, as he said this, from head to foot. The whole school
+smiled, for there was no lazier boy than this same Riley. "I suppose,"
+the teacher continued, "that you are the best scholar in school--the
+bright and shining light of Greenbank."
+
+Here there was a general titter at Riley.
+
+"I cannot have you sit away down at the other end of the school-room and
+hide your excellent example from the rest. Stand right up here by me and
+cipher, that all the school may see how industrious you are."
+
+Riley grew very red in the face and pretended to "cipher," holding his
+book in his hand.
+
+"Now," said the new teacher, "I have but just one rule for this school,
+and I will write it on the blackboard that all may see it."
+
+He took chalk and wrote:
+
+  DO RIGHT.
+
+"That is all. Let us go to our lessons."
+
+For the first two hours that Riley stood on the floor he pretended to
+enjoy it. But when recess came and went and Mr. Williams did not send
+him to his seat, he began to shift from one foot to the other and from
+his heels to his toes, and to change his slate from the right hand to
+the left. His class was called, and after recitation he was sent back to
+his place. He stood it as best he could until the noon recess, but when,
+at the beginning of the afternoon session, Mr. Williams again called his
+"excellent scholar" and set him up, Riley broke down and said:
+
+"I think you might let me go now."
+
+"Are you tired?" asked the cruel Mr. Williams.
+
+"Yes, I am," and Riley hung his head, while the rest smiled.
+
+"And are you ready to do what the good order of the school requires?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Very well; you can go."
+
+The chopfallen Riley went back to his seat, convinced that it would not
+do to rebel against the new teacher, even if he did not use the beech
+switches.
+
+But Mr. Williams was also quick to detect the willing scholar. He gave
+Jack extra help on his Latin after school was out, and Jack grew very
+proud of the teacher's affection for him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHASING THE FOX
+
+
+All the boys in the river towns thirty years ago--and therefore the boys
+in Greenbank, also--took a great interest in the steam-boats which plied
+up and down the Ohio. Each had his favorite boat, and boasted of her
+speed and excellence. Every one of them envied those happy fellows whose
+lot it was to "run on the river" as cabin-boys. Boats were a common
+topic of conversation--their build, their engines, their speed, their
+officers, their mishaps, and all the incidents of their history.
+
+So it was that from the love of steam-boats, which burned so brightly in
+the bosom of the boy who lived on the banks of that great and lovely
+river, there grew up the peculiar game of "boats' names." I think the
+game was started at Louisville or New Albany, where the falls interrupt
+navigation, and where many boats of the upper and lower rivers are
+assembled.
+
+One day, as the warm air of Indian summer in this mild climate made
+itself felt, the boys assembled, on the evergreen "bluegrass," after the
+snack at the noon recess, to play boats' names.
+
+Through Jack's influence, Columbus, who did not like to play with the A
+B C boys, was allowed to take the handkerchief and give out the first
+name. All the rest stood up in a row like a spelling-class, while little
+Columbus, standing in front of them, held a knotted handkerchief with
+which to scourge them when the name should be guessed. The arm which
+held the handkerchief was so puny that the boys laughed to see the
+feeble lad stand there in a threatening attitude.
+
+"I say, Lum, don't hit too hard, now; my back is tender," said Bob
+Holliday.
+
+"Give us an easy one to guess," said Riley, coaxingly.
+
+Columbus, having come from the back country, did not know the names of
+half a dozen boats, and what he knew about were those which touched
+daily at the wharf of Greenbank.
+
+"F----n," he said.
+
+"Fashion," cried all the boys at once, breaking into unrestrained mirth
+at the simplicity that gave them the name of Captain Glenn's little
+Cincinnati and Port William packet, which landed daily at the village
+wharf. Columbus now made a dash at the boys, who were obliged to run to
+the school-house and back whenever a name was guessed, suffering a
+beating all the way from the handkerchief of the one who had given out
+the name, though, indeed, the punishment Lum was able to give was very
+slight. It was doubtful who had guessed first, since the whole party had
+cried "Fashion" almost together, but it was settled at last in favor of
+Harry Weathervane, who was sure to give out hard names, since he had
+been to Cincinnati recently, and had gone along the levee reading the
+names of those boats that did business above that city, and so were
+quite unknown, unless by report, to the boys of Greenbank.
+
+"A---- A----s," were the three letters which Harry gave, and Ben Berry
+guessed "Archibald Ananias," and Tom Holcroft said it was "Amanda Amos,"
+and at last all gave it up; whereupon Harry told them it was "Alvin
+Adams," and proceeded to give out another.
+
+"C---- A---- P----x," he said next time.
+
+"Caps," said Riley, mistaking the x for an s; and then Bob Holliday
+suggested "Hats and Caps," and Jack wanted to have it "Boots and Shoes."
+But Johnny Meline remembered that he had read of such a name for a ship
+in his Sunday-school lesson of the previous Sunday, and he guessed that
+a steam-boat might bear that same.
+
+"I know," said Johnny, "it's Castor----"
+
+"Oil," suggested Jack.
+
+"No--Castor and P, x,--Pollux--Castor and Pollux--it's a Bible name."
+
+"You're not giving us the name of Noah's ark, are you?" asked Bob.
+
+"I say, boys, that isn't fair a bit," growled Pewee, in all earnestness.
+"I don't hardly believe that Bible ship's a-going now." Things were
+mixed in Pewee's mind, but he had a vague notion that Bible times were
+as much as fifty years ago. While he stood doubting, Harry began to whip
+him with the handkerchief, saying, "I saw her at Cincinnati, last week.
+She runs to Maysville and Parkersburg, you goose."
+
+After many names had been guessed, and each guesser had taken his turn,
+Ben Berry had to give out. He had just heard the name of a "lower
+country" boat, and was sure that it would not be guessed.
+
+"C----p----r," he said.
+
+"Oh, I know," said Jack, who had been studying the steam-boat column of
+an old Louisville paper that very morning, "it's the--the--" and he put
+his hands over his ears, closed his eyes, and danced around, trying to
+remember, while all the rest stood and laughed at his antics. "Now I've
+got it,--the 'Cornplanter'!"
+
+And Ben Berry whipped the boys across the road and back, after which
+Jack took the handkerchief.
+
+"Oh, say, boys, this is a poor game; let's play fox," Bob suggested.
+"Jack's got the handkerchief, let him be the first fox."
+
+So Jack took a hundred yards' start, and all the boys set out after him.
+The fox led the hounds across the commons, over the bars, past the
+"brick pond," as it was called, up the lane into Moro's pasture, along
+the hill-side to the west across Dater's fence into Betts's pasture;
+thence over into the large woods pasture of the Glade farm. In every
+successive field some of the hounds had run off to the flank, and by
+this means every attempt of Jack's to turn toward the river, and thus
+fetch a circuit for home, had been foiled. They had cut him off from
+turning through Moro's orchard or Betts's vineyard, and so there was
+nothing for the fleet-footed fox but to keep steadily to the west and
+give his pursuers no chance to make a cut-off on him. But every now and
+then he made a feint of turning, which threw the others out of a
+straight track. Once in the woods pasture, Jack found himself out of
+breath, having run steadily for a rough mile and a half, part of it
+up-hill. He was yet forty yards ahead of Bob Holliday and Riley, who led
+the hounds. Dashing into a narrow path through the underbrush, Jack ran
+into a little clump of bushes and hid behind a large black-walnut log.
+
+Riley and Holliday came within six feet of him, some of the others
+passed to the south of him and some to the north, but all failed to
+discover his lurking-place. Soon Jack could hear them beating about the
+bushes beyond him.
+
+This was his time. Having recovered his wind, he crept out southward
+until he came to the foot of the hill, and entered Glade's lane, heading
+straight for the river across the wide plain. Pewee, who had perched
+himself on a fence to rest, caught sight of Jack first, and soon the
+whole pack were in full cry after him, down the long, narrow,
+elder-bordered lane. Bob Holliday and Riley, the fleetest of foot,
+climbed over the high stake-and-rider fence into Betts's corn-field, and
+cut off a diagonal to prevent Jack's getting back toward the
+school-house. Seeing this movement, Jack, who already had made an
+extraordinary run, crossed the fence himself, and tried to make a
+cut-off in spite of them; but Riley already had got in ahead of him, and
+Jack, seeing the boys close behind and before him, turned north again
+toward the hill, got back into the lane, which was now deserted, and
+climbed into Glade's meadow on the west side of the lane. He now had a
+chance to fetch a sweep around toward the river again, though the whole
+troop of boys were between him and the school-house. Fairly headed off
+on the east, he made a straight run south for the river shore, striking
+into a deep gully, from which he came out panting upon the beach, where
+he had just time to hide himself in a hollow sycamore, hoping that the
+boys would get to the westward and give him a chance to run up the river
+shore for the school-house.
+
+But one cannot play the same trick twice. Some of the boys stationed
+themselves so as to intercept Jack's retreat toward the school-house,
+while the rest searched for him, beating up and down the gully, and up
+and down the beach, until they neared the hollow sycamore. Jack made a
+sharp dash to get through them, but was headed off and caught by Pewee.
+Just as Jack was caught, and Pewee was about to start homeward as fox,
+the boys caught sight of two steam-boats racing down the river. The
+whole party was soon perched on a fallen sycamore, watching first the
+"Swiftsure" and then the "Ben Franklin," while the black smoke poured
+from their chimneys. So fascinated were they with this exciting contest
+that they stayed half an hour waiting to see which should beat. At
+length, as the boats passed out of sight, with the "Swiftsure" leading
+her competitor, it suddenly occurred to Jack that it must be later than
+the school-hour. The boys looked aghast at one another a moment on
+hearing him mention this; then they glanced at the sun, already
+declining in the sky, and set out for school, trotting swiftly in spite
+of their fatigue.
+
+What would the master say? Pewee said he didn't care,--it wasn't Old
+Ball, and they wouldn't get a whipping, anyway. But Jack thought that it
+was too bad to lose the confidence of Mr. Williams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CALLED TO ACCOUNT
+
+
+Successful hounds, having caught their fox, ought to have come home in
+triumph; but, instead of that, they came home like dogs that had been
+killing sheep, their heads hanging down in a guilty and self-betraying
+way.
+
+Jack walked into the school-house first. It was an hour and a half past
+the time for the beginning of school. He tried to look unconcerned as he
+went to his seat. There stood the teacher, with his face very calm but
+very pale, and Jack felt his heart sink.
+
+One by one the laggards filed into the school-room, while the
+awe-stricken girls on the opposite benches, and the little A B C boys,
+watched the guilty sinners take their places, prepared to meet their
+fate.
+
+Riley came in with a half-insolent smile on his face, as if to say: "I
+don't care." Pewee was sullen and bull-doggish. Ben Berry looked the
+sneaking fellow he was, and Harry Weathervane tried to remember that his
+father was a school-trustee. Bob Holliday couldn't help laughing in a
+foolish way. Columbus had fallen out of the race before he got to the
+"brick-pond," and so had returned in time to be punctual when school
+resumed its session.
+
+During all the time that the boys, heated with their exercise and
+blushing with shame, were filing in, Mr. Williams stood with set face
+and regarded them. He was very much excited, and so I suppose did not
+dare to reprove them just then. He called the classes and heard them in
+rapid succession, until it was time for the spelling-class, which
+comprised all but the very youngest pupils. On this day, instead of
+calling the spelling-class, he said, evidently with great effort to
+control himself: "The girls will keep their seats. The boys will take
+their places in the spelling-class."
+
+Riley's lower jaw fell--he was sure that the master meant to flog them
+all. He was glad he was not at the head of the class. Ben Berry could
+hardly drag his feet to his place, and poor Jack was filled with
+confusion. When the boys were all in place, the master walked up and
+down the line and scrutinized them, while Riley cast furtive glances at
+the dusty old beech switches on the wall, wondering which one the master
+would use, and Pewee was trying to guess whether Mr. Williams's arm was
+strong, and whether he "would make a fellow take off his coat" or not.
+
+"Columbus," said the teacher, "you can take your seat."
+
+Riley shook in his shoes, thinking that this certainly meant a whipping.
+He began to frame excuses in his mind, by which to try to lighten his
+punishment.
+
+But the master did not take down his switches. He only talked. But such
+a talk! He told the boys how worthless a man was who could not be
+trusted, and how he had hoped for a school full of boys that could be
+relied on. He thought there were some boys, at least--and this remark
+struck Jack to the heart--that there were some boys in the school who
+would rather be treated as gentlemen than beaten with ox-goads. But he
+was now disappointed. All of them seemed equally willing to take
+advantage of his desire to avoid whipping them; and all of them had
+shown themselves _unfit to be trusted_.
+
+Here he paused long enough to let the full weight of his censure enter
+their minds. Then he began on a new tack. He had hoped that he might
+have their friendship. He had thought that they cared a little for his
+good opinion. But now they had betrayed him. All the town was looking to
+see whether he would succeed in conducting his school without whipping.
+A good many would be glad to see him fail. Today they would be saying
+all over Greenbank that the new teacher couldn't manage his school. Then
+he told the boys that while they were sitting on the trunk of the fallen
+sycamore looking at the steam-boat race, one of the trustees, Mr.
+Weathervane, had driven past and had seen them there. He had stopped to
+complain to the master. "Now," said the master, "I have found how little
+you care for me."
+
+This was very sharp talk, and it made the boys angry. Particularly did
+Jack resent any intimation that he was not to be trusted. But the new
+master was excited and naturally spoke severely. Nor did he give the
+boys a chance to explain at that time.
+
+"You have been out of school," he said, "one hour and thirty-one
+minutes. That is about equal to six fifteen-minute recesses--to the
+morning and afternoon recesses for three days. I shall have to keep you
+in at those six recesses to make up the time, and in addition, as a
+punishment, I shall keep you in school half an hour after the usual time
+of dismission, for three days."
+
+Here Jack made a motion to speak.
+
+"No," said the master, "I will not hear a word, now. Go home and think
+it over. To-morrow I mean to ask each one of you to explain his
+conduct."
+
+With this, he dismissed the school, and the boys went out as angry as a
+hive of bees that have been disturbed. Each one made his speech. Jack
+thought it "mean that the master should say they were not fit to be
+trusted. He wouldn't have stayed out if he'd known it was school-time."
+
+Bob Holliday said "the young master was a blisterer," and then he
+laughed good-naturedly.
+
+Harry Weathervane was angry, and so were all the rest. At length it was
+agreed that they didn't want to be cross-questioned about it, and that
+it was better that somebody should write something that should give Mr.
+Williams a piece of their mind, and show him how hard he was on boys
+that didn't mean any harm, but only forgot themselves. And Jack was
+selected to do the writing.
+
+Jack made up his mind that the paper he would write should be "a
+scorcher."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+AN APOLOGY
+
+
+Of course, there was a great deal of talk in the village. The
+I-told-you-so people were quite delighted. Old Mother Horn "always knew
+that boys couldn't be managed without switching. Didn't the Bible or
+somebody say: 'Just as the twig is bent the boy's inclined?' And if you
+don't bend your twig, what'll become of your boy?"
+
+The loafers and loungers and gad-abouts and gossips talked a great deal
+about the failure of the new plan. They were sure that Mr. Ball would be
+back in that school-house before the term was out, unless Williams
+should whip a good deal more than he promised to. The boys would just
+drive him out.
+
+Jack told his mother, with a grieved face, how harsh the new master had
+been, and how he had even said they were _not fit to be trusted_.
+
+"That's a very harsh word," said Mrs. Dudley, "but let us make some
+allowances. Mr. Williams is on trial before the town, and he finds
+himself nearly ruined by the thoughtlessness of the boys. He had to wait
+an hour and a half, with half of the school gone. Think how much he must
+have suffered in that time. And then, to have to take a rebuke from Mr.
+Weathervane besides, must have stung him to the quick."
+
+"Yes, that's so," said Jack, "but then he had no business to take it for
+granted that we did it on purpose."
+
+And Jack went about his chores, trying to think of some way of writing
+to the master an address which should be severe, but not too severe. He
+planned many things but gave them up. He lay awake in the night thinking
+about it, and, at last, when he had cooled off, he came to the
+conclusion that, as the boys had been the first offenders, they should
+take the first step toward a reconciliation. But whether he could
+persuade the angry boys to see it in that light, he did not know.
+
+When morning came, he wrote a very short paper, somewhat in this
+fashion:
+
+     Mr. Williams:
+
+     Dear Sir: We are very sorry for what we did yesterday, and for
+     the trouble we have given you. We are willing to take the
+     punishment, for we think we deserve it; but we hope you will not
+     think that we did it on purpose, for we did not, and we don't like
+     to have you think so.
+
+     Respectfully submitted.
+
+Jack carried this in the first place to his faithful friend, Bob
+Holliday, who read it.
+
+"Oh, you've come down, have you?" said Bob.
+
+"I thought we ought to," said Jack. "We _did_ give him a great deal of
+trouble, and if it had been Mr. Ball, he would have whipped us half to
+death."
+
+"We shouldn't have forgot and gone away at that time if Old Ball had
+been the master," said Bob.
+
+"That's just it," said Jack; "that's the very reason why we ought to
+apologize."
+
+"All right," said Bob, "I'll sign her," and he wrote "Robert M.
+Holliday" in big letters at the top of the column intended for the
+names. Jack put his name under Bob's.
+
+But when they got to the school-house it was not so easy to persuade the
+rest. At length, however, Johnny Meline signed it, and then Harry
+Weathervane, and then the rest, one after another, with some grumbling,
+wrote their names. All subscribed to it excepting Pewee and Ben Berry
+and Riley. They declared they never would sign it. They didn't want to
+be kept in at recess and after school like convicts. They didn't deserve
+it.
+
+"Jack is a soft-headed fool," Riley said, "to draw up such a thing as
+that. I'm not afraid of the master. I'm not going to knuckle down to
+him, either."
+
+Of course, Pewee, as a faithful echo, said just what Riley said, and Ben
+Berry said what Riley and Pewee said; so that the three were quite
+unanimous.
+
+"Well," said Jack, "then we'll have to hand in our petition without the
+signatures of the triplets."
+
+"Don't you call me a triplet," said Pewee; "I've got as much sense as
+any of you. You're a soft-headed triplet yourself!"
+
+Even Riley had to join in the laugh that followed this blundering sally
+of Pewee.
+
+When the master came in, he seemed very much troubled. He had heard what
+had been said about the affair in the town. The address which Jack had
+written was lying on his desk. He took it up and read it, and
+immediately a look of pleasure and relief took the place of the worried
+look he had brought to school with him.
+
+"Boys," he said, "I have received your petition, and I shall answer it
+by and by."
+
+The hour for recess came and passed. The girls and the very little boys
+were allowed their recess, but nothing was said to the larger boys about
+their going out. Pewee and Riley were defiant.
+
+At length, when the school was about to break up for noon, the master
+put his pen, ink, and other little articles in the desk, and the school
+grew hushed with expectancy.
+
+"This apology," said Mr. Williams, "which I see is in John Dudley's
+handwriting, and which bears the signature of all but three of those who
+were guilty of the offence yesterday, is a very manly apology, and quite
+increases my respect for those who have signed it. I have suffered much
+from your carelessness of yesterday, but this apology, showing, as it
+does, the manliness of my boys, has given me more pleasure than the
+offence gave me pain. I ought to make an apology to you. I blamed you
+too severely yesterday in accusing you of running away intentionally. I
+take all that back."
+
+Here he paused a moment, and looked over the petition carefully.
+
+"William Riley, I don't see your name here. Why is that?"
+
+"Because I didn't put it there."
+
+Pewee and Ben Berry both laughed at this wit.
+
+"Why didn't you put it there?"
+
+"Because I didn't want to."
+
+"Have you any explanation to give of your conduct yesterday?"
+
+"No, sir; only that I think it's mean to keep us in because we forgot
+ourselves."
+
+"Peter Rose, have you anything to say?"
+
+"Just the same as Will Riley said."
+
+"And you, Benjamin?"
+
+"Oh, I don't care much," said Ben Berry. "Jack was fox, and I ran after
+him, and if he hadn't run all over creation and part of Columbia, I
+shouldn't have been late. It isn't any fault of mine. I think Jack ought
+to do the staying in."
+
+"You are about as old a boy as Jack," said the master. "I suppose Jack
+might say that if you and the others hadn't chased him, he wouldn't
+have run 'all over creation,' as you put it. You and the rest were all
+guilty of a piece of gross thoughtlessness. All excepting you three have
+apologized in the most manly way. I therefore remove the punishment from
+all the others entirely hereafter, deeming that the loss of this
+morning's recess is punishment enough for boys who can be so manly in
+their acknowledgments. Peter Rose, William Riley, and Benjamin Berry
+will remain in school at both recesses and for a half-hour after school
+every day for three days--not only for having forgotten their duty, but
+for having refused to make acknowledgment or apology."
+
+Going home that evening, half an hour after all the others had been
+dismissed, the triplets put all their griefs together, and resolved to
+be avenged on Mr. Williams at the first convenient opportunity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+KING'S BASE AND A SPELLING-LESSON
+
+
+As the three who usually gave the most trouble on the playground, as
+well as in school, were now in detention at every recess, the boys
+enjoyed greatly their play during these three days.
+
+It was at this time that they began to play that favorite game of
+Greenbank, which seems to be unknown almost everywhere else. It is
+called "king's base," and is full of all manner of complex happenings,
+sudden surprises, and amusing results.
+
+Each of the boys selected a base or goal. A row of sidewalk trees were
+favorite bases. There were just as many bases as boys. Some boy would
+venture out from his base. Then another would pursue him; a third would
+chase the two, and so it would go, the one who left his base latest
+having the right to catch.
+
+Just as Johnny Meline was about to lay hold on Jack, Sam Crashaw, having
+just left _his_ base, gave chase to Johnny, and just as Sam thought he
+had a good chance to catch Johnny, up came Jack, fresh from having
+touched his base, and nabbed Sam. When one has caught another, he has a
+right to return to his base with his prisoner, unmolested. The prisoner
+now becomes an active champion of the new base, and so the game goes on
+until all the bases are broken up but one. Very often the last boy on a
+base succeeds in breaking up a strong one, and, indeed, there is no end
+to the curious results attained in the play.
+
+Jack had never got on in his studies as at this time. Mr. Williams took
+every opportunity to show his liking for his young friend, and Jack's
+quickened ambition soon put him at the head of his classes. It was a
+rule that the one who stood at the head of the great spelling-class on
+Friday evenings should go to the foot on Monday, and so work his way up
+again. There was a great strife between Sarah Weathervane and Jack to
+see which should go to the foot the oftenest during the term, and so win
+a little prize that Mr. Williams had offered to the best speller in the
+school. As neither of them ever missed a word in the lesson, they held
+the head each alternate Friday evening. In this way the contest bade
+fair to be a tie. But Sarah meant to win the prize by fair means or
+foul.
+
+One Friday morning before school-time, the boys and girls were talking
+about the relative merits of the two spellers, Joanna maintaining that
+Sarah was the better, and others that Jack could spell better than
+Sarah.
+
+"Oh!" said Sarah Weathervane, "Jack is the best speller in school. I
+study till my head aches to get my lesson, but it is all the same to
+Jack whether he studies or not. He has a natural gift for spelling, and
+he spends nearly all his time on arithmetic and Latin."
+
+This speech pleased Jack very much. He had stood at the head of the
+class all the week, and spelling did seem to him the easiest thing in
+the world. That afternoon he hardly looked at his lesson. It was so nice
+to think he could beat Sarah Weathervane with his left hand, so to
+speak.
+
+When the great spelling-class was called, he spelled the words given to
+him, as usual, and Sarah saw no chance to get the coveted opportunity
+to stand at the head, go down, and spell her way up again. But the very
+last word given to Jack was _sacrilege_, and, not having studied the
+lesson, he spelled it with _e_ in the second syllable and _i_ in the
+last. Sarah gave the letters correctly, and when Jack saw the smile of
+triumph on her face, he guessed why she had flattered him that morning.
+Hereafter he would not depend on his natural genius for spelling. A
+natural genius for working is the best gift.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+UNCLAIMED TOP-STRINGS
+
+
+With a sinking heart, Jack often called to mind that this was his last
+term at school. The little money that his father had left was not enough
+to warrant his continuing; he must now do something for his own support.
+He resolved, therefore, to make the most of his time under Mr. Williams.
+
+When Pewee, Riley, and Ben Berry got through with their punishment, they
+sought some way of revenging themselves on the master for punishing
+them, and on Jack for doing better than they had done, and thus escaping
+punishment. It was a sore thing with them that Jack had led all the
+school his way, so that, instead of the whole herd following King Pewee
+and Prime Minister Riley into rebellion, they now "knuckled down to the
+master," as Riley called it, under the lead of Jack, and they even dared
+to laugh slyly at the inseparable "triplets."
+
+The first aim of Pewee and company was to get the better of the master.
+They boasted to Jack and Bob that they would fix Mr. Williams some time,
+and gave out to the other boys that they knew where the master spent his
+evenings, and they knew how to fix him.
+
+When Jack heard of this, he understood it. The teacher had a habit of
+spending an evening, now and then, at Dr. Lanham's, and the boys no
+doubt intended to play a prank on him in going or coming. There being
+now no moonlight, the village streets were very dark, and there was
+every opportunity for a trick. Riley's father's house stood next on the
+street to Dr. Lanham's; the lots were divided by an alley. This gave the
+triplets a good chance to carry out their designs.
+
+But Bob Holliday and Jack, good friends to the teacher, thought that it
+would be fun to watch the conspirators and defeat them. So, when they
+saw Mr. Williams going to Dr. Lanham's, they stationed themselves in the
+dark alley on the side of the street opposite to Riley's and took
+observations. Mr. Williams had a habit of leaving Dr. Lanham's at
+exactly nine o'clock, and so, just before nine, the three came out of
+Riley's yard, and proceeded in the darkness to the fence of Lanham's
+dooryard.
+
+Getting the trunk of one of the large shade-trees between him and the
+plotters, Jack crept up close enough to guess what they were doing and
+to overhear their conversation. Then he came back to Bob.
+
+"They are tying a string across the sidewalk on Lanham's side of the
+alley, I believe," whispered Jack, "so as to throw Mr. Williams head
+foremost into that mud-hole at the mouth of the alley."
+
+By this time, the three boys had finished their arrangements and
+retreated through the gate into the porch of the Riley house, whence
+they might keep a lookout for the catastrophe.
+
+"I'm going to cut that string where it goes around the tree," said Bob,
+and he crouched low on the ground, got the trunk of the tree between him
+and the Riley house, and crept slowly across the street.
+
+"I'll capture the string," said Jack, walking off to the next
+cross-street, then running around the block until he came to the back
+gate of Lanham's yard, which he entered, running up the walk to the
+back door. His knock was answered by Mrs. Lanham.
+
+"Why, Jack, what's the matter?" she asked, seeing him at the kitchen
+door, breathless.
+
+"I want to see Susan, please," he said, "and tell Mr. Williams not to go
+yet a minute."
+
+"Here's a mystery," said Mrs. Lanham, returning to the sitting-room,
+where the teacher was just rising to say good-night. "Here's Jack
+Dudley, at the back door, out of breath, asking for Susan, and wishing
+Mr. Williams not to leave the house yet."
+
+Susan ran to the back door.
+
+"Susan," said Jack, "the triplets have tied a string from the corner of
+your fence to the locust-tree, and they're watching from Riley's porch
+to see Mr. Williams fall into the mud-hole. Bob is cutting the string
+at the tree, and I want you to go down along the fence and untie it and
+bring it in. They will not suspect you if they see you."
+
+"I don't care if they do," said Susan, and she glided out to the
+cross-fence which ran along the alley, followed it to the front and
+untied the string, fetching it back with her. When she got back to the
+kitchen door she heard Jack closing the alley gate. He had run off to
+join Bob, leaving the string in Susan's hands.
+
+Dr. Lanham and the master had a good laugh over the captured string,
+which was made of Pewee's and Riley's top-strings, tied together.
+
+The triplets did not see Susan go to the fence. They were too intent on
+what was to happen to Mr. Williams. When, at length, he came along
+safely through the darkness, they were bewildered.
+
+"You didn't tie that string well in the middle," growled Pewee at Riley.
+
+"Yes, I did," said Riley. "He must have stepped over."
+
+"Step over a string a foot high, when he didn't know it was there?" said
+Pewee.
+
+"Let's go and get the string," said Ben Berry.
+
+So out of the gate they sallied, and quickly reached the place where the
+string ought to have been.
+
+"I can't find this end," whispered Pewee by the fence.
+
+"The string's gone!" broke out Riley, after feeling up and down the tree
+for some half a minute.
+
+What could have become of it? They had been so near the sidewalk all the
+time that no one could have passed without their seeing him.
+
+The next day, at noon-time, when Susan Lanham brought out her lunch, it
+was tied with Pewee's new top-string,--the best one in the school.
+
+"That's a very nice string," said Susan.
+
+"It's just like Pewee's top-string," cried Harry Weathervane.
+
+"Is it yours, Pewee?" said Susan, in her sweetest tones.
+
+"No," said the king, with his head down; "mine's at home."
+
+"I found this one, last night," said Susan.
+
+And all the school knew that she was tormenting Pewee, although they
+could not guess how she had got his top-string. After a while, she made
+a dive into her pocket, and brought out another string.
+
+"Oh," cried Johnny Meline, "where did you get that?"
+
+"I found it."
+
+"That's Will Riley's top-string," said Johnny. "It was mine. He cheated
+me out of it by trading an old top that wouldn't spin."
+
+"That's the way you get your top-strings, is it, Will? Is this yours?"
+asked the tormenting Susan.
+
+"No, it isn't."
+
+"Of course it isn't yours. You don't tie top-strings across the sidewalk
+at night. You're a gentleman, you are! Come, Johnny, this string doesn't
+belong to anybody; I'll trade with you for that old top that Will gave
+you for a good string. I want something to remember honest Will Riley
+by."
+
+Johnny gladly pocketed the string, and Susan carried off the shabby top,
+to the great amusement of the school, who now began to understand how
+she had come by the two top-strings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL, AND THE LAST CHAPTER OF THE STORY
+
+
+It was the last day of the spring term of school. With Jack this meant
+the end of his opportunity for going to school. What he should learn
+hereafter he must learn by himself. The money was nearly out, and he
+must go to work.
+
+The last day of school meant also the expiration of the master's
+authority. Whatever evil was done after school-hours on the last day was
+none of his business. All who had grudges carried them forward to that
+day, for thus they could revenge themselves without being called to
+account by the master the next day. The last day of school had no
+to-morrow to be afraid of. Hence, Pewee and his friends proposed to
+square accounts on the last day of school with Jack Dudley, whom they
+hated for being the best scholar, and for having outwitted them more
+than once.
+
+It was on the first day of June that the school ended, and Mr. Williams
+bade his pupils good-bye. The warm sun had by this time brought the
+waters of the Ohio to a temperature that made bathing pleasant, and when
+the school closed, all the boys, delighted with liberty, rushed to the
+river for a good swim together. In that genial climate one can remain in
+the water for hours at a time, and boys become swimmers at an early age.
+
+Just below the village a raft was moored, and from this the youthful
+swimmers were soon diving into the deep water like frogs. Every boy who
+could perform any feat of agility displayed it. One would turn a
+somersault in the water, and then dive from one side of the raft to
+another, one could float, and another swim on his back, while a third
+was learning to tread water. Some were fond of diving toes downward,
+others took headers. "The little fellows" who could not swim kept on the
+inside of the great raft and paddled about with the aid of slabs used
+for floats. Jack, who had lived for years on the banks of the Wildcat,
+could swim and dive like a musquash.
+
+Mr. Williams, the teacher, felt lonesome at saying good-bye to his
+school; and to keep the boys company as long as possible, he strolled
+down to the bank and sat on the grass watching the bathers below him,
+plunging and paddling in all the spontaneous happiness of young life.
+
+Riley and Pewee--conspirators to the last--had their plans arranged.
+When Jack should get his clothes on, they intended to pitch him off the
+raft for a good wetting, and thus gratify their long-hoarded jealousy,
+and get an offset to the standing joke about dough-faces and ghosts which
+the town had at their expense. Ben Berry, who was their confidant,
+thought this a capital plan.
+
+When at length Jack had enjoyed the water enough, he came out and was
+about to begin dressing. Pewee and Riley were close at hand, already
+dressed, and prepared to give Jack a farewell ducking.
+
+But just at that moment there came from the other end of the raft, and
+from the spectators on the bank, a wild, confused cry, and all turned to
+hearken. Harry Weathervane's younger brother, whose name was Andrew
+Jackson, and who could not swim, in dressing, had stepped too far
+backward and gone off the raft. He uttered a despairing and terrified
+scream, struck out wildly and blindly, and went down.
+
+All up and down the raft and up and down the bank there went up a cry:
+"Andy is drowning!" while everybody looked for somebody else to save
+him.
+
+The school-master was sitting on the bank, and saw the accident. He
+quickly slipped off his boots, but then he stopped, for Jack had already
+started on a splendid run down that long raft. The confused and
+terrified boys made a path for him quickly, as he came on at more than
+the tremendous speed he had always shown in games. He did not stop to
+leap, but ran full tilt off the raft, falling upon the drowning boy and
+carrying him completely under water with him. Nobody breathed during the
+two seconds that Jack, under water, struggled to get a good hold on Andy
+and to keep Andy from disabling him by his blind grappling of Jack's
+limbs.
+
+When at length Jack's head came above water, there was an audible sigh
+of relief from all the on-lookers. But the danger was not over.
+
+"Let go of my arms, Andy!" cried Jack. "You'll drown us both if you hold
+on that way. If you don't let go I'll strike you."
+
+Jack knew that it was sometimes necessary to stun a drowning person
+before you could save him, where he persisted in clutching his
+deliverer. But poor frightened Andy let go of Jack's arms at last. Jack
+was already exhausted with swimming, and he had great difficulty in
+dragging the little fellow to the raft, where Will Riley and Pewee Rose
+pulled him out of the water.
+
+But now, while all were giving attention to the rescued Andy, there
+occurred with Jack one of those events which people call a cramp. I do
+not know what to call it, but it is not a cramp. It is a kind of
+collapse--a sudden exhaustion that may come to the best of swimmers. The
+heart insists on resting, the consciousness grows dim, the will-power
+flags, and the strong swimmer sinks.
+
+Nobody was regarding Jack, who first found himself unable to make even
+an effort to climb on the raft; then his hold on its edge relaxed, and
+he slowly sank out of sight. Pewee saw his sinking condition first, and
+cried out, as did Riley and all the rest, doing nothing to save Jack,
+but running up and down the raft in a vain search for a rope or a pole.
+
+The school-master, having seen that Andy was brought out little worse
+for his fright and the water he had swallowed, was about to put on his
+boots when this new alarm attracted his attention to Jack Dudley.
+Instantly he threw off his coat and was bounding down the steep bank,
+along the plank to the raft, and then along the raft to where Jack had
+sunk entirely out of sight. Mr. Williams leaped head first into the
+water and made what the boys afterward called a splendid dive. Once
+under water he opened his eyes and looked about for Jack.
+
+At last he came up, drawing after him the unconscious and apparently
+lifeless form of Jack, who was taken from the water by the boys. The
+teacher despatched two boys to bring Dr. Lanham, while he set himself to
+restore consciousness by producing artificial breathing. It was some
+time after Dr. Lanham's arrival that Jack fully regained his
+consciousness, when he was carried home by the strong arms of Bob
+Holliday, Will Riley, and Pewee, in turn.
+
+[Illustration: BOB HOLLIDAY CARRIES HOME HIS FRIEND.]
+
+And here I must do the last two boys the justice to say that they
+called to inquire after Jack every day during the illness that followed,
+and the old animosity to Jack was never afterward revived by Pewee and
+his friends.
+
+On the evening after this accident and these rescues, Dr. Lanham said to
+Mrs. Lanham and Susan and Mr. Williams, who happened to be there again,
+that a boy was wanted in the new drug-store in the village, to learn the
+business, and to sleep in the back room, so as to attend night-calls.
+Dr. Lanham did not know why this Jack Dudley wouldn't be just the boy.
+
+Susan, for her part, was very sure he would be; and Mr. Williams agreed
+with Susan, as, indeed, he generally did.
+
+Dr. Lanham thought that Jack might be allowed to attend school in the
+daytime in the winter season, and if the boy had as good stuff in him as
+he seemed to have, there was no reason why he shouldn't come to
+something some day.
+
+"Come to something!" said Susan. "Come to something! Why, he'll make one
+of the best doctors in the country yet."
+
+And again Mr. Williams entirely agreed with Susan, Jack Dudley was sure
+to go up to the head of the class.
+
+Jack got the place, and I doubt not fulfilled the hope of his friends. I
+know this, at least, that when a year or so later his good friend and
+teacher, Mr. Williams, was married to his good and stanch friend, Susan
+Lanham, Jack's was one of the happiest faces at the wedding.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Hoosier School-boy, by Edward Eggleston
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