Fred Sargent, upon this day from which my story dates, went to the head of his Latin class, in the high school of Andrewsville. The school was a fine one, the teachers strict, the classes large, the boys generally gentlemanly, and the moral tone pervading the whole, of the very best character. To lead a class in a school like this was an honor of which any boy might have been proud; and Fred, when he heard his name read off at the head of the roll, could have thrown up his well-worn Latin grammar, which he happened to have in his hand just at that moment, and hurrahed. It was quite a wonder to him afterward that he did not.
As a class, boys are supposed to be generous. I really don't know whether they deserve to be considered so or not, but some four or five only in this large school envied Fred. The rest would probably have hurrahed with him; for Fred was a “capital good fellow,” and quite a favorite.
“Bully for you!” whispered Ned Brown, his right-hand neighbor; but Ned was instantly disgraced, the eye of the teacher catching the words as they dropped from his lips.
When school was over several of the boys rushed to the spot where Fred—his cap in his hand, and his dark hair blowing about every way—was standing.
“I say,” said James Duncan, “I thought you would get it. You've worked like a Trojan and you deserve it.”
“It's as good as getting the valedictory,” said Joe Stone.
“And that is entering into any college in the land without an examination,” said Peter Crane.
Now Peter had run shoulder to shoulder with Fred and it does him great credit that, being beaten, he was thoroughly good-natured about it.
“I say, Fred, you ought to treat for this;” and Noah Holmes, standing on tiptoe, looked over the heads of the other boys significantly at Fred.
“I wish I could; but here's all the money I've got,” said Fred, taking about twenty-five cents from his pocket—all that was left of his monthly allowance.
“That's better than nothing. It will buy an apple apiece. Come on! Let's go down to old Granger's. I saw some apples there big as your head; and bigger, too,” said Noah, with a droll wink.
“Well, come on, then;” and away went the boys at Fred's heels, pushing and shouting, laughing and frolicking, until they came to Abel Granger's little grocery.
“Now hush up, you fellows,” said Noah, turning round upon them. “Let Fred go in by himself. Old Grange can't abide a crowd and noise. It will make him cross, and all we shall get will be the specked and worm-eaten ones. Come, fall back, there!”
Very quietly and obediently the boys, who always knew their leader, fell back, and Fred went into the little dark grocery alone.
He was so pleasant and gentlemanly that, let him go where he would and do what he would, in some mysterious way he always found the right side of people and got what he wanted, in the most satisfactory manner.
Now Abel Granger was “as cross as a meat axe.” Noah said, and all the boys were afraid of him. If the apples had been anywhere else they would have been much surer of their treat; but in spite of their fears, back came Fred in a few moments, with a heaping measure of nice red apples—apples that made the boys' mouths water.
Fred said that old Abel had given him as near a smile as could come to his yellow, wrinkled face.
“Treat 'em,” he said, “treat 'em, eh? Wal, now, 'pears likely they'd eat you out of house and home. I never see a boy yet that couldn't go through a tenpenny nail, easy as not.”
“We ARE always hungry, I believe,” said Fred.
“Allers, allers—that's a fact,” picking out the best apples as he spoke and heaping up the measure. “There, now if you'll find a better lot than that, for the money, you are welcome to it, that's all.”
“Couldn't do it. Thank you very much,” said Fred.
As the boys took the apples eagerly and began to bite them, they saw the old face looking out of the dirty panes of window glass upon them.
Fred loved to make everybody happy around him, and this treating was only second best to leading his class; so when, at the corner of the street turning to his father's house, he parted from his young companions, I doubt whether there was a happier boy in all Andrewsville.
I do not think we shall blame him very much if he unconsciously carried his head pretty high and looked proudly happy.
Out from under the low archway leading to Bill Crandon's house a boy about as tall as Fred, but stout and coarse, in ragged clothes, stood staring up and down the street as Fred came toward him.
Something in Fred's looks and manner seemed especially to displease him. He moved directly into the middle of the sidewalk, and squared himself as if for a fight.
There was no other boy in town whom Fred disliked so much, and of whom he felt so afraid.
Sam Crandon, everybody knew, was a bully. He treated boys who were larger and stronger than himself civilly, but was cruel and domineering over the poor and weak.
So far in his life, though they met often, Fred had avoided coming into contact with Sam, and Sam had seemed to feel just a little awe of him; for Mr. Sargent was one of the wealthiest leading men in town, and Sam, in spite of himself, found something in the handsome, gentlemanly boy that held him in check; but to-day Sam's father had just beaten him, and the boy was smarting from the blows.
I dare say he was hungry, and uncomfortable from many other causes; but however this may have been, he felt in the mood for making trouble; for seeing somebody else unhappy beside himself. This prosperous, well-dressed boy, with his books under his arm, and his happy face, was the first person he had come across—and here then was his opportunity.
Fred saw him assume the attitude of a prize fighter and knew what it meant. Sam had a cut, red and swollen, across one cheek, and this helped to make his unpleasant face more ugly and lowering than usual.
What was to be done? To turn and run never occurred to Fred. To meet him and fight it out was equally impossible; so Fred stopped and looked at him irresolutely.
“You're afraid of a licking?” asked Sam, grinning ominously.
“I don't want to fight,” said Fred, quietly.
“No more you don't, but you've got to.”
Fred's blood began to rise. The words and looks of the rough boy were a little too much for his temper.
“Move out of the way,” he said, walking directly up to him.
Sam hesitated for a moment. The steady, honest, bold look in Fred's eyes was far more effective than a blow would have been; but as soon as Fred had passed him he turned and struck him a quick, stinging blow between his shoulders.
“That's mean,” said Fred, wheeling round. “Strike fair and in front if you want to, but don't hit in the back—that's a coward's trick.”
“Take it there, then,” said Sam, aiming a heavy blow at Fred's breast. But the latter skillfully raised his books, and Sam's knuckles were the worse for the encounter.
“Hurt, did it?” said Fred, laughing.
“What if it did?”
“Say quits, then.”
“Not by a good deal;” and in spite of himself Fred was dragged into an ignominious street fight.
Oh, how grieved and mortified he was when his father, coming down the street, saw and called to him. Hearing his voice Sam ran away and Fred, bruised and smarting, with his books torn and his clothes, too, went over to his father.
Not a word did Mr. Sargent say. He took Fred's hand in his, and the two walked silently to their home.
I doubt whether Mr. Sargent was acting wisely. Fred never had told him an untruth in his life, and a few words now might have set matters right. But to this roughness in boys Mr. Sargent had a special aversion. He had so often taken pains to instill its impropriety and vulgarity into Fred's mind that he could not now imagine an excuse.
“He should not have done so under any circumstances,” said his father sternly, to himself. “I am both surprised and shocked, and the punishment must be severe.”
Unfortunately for Fred, his mother was out of town for a few days—a mother so much sooner than a father reaches the heart of her son—so now his father said:
“You will keep your room for the next week. I shall send your excuse to your teacher. Ellen will bring your meals to you. At the end of that time I will see and talk with you.”
Without a word Fred hung his cap upon its nail, and went to his room. Such a sudden change from success and elation to shame and condign punishment was too much for him.
He felt confused and bewildered. Things looked dark around him, and the great boughs of the Norway spruce, close up by his window, nodded and winked at him in a very odd way.
He had been often reproved, and sometimes had received a slight punishment, but never anything like this. And now he felt innocent, or rather at first he did not feel at all, everything was so strange and unreal.
He heard Ellen come into his room after a few minutes with his dinner, but he did not turn.
A cold numbing sense of disgrace crept over him. He felt as if, even before this Irish girl, he could never hold up his head again.
He did not wish to eat or do anything. What could it all mean?
Slowly the whole position in which he was placed came to him. The boys gathering at school; the surprise with which his absence would be noted; the lost honor, so lately won; his father's sad, grave face; his sisters' unhappiness; his mother's sorrow; and even Sam's face, so ugly in its triumph, all were there.
What an afternoon that was! How slowly the long hours dragged themselves away! And yet until dusk Fred bore up bravely. Then he leaned his head on his hands. Tired, hungry, worn out with sorrow, he burst into tears and cried like a baby.
Don't blame him. I think any one of us would have done the same.
“Oh, mother! mother!” said Fred aloud, to himself, “do come home! do come home!”
Ellen looked very sympathizing when she came in with his tea, and found his dinner untouched.
“Eat your tea, Master Fred,” she said, gently. “The like of ye can't go without your victuals, no way. I don't know what you've done, but I ain't afeared there is any great harm in it, though your collar is on crooked and there's a tear in your jacket, to say nothing of a black and blue place under your left eye. But eat your tea. Here's some fruit cake Biddy sent o' purpose.”
Somebody did think of and feel sorry for him! Fred felt comforted on the instant by Ellen's kind words and Biddy's plum cake; and I must say, ate a hearty, hungry boy's supper; then went to bed and slept soundly until late the next morning.
We have not space to follow Fred through the tediousness of the following week. His father strictly carried out the punishment to the letter No one came near him but Ellen, though he heard the voices of his sisters and the usual happy home sounds constantly about him.
Had Fred really been guilty, even in the matter of a street fight, he would have been the unhappiest boy living during this time; but we know he was not, so we shall be glad to hear that with his books and the usual medley of playthings with which a boy's room is piled, he contrived to make the time pass without being very wretched. It was the disgrace of being punished, the lost position in school, and above all, the triumph which it would be to Sam, which made him the most miserable. The very inju............