“He hit me, sir,” Hunk hastened to explain, having risen to his feet. “He came right in here and pushed me, and then he hit me.”
Ben opened his lips to justify himself. “Professor, if you’ll let me explain – ”
“I need no explanations; I have seen quite enough to satisfy me,” declared the professor coldly. “You have not reformed since the time when you made a vicious and brutal assault on Bernard Hayden.”
Involuntarily, Ben lifted an unsteady hand to his mutilated ear, as if that could somehow justify him for what had happened. His face was ashen, and the hopeless look of desperation was again in his eyes.
Upon the appearance of Prof. Richardson, many of the boys had lost no time in hurrying away; the others he now told to go home, at the same time turning his back on Ben. The miserable lad stood there and watched them depart, the academy principal walking with Rollins, who, in his own manner and to his own justification, was relating what had taken place beneath the tree.
As Ben stood thus gazing after them, he felt a hand touch his, and heard the voice of little Jimmy at his side.
“I’m sorry,” said the lame boy, “I’m awfully sorry if I got you into any trouble, Ben.”
“You’re not to blame,” was the husky assurance.
“Mebbe I hadn’t oughter come, but I wanted to tell y’u ’bout the squirrel I ketched. He’s jest the handsomest feller! Hunk Rollins he’s alwus plaguin’ an’ hurtin’ me when he gets a chance. My! but you did hit him hard!”
“Not half as hard as he ought to be hit!” exclaimed Ben, with such savageness that the lame lad was frightened.
With Jimmy clinging to his hand, they walked down the road together. The little cripple tried to cheer his companion by saying:
“You warn’t to blame; why didn’t you say you warn’t?”
“What good would it have done!” cried Ben bitterly. “The professor wouldn’t listen to me. I tried to tell him, but he stopped me. Everything and every one is against me, Jimmy. I have no friends and no chance.”
“I’m your friend,” protested the limping lad. “I think you’re jest the best feller I ever knew.”
To Jimmy’s surprise, Ben caught him up in his strong arms and squeezed him, laughing with a choking sound that was half a sob:
“I forgot you.”
“I know I don’t ’mount to much,” said the cripple, as he was lifted to Stone’s shoulder and carried there; “but I like you jest the same. I want you to see my squirrel. I’ve got him in an old bird cage. I’m goin’ to make a reg’ler cage for him, an’ I thought p’raps you’d show me how an’ help me some.”
Ben spent the greater part of the noon hour in the woodshed with little Jimmy, admiring the squirrel and explaining how a cage might be made. Mrs. Jones heard them talking and laughing, and peered out at them, her face beaming as she wiped her hands on her apron.
“Land!” she smiled; “Jimmy’s ’most crazy over that squirrel. You don’t s’pose it’ll die, do y’u?”
“Not if it can have a big cage with plenty of room to exercise,” answered Ben. “It’s a young one, and it seems to be getting tame already.”
“Well, I’m glad. Jimmy he’s jest silly over pets. But I tell him it ain’t right to keep the squirrel alwus shut up, an’ that he’d better let him go bimeby. Goodness! I can’t waste my time this way. I’ve got my han’s full to-day.”
Then she disappeared.
“Mother she thinks it ain’t jest right to keep a squirrel in a cage,” said the lame boy, with a slight cloud on his face. “What ju think, Ben?”
“Well,” said Ben, “it’s this way, Jimmy: Yesterday this little squirrel was frolicking in the woods, running up and down the trees and over the ground, playing with other squirrels and enjoying the open air and the sunshine. Now he’s confined in a cramped cage here in this dark old woodshed, taken from his companions and shut off from the sunshine and the big beautiful woods. Try to put yourself in his place, Jimmy. How would you like it if a great giant came along, captured you, carried you off where you could not see your mother or your friends, and shut you up in a narrow dungeon with iron bars?”
Jimmy sat quite still, watching the little captive vainly nosing at the wires in search of an opening by which he might get out. As he watched, the squirrel faced him and sat up straight, its beautiful tail erect, its tiny forefeet held limp.
“Oh, see, Ben – see!” whispered the lame lad. “He’s beggin’ jest like a dog; he’s askin’ me to let him go. I couldn’t keep him after that. I sha’n’t want no cage f’r him, Ben; I’m goin’ to let him go back to the woods to find the other squirrels he uster play with.”
Together they carried the cage out into the old grove back of the house, where Jimmy himself opened the door. For a moment or two the captive shrank back in doubt, but suddenly he whisked through the door and darted up a tree. Perched on a limb, he uttered a joyful, chittering cry.
“He’s laughing!” cried the lame boy, clapping his hands. “See how happy he is, Ben! I’m awful glad I didn’t keep him.”
The first bell was ringing as Ben turned toward the academy.
“Why, you ain’t had no dinner!” called Jimmy, suddenly aware of that fact.
“I didn’t want any,” truthfully declared Ben, as he vaulted a fence. “So long, Jimmy.” He waved his hand and hurried on.
He did not return to the academy, however. As the second bell began ringing, he paused on the edge of the deep, dark woods, which lay to the north of Turkey Hill. Looking back, he could see the academy, the lake and the village. The sound of the bell, mellowed by the distance, seemed full of sadness and disappointment. When it ceased, he turned and strode on, and the shadowy woods swallowed him.
CHAPTER VII.
A DESPERATE ENCOUNTER
All that long, silent afternoon, he wandered through the woods, the fields and the meadows. The cool shadows of the forest enfolded him, and the balsamic fragrance of spruce and pine and juniper soothed his troubled spirit. He sat on a decaying log, listening to the chatter of a squirrel, and hearing the occasional soft pat of the first-falling acorns. He noted the spots where Jack Frost had thus early begun his work of painting the leaves pink and crimson and gold. In a thicket he saw the scarlet gleam of hawthorne berries.
Beside Silver Brook, which ran down through the border of the woods, he paused to listen to the tinkle and gurgle of the water. There the blackberried moonseed clambered over the underbrush. When he crossed the brook and pushed on through this undergrowth, his feet and ankles were wet by water spilled from many hooded pitcher plants. Near the edge of the woods, with a sudden booming whir of wings that made his heart jump, a partridge flew up and went diving away into the deeper forest.
At the border of the woods, where meadow and marshland began, he discovered clusters of pale-blue asters mingling with masses of rose-purple blazing star. Before him he sent scurrying a flight of robins, driven from their feast of pigeon berries amid the wine-stained pokeweed leaves.
The sun leaned low to the west and the day drew toward a peaceful close. He seemed to forget for brief periods his misfortune and wretchedness, but he could not put his bitter thoughts aside for long, and whenever he tried to do so, they simply slunk in the background, to come swarming upon him again at the first opportunity. At best, it was a wretched afternoon he spent with them.
He had escaped facing disgrace and expulsion by declining to return to the academy that afternoon; but his trunk and clothes were at Mrs. Jones’ and he must get