He tried it twice on the desk first.
Then he took hold of my shoulder and turned my back round towards him. He said I had better bend down my head a little, and took hold of the neck of my shirt to keep me steady. I shut my teeth together tight.
At that very minute Bubby Short cried out, “Master! Master! Stop! Don’t! He didn’t do it! He didn’t kill it! I know who! I’ll tell! I will! I will! I don’t care what Tom Cush does! ’T was Tom Cush killed it!”
The master didn’t say one word. But he handed me my jacket.
The boys all clapped and gave three cheers, and he let them.
Then he said to me, whispering, “Is this so, William?” And I said, low, “Yes, sir.”
Then he took hold of my hand and led me to my seat. And when I sat down he put his hand on my shoulder just as softly,—it made me remember the way my mother used to before she died, and, says he, “My dear boy,” then stopped and began again, “My dear boy,” and stopped again. If he’d been a boy I should have thought he was going to cry himself. But of course a man wouldn’t. And what should he cry for? It wasn’t he that almost had a whipping. At last he told me to come to his room after supper. Then Bubby Short was called up to the platform.
Now I will tell you how Bubby Short found out about it.
He sleeps in a little bed in a little bit of a room that lets out of Tom’s. ’T isn’t much bigger than a closet. But it is just right for him. That morning when Tom got up so early and threw pebbles at me, Bubby Short had been keeping awake with the toothache. And he heard Tom telling another boy about the rabbit.