The principal, a short, stern-faced man, adjusted his eye-glasses and stared hard at Teddy. The boy hung his head, then raising his eyes regarded Mr. Waldron defiantly.
“So you are here again, young man, for the third time in two weeks,” thundered the principal. “What has this bad boy done, Miss Alton?”
Miss Alton began an indignant recital of Teddy’s latest misdeed. The principal frowned as he listened. When she had finished, he fixed Teddy with severe eyes.
“Let me see. The last time you were here it was for interrupting the devotional exercises by putting a piece of ice inside the collar of one of your schoolmates. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? How would you like to have your schoolmates play upon you the unkind pranks you are so fond of playing upon them?”
“I wouldn’t care,” returned the boy, unabashed. “I wouldn’t make a fuss, either.”
“Miss Alton is right,” snapped Mr. Waldron, his face reddening angrily at the boy’s retort. “You are, indeed, an incorrigible boy. I think I had better put your case before the Board of Education. There are special schools for bad boys like you. We don’t care to have such a boy among us. You are a menace to the school.” He continued to lecture Teddy sharply, ending with, “Take him back to your room for the day, Miss Alton, but make him remain after the others have gone home this afternoon. By that time I shall have decided what we had better do with him.”
Teddy walked down the corridor ahead of Miss Alton with a sinking heart. Was he a menace to the school and could Mr. Waldron really put him in a school for bad boys? He had heard of such schools. He had heard, too, that sometimes the boys came out of them much worse than when they entered. The murmur of voices came to his ears as Miss Alton flung open the door and urged him into the schoolroom. The noise died a sudden death as she stepped over the threshold.
“Go to your seat,” she ordered coldly.
Teddy obeyed. The little girl, whose shriek had caused his downfall, eyed him with horror. Even in the midst of his troubles he could not resist giving her an impish grin. She promptly made a face at him and looked the other way. The smile vanished from Teddy’s face. Then he folded his hands on his desk and thought busily for the next five minutes.
The class resumed its interrupted recitation. Suddenly the boy reached into his desk and began stealthily to take out his belongings. The books belonged to the school, but a pencil box, a knife, a box of marbles, a top, a dilapidated baseball, a magnet and a small, round mirror with which he delighted to cast white shadows on the books of the long-suffering eighth-grade girls, were treasures of his own. Stuffing them into his pockets he replaced the books; then he sat very still. It was almost time for the recess bell to ring. He hardly thought Miss Alton would order him to keep his seat. Such light punishments were not for him. To-night—but there would be no to-night in school for him. When recess came he would go outside and say good-bye to the fellows, then he would start out and hunt a job. He was almost sixteen, and the law said a boy could work when he was fourteen, if he had a certificate. Well, he would get that certificate. His mother would let him go to work if he wanted to. She was so busy with her own affairs she never cared much what he did. If he had a job, then Mr. Waldron couldn’t send him to a reform school. That was the place where incorrigible boys were sent.