The boys were loud in their exclamations when they heard, the next morning, that Phil was suspended from school. One after another, they coaxed, wheedled, begged, and stormed by turns, but Phil could not be induced to tell them his secret, although one word would have put him back in his classes again. At Bessie's suggestion, Fred urged Phil to tell him, as long as he was outside the school set, but it did no more good than Bessie's call did on Miss Witherspoon.
"Yes, I am sorry," that worthy woman confessed; "I was tired that day, and I think I was hasty, for I don't think Philip is a bad boy at heart. It was a little thing to punish so severely, but, if I give in now, I shall lose all my control for the future. Let the boys once feel that they can make me yield, and I might as well give up teaching."
Poor Miss Witherspoon! After all her years of teaching, she had yet to learn how quickly all pupils respect a teacher who can make herself as a little child in acknowledging a mistake, and making what reparation for it she can.
But a week had passed, and Phil was as obstinate on one side as his teacher was determined on the other. In vain his father and mother urged and commanded. Angry and smarting from the injustice done him, this seemed a different Phil from the pleasant, happy-go-lucky lad they used to know. At length, Mr. and Mrs. Cameron, at their wits' end, begged Bessie to take Phil in hand.
"Oh, dear!" Bess said to her mother, on the evening after this remarkable request. "I do wish people would discipline their own children. The idea of expecting me to succeed where they fail! It is too absurd."
However, Phil was invited to dine at the Carters', whither he went somewhat suspiciously, for he regarded this as only a new plot to entrap him into telling what he had made up his mind to keep to himself. But Bess was wily. Dinner-time came and went, and no word of the dreaded subject, until Phil began to think that his had been a false alarm. But by and by Mrs. Carter had gone out of the room, and Fred went away in search of Fuzz. Then Bess moved a chair up before the open fire, and pulled a low stool to its side.
"Come, Phil, I want to talk."
Phil obediently settled himself at Bessie's feet, and prepared for the worst; but Bess only began to talk about the boys and the club. The child was just congratulating himself on his continued escape, when she suddenly asked,—
"What do you think I have started the club for?"
"I don't know. Fun, I suppose."