It wasn’t at all the Dick who ran away to visit the circus a few months before. In the first place, this Dick was a travelled youth. As soon as his mother was able to ride out, the doctor had ordered them both up among the mountains to try what the clear, bracing air would do to mend matters. It was up there in a little nook among the rocks, with only a bit of blue sky looking in between the tall trees, his mother, with one hand laid lovingly upon his shoulder, had told him how sorry she was she had all these years been too busy to love and serve the kind Father above, who had spared their lives and given them so many blessings, and how she meant now to try and please Him first of all. Dick was very sure he meant to be a better boy, but he didn’t care to think much about God. Of course he could be good just as well. So this Dick went to church and Sabbath School; this Dick was trying not to swear, and no longer loafed about the street-corners and saloon-steps.
The boys had an idea it would be a very sober, stiff old Dick, but they soon found out their mistake. He was as full of fun as ever, only now he tried to keep it for playtimes. Study, however, was uphill work; he had been idle so long, and there were plenty of boys ready to laugh at his blunders, to tempt him into some sly fun, and especially to report every time he swore or broke a rule. Mr. Blackman, too, remembering the old Dick, was forever accusing him of this, that, and the other bit of mischief. Poor man! Wasn’t he tried almost out of his life with the care of so much perpetual motion, and hadn’t Dick always been the most troublesome screw in the machinery? And wasn’t it the most natural thing in the world, when anything went wrong, to give that the first twist?
The brook, beside which Dick gave Tod his first lesson in swearing, ran through a large field not far from the school-house. There the boys went to drill, to fly their kites, and to play base-ball. The brook was much wider there, with a high, steep bank on either side, and of late the boys had taken to walking across on the narrowest plank possible, balancing on one foot in the middle, turning somersaults, and otherwise imitating Blondin at Niagara. The water was shallow and the bottom sandy, so their frequent tumbles resulted in nothing worse than a wetting.
One day, as Tod stood by in open-mouthed astonishment at their performances, it occurred to Tom Lawrence what fun it would be to make the little fellow walk across.
“My couldn’t,” said Tod, his teeth chattering at the bare suggestion.
“Oh yes, you can,” joined in half a dozen boys, ready, as boys too often are, for any fun, no matter at whose expense. “Quick, now, or we’ll duck you!”
“Here comes Dick Vance; he’ll send him over quicker’n lightning,” cried Joe Travers.
Tod looked around at the tall, stout figure leaping the wall; almost a man, Dick seemed to him. Poor little Tod! he felt his doom was sealed, and trembled to the tips of his shiny shoes.
The boys crowded up, shouting, laughing.
“Make him go over there? Of course I can;” and Dick, swinging the little fellow upon one shoulder, bounded over the narrow plank before anybody had time to think.