“Don’t keep up such a row then!” growled Sam; but Hal was in too full swing to be reached by slight measures. He pushed his chair back, tucked up his feet like a tailor’s, out of reach, and went on: “Then I shall come home in my cocked hat, like Papa’s—at least, my cap—and come and ask for a holiday for you all at Uncle John’s.”
Uncle John was an under-master at one of the great public schools, and the children were all a good deal in awe of him.
“Uncle John won’t give one for you!” said Sam.
“Come, boys, I can’t have this bickering,” said Miss Fosbrook. “I can’t see you trying which can be most provoking. Stand up. Now, David, say grace. There, Annie, finish that bit of bread out of doors. Go out, and let us have no more of this.”
She spoke now with much less fear of not being minded; and having seen one of the quarrelsome parties safe out of the school-room, she went to fetch from her own room a glove that wanted mending; and on her return found Sam alone there, curled up over his lesson-books on the locker, looking so gloomy, that she was afraid she had made him sulky, for which she would have been very sorry, since she had a respect for him.
“What is the matter?” she asked; and his “Nothing” did not at all assure her that he was in a right mood. She doubted whether to leave him alone; but presently thought he looked more unhappy than ill-tempered, and ventured to speak. “Have you a hard piece to learn? Perhaps I could help you.”
He let her come and look at his book; but, to her surprise, he had before him a very easy problem in Euclid.
“Indeed, if you only gave your mind to this,” she said, “you would soon make it out.”
“Stupid stuff!” exclaimed Sam. “It is all along of that, and the rest of it, that I have got to be a land-lubber!” and he threw the book to the other end of the room.
“Have you no chance?” said Miss Fosbrook, without taking notice of this rudeness, for she saw that the boy could hardly contain himself.