“Come, Jack, dear old fellow,” he whispered.
Jack came and bent over him with tearful eyes, and the poor little reed-like arms were twined about his neck.
“Jack,” he sobbed, “the master’s right over there in the corner all the time, straightening out his long switches. He says he’s going to whip me again. But you won’t let him, will you, Jack, you good old fellow?”
“No, he shan’t touch you.”
“Let’s run away, Jack,” he said, presently. And so the poor little fellow went on, his great, disordered brain producing feverish images of terror from which he continually besought “dear good old Jack” to deliver him.
When at last he dropped again into a troubled sleep, Jack slipped away and drove up the Risdale cow, and then went back to his breakfast. He was a boy whose anger kindled slowly; but the more he thought about it, the more angry he became at the master who had given Columbus such a fright as to throw him into a brain fever, and at the “mean, sneaking contemptible villains,” as he hotly called them, who wouldn’t come forward and confess their trick, rather than to have the poor little lad punished.
“I suppose we ought to make some allowances,” his mother said, quietly.
“That’s what you always say, mother. You’re always making allowances.”
After breakfast and chores, Jack thought to go again to see his little friend. On issuing from the gate, he saw Will Riley and Ben Berry waiting for him at the corner. Whether they meant to attack him or not he could not tell, but he felt too angry to care.
“I say, Jack,” said Riley, “how did you know who put the powder in the stove? Did Columbus tell you?”