“Look here, boys,” said Jack, “I took a whipping yesterday to keep from telling on these fellows, and now they have the face to ask me not to tell that they put the powder in the stove, and they promise me a beating from Pewee if I do. These are the two boys that let a poor sickly baby take the whipping they ought to have had. They have just as good as killed him, I suppose, and now they come sneaking around here and trying to scare me in keeping still about it. I didn’t back down from the master, and I won’t from Pewee. Oh, no! I won’t tell anybody. But if any of you boys should happen to guess that Will Riley and Ben Berry were the cowards who did that mean trick, I am not going to say they weren’t. It wouldn’t be of any use to deny it. There are only two boys in school mean enough to play such a contemptible trick as that.”
Riley and Berry stood sheepishly silent, but just here Pewee came in sight, and seeing the squad of boys gathered around Jack, strode over quickly and pushed his sturdy form into the midst.
“Pewee,” said Riley, “I think you ought to pound Jack. He says you can’t back him down.”
“I didn’t,” said Jack. “I said you couldn’t scare me out of telling who tried to blow up the school-house stove, and let other boys take the whipping, by promising me a drubbing from Pewee Rose. If Pewee wants to put himself in as mean a crowd as yours, and be your puppy-dog to fight for you, let him come on. He’s a fool if he does, that’s all I have to say. The whole town will want to ship you two fellows off before night, and Pewee isn’t going to fight your battles. What do you think, Pewee, of fellows that put powder in a stove where they might blow up a lot of little children? What do you think of two fellows that want me to keep quiet after they let little Lum Risdale take a whipping for them, and that talk about setting you on to me if I tell?”
Thus brought face to face with both parties, King Pewee only looked foolish and said nothing.
Jack had worked himself into such a passion that he could not go to Risdale’s, but returned to his own home, declaring that he was going to tell everybody in town. But when he entered the house and looked into the quiet, self-controlled face of his mother, he began to feel cooler.
“Let us remember that some allowances are to be made for such boys,” was all that she said.
“That’s what you always say, Mother,” said Jack, impatiently. “I believe you’d make allowances for the Old Boy himself.”
“That would depend on his bringing up,” smiled Mrs. Dudley. “Some people have bad streaks naturally, and some have been cowed and brutalized by ill-treatment, and some have been spoiled by indulgence.”
Jack felt more calm after a while. He went back to the bedside of Columbus, but he couldn’t bring himself to make allowances.