CHAPTER XIII
PROFESSOR SUSAN
Mr. Ball did not let go easily. He had been engaged for the term, and he declared that he would go on to the end of the term, if there should be nothing but empty benches. In truth, he and his partisans hoped that the storm would blow over and the old man be allowed to go on teaching and thrashing as heretofore. He had a great advantage in that he had been trained in all the common branches better than most masters, and was regarded as a miracle of skill in arithmetical calculations. He even knew how to survey land.
Jack was much disappointed to miss his winter’s schooling, and there was no probability that he would be able to attend school again. He went on as best he could at home, but he stuck fast on some difficult problems in the middle of the arithmetic. Columbus had by this time begun to recover his slender health, and he was even able to walk over to Jack’s house occasionally. Finding Jack in despair over some of his “sums,” he said:
“Why don’t you ask Susan Lanham to show you? I believe she would; and she has been clean through the arithmetic, and she is ’most as good as the master himself.”
“I don’t like to,” said Jack. “She wouldn’t want to take the trouble.”
But the next morning Christopher Columbus managed to creep over to the Lanhams:
“Cousin Sukey,” he said, coaxingly, “I wish you’d do something for me. I want to ask a favor of you.”