Bob Richards was a new fellow; only been there four weeks; and when he first came we thought he was a regular moon-calf. He was rather small of his age and had a kind of pinched, half-starved look, as if he’d never had a good square meal from soup clear through to pudding in his life. He was homesick and lonesome too, and we got into the way of calling him “baby” and “sissy,” but he never seemed to mind a bit, but would always help a fellow with his lessons just the same, and was first-class in any game.
One day Ralph Bixby, the bully of the school, said something about Richard’s mother, and I just wish you could have seen that little fellow fire up.
“You say what you like about me,” says he, “but don’t you say anything about my mother; it won’t be best for you, Bixby.”
“Do you want to fight?” says Bixby, bristling up like a turkey cock.
“It is not fighting I am after,” says Richards, very quietly, “but I can fight if there is need of it.”
But Bixby said he wouldn’t fight with an underclass man, and then went off and told Dr. Thomas that little Richards had been offering to fight. We all liked little Richards, for he was clear grit right through and no mistake. So when Jeff told us his plan we all agreed to it and there weren’t more than half a dozen of us fellows that knew about it, and we didn’t have to go and tell everyone about it either, as girls would.
BOB IS CALLED UPON TO MEET HIS DOOM.
At last the term was ended, and we were going home next day; that is, all we fellows who had any homes to go to, or any invitations to visit. But Bob Richards, he didn’t have any place to go because his mother was poor and lived way down in Machias, and it was too far away. So most boys would have been ugly about it and envious of the other boys, but Richards wasn’t a bit. Will and I were though, one winter when all our people were away in Germany, and we had to stay at the school or else go to Aunt Jocelyn’s. We don’t like very well to go to Aunt Jocelyn’s, for she always has cold meat and rice pudding without any plums, and says that she likes to see boys sober and useful. She gave Will and me dictionaries for Christmas presents. So we’d rather go most anywhere than to Aunt Jocelyn’s. But we were mad though to think we had to stay at the school, and Will told one of the fellows that he’d punch him if he didn’t stop looking so glad.
Little Richards you would have thought was going himself, he looked so glad and happy, and rushed about up and down stairs into all the rooms, helping the fellows pack and cord their trunks, strap up their valises, and directing cards for their boxes, and you’d have thought he was going himself sure enough.