Ward Hill, the Senior

by Everett T. Tomlinson

"Well, it's just this way. Suppose a fellow--I mean a boy--had come up to the Weston school, and was here a year. Suppose too, that he hadn't done very well. He'd neglected his work and was a great disappointment to his father and mother, and to his teachers, to say nothing of himself. Then suppose he'd fallen in with a set of the fellows--I mean boys--who were up to all sorts of mischief and he'd gone in with them, though all the time he didn't feel right about it. Then suppose he'd failed in his examinations at the end of the year, but that he tried to make them up during the summer. We'll say he came back to school and was able to go on with his class. When he came back he tried to break off with his old associates, but he didn't find it a very easy thing to do. They wouldn't believe in him, and when at last they found he really was trying to do differently, then they tried to make his life a burden to him."

Ward stopped a moment as if he expected some kind of a reply, but as Mr. Crane was silent he resumed his story.

"Well, if it didn't sound too much like telling tales, we'll suppose these fellows--I mean students--tried to do all they could to make life a burden for the boy. They put him off from the nine, they prejudiced the minds of the new boys against him, and some of the old ones too. But that wasn't all. They played all kinds of tricks on him, and worst of all they began to stack his room. I don't know that you understand what that means?" added Ward quickly.

"I think I understand," said Mr. Crane quietly.

"Well, this boy--I mean fellow--no, I don't, I mean boy--would find his room all upset every day. His carpet would be torn up, he'd find that water had been poured on his bed, and sometimes the oil from his lamp would be added too. The fellow--boy I mean--really wanted to study, but he had to take lots of his time from his lessons to set his room to rights. Finally he went at it and found out who was doing the mischief. He discovered that some one had a key to his room, but he found out too, that the fellow--I mean boy--who had the key wasn't the one who was stacking his room. He kept out of it himself, but set other fellows--I mean boys--up to it. And the worst of it all was that they were picking on Little P--I mean on a little fellow who rather looked up to this boy for help.

"Well, finally the boy fixed a trap and caught the one who was trying to get into his room that day. He went over to his room and started to make him give up the key--but--but--he was interrupted, and somehow he didn't do it. Then he went down to the fellow's room--the one at the bottom of it all--and was going to stack his room well, so as to let him know how it felt. But when he got there he somehow couldn't bring himself to do it, and while he was hesitating, the fellow in whose room he was came back and there was a great row.

"No, there was no fight," he hastily added, as he saw the question in the teacher's eyes; "but the fellow didn't know but the boy was trying to stack his room. Now, there's the story, Mr. Crane. I wish you'd tell me what you would do if you were that boy."

For a few moments Mr. Crane was silent, but at last he said: "Hill, I'll try to be entirely frank with you. In the first place, I think I should honor the boy who had gained the victory over himself in that fellow's room. He couldn't afford to do the very same thing he despised in the other fellow."

Ward's face flushed with pleasure, for he felt that praise from Mr. Crane was praise indeed.

"I'm not done yet," resumed Mr. Crane quietly. "Then, if I were that boy, I think I should begin to question myself and see if there was any just cause for the school being down upon me. It may have been that that boy was somewhat conceited, and a little selfish. He was all the time perhaps thinking how the school ought to appreciate everything he did, and he did not have quite the necessary courage to face calmly the results of his own misdeeds."