“Jed, I ain’t liked you no better than my boy,” interrupted the butcher, “but you’ve been so decent, and not asked me to punish Pud or send him away where they’ll take care of him, that if it’s agreeable to you I’ll give you two hundred and fifty dollars. Pud, go get my check book.”
“No need to bother about that to-night, Snooks. You can give me the money to-morrow,” declared Jed. And with this understanding Mr. Martin and the crippled veteran took their departure.
Once they were outside, the village patriarch seized the hand of the crippled veteran and shook it heartily.
“Jed, you certainly are a man!” he exclaimed, feelingly. “But where will you go to live, now?”
Ere the old man could answer, Harry and Paul, who had been waiting outside the house, joined them just in time to hear Mr. Martin ask this question.
“If you’d care to, I should like to have you come around to our house!” exclaimed Harry. “I know Aunt Mary would like it, and then as you’re an old friend of dad’s he’d want me to ask you.”
“That would be just the thing,” asserted Mr. Martin, “and I don’t doubt but that you can make arrangements to live at her house with Mary as long as you care to stay in Rivertown. I’ll go and explain things.”
Surprised at first, after the incidents of the evening had been made clear to her, Mrs. Watson readily agreed to board the veteran as long as he cared to remain; and after bidding them all a cordial good-night, Mr. Martin and Paul went to their home.
Many were the glances that were cast at the bully and Harry when they appeared at the high school the following day, but no one had the temerity to speak to them about the incident of the fire, although there were many whispered conversations held in which the sympathy was entirely with the new student.
As Paul had said, the only lesson of importance the freshman class were called upon to attend was the Latin, of which the crusty old Prof. Isaac Plummer, often called “Grouch” by the students, was instructor.