Blushing, Fred tried to escape, but his schoolmates good-naturedly hemmed him in on all sides.
"I appreciate your good will," he began at last, "but I never should have won had not my friends helped me in my studying. Indeed, it is they who deserve the credit, not I."
Fred had been on the point of saying Alice Montgomery, instead of "friends," but as the words were on his tongue's end, he chanced to see Bart's face, malignant with anger and disappointment, peering at him from the edge of the crowd, and, fearing the bully would wreak his vengeance on his sister, should he learn of her actions, he had wisely refrained from paying such tribute to the girl.
But before he went home to dinner, he mailed Alice a note, in which he attributed his success solely to her patient assistance.
The Scholarship thus awarded, the students settled down to the grind of the mid-year examinations.
On the third day succeeding the public announcement of the award, Fred received two letters. One he recognized as from his father, but the other puzzled him.
"Who on earth do you suppose is writing me from Boston?" he exclaimed, after scanning the postmark.
"There's only one way to find out when you receive a letter whose authorship you do not recognize," smiled Mrs. Markham.
But Fred did not open the missive at once, preferring to read what his father had to say.
In affectionate terms, Mr. Markham told Fred how proud he was of him, and then explained that his winning the money for his mother would enable him to use his salary to defray the expense of having a handwriting expert examine the deed of his property, which had been changed, and compare it with specimens of Charlie Gibbs' penmanship.