A Little Dusky Hero

by Harriet T. Comstock

"Oh! if I were only sure that Daddy would think this was a good time to speak out!" Jack often muttered between his teeth. "I wish these fellows knew how awfully white G. W. is inside!"

But the Colonel had warned Jack against "speaking out" unless indignities to little G. W. should become unendurable.

During one of these story hours in the library, G. W. had remained in the study-room to conquer a particularly knotty problem in addition, while Jack, eager for the tale, which was to be an unusually splendid one, ran on ahead. It happened that when G. W. reached the room he was the last, and the others were clustered around Professor Catherwood.

G. W. paused a moment to look for Jack, but among those dark and light heads grouped close he could not distinguish him. Just then the story plunged into the thick of interest, and G. W. took the nearest empty chair. Unfortunately it was beside Tom Harding, a very quick-tempered but warm-hearted boy, who had, perhaps, more than any other pupil, made G. W.'s life at "Oakwood" a grim experience. He glanced around as G. W. sat down. "Please take another seat!" he said.

For a moment the silence vibrated. G. W. arose and stood rigid, with downcast eyes. The master, too much disturbed to speak, was silent. But Jack Austin arose.

"Tom Harding!" he said with flashing eyes, "George Jones has a white heart and he is the bravest boy in this room! If you knew"—

At this point G. W. went to Jack's side. "Don't you tell dat, Jack!" he said. "Don't yer! You know what de—the Colonel said. Don' yer displease de Colonel!"

But Jack's blood was up. There was something in his young voice that quieted even G. W. He put his hand upon G. W.'s shoulder and kept it there while he spoke.

"George is my legally adopted brother, boys. He saved my father's life down in Cuba." Then came the whole brave, pathetic story, broken here and there by a shake in Jack's voice.

"And when G. W."—Jack had forgotten the more dignified name—"made up his mind on the hill-top to go down after my father, he plunged off where Spaniards were hidden thick and bullets flying. He went alone, and he was awful little. And he went on, and wounded soldiers met him and told him my father was off helpless on the ground in some bushes, and he got near there and he saw a Spaniard aiming his gun and G. W. aimed his and shot true, and the soldier the Spaniard was going to shoot—was my father! And G. W. got my own father back to the tent hospital all alone and no one else on earth did it. My father says G. W. had a glorious, glorious hero-strength. My father and my mother and myself are never, never going to forget what G. W. did! And G. W. is going to have the best life my father can help him get! Now isn't he brave and fine enough to be respected? Is any one going to mind his brown color when his soul is as white—as white as snow? What would you have of a boy?" Jack's voice failed him. G. W., by his side, stood with his back to the boys, even yet as rigid as a statue.