Dixon raised his head. There was a bewildered expression in his blue eyes which changed to one of indignant astonishment as the meaning of his teacher’s words dawned upon him. He started up, dashing the tears from his freckled cheeks as he exclaimed:—
“You don’t mean that you suspect me of stealing!”
“Well, really,” said Mr. Horton, actually moving back a step before the indignant flash of those blue eyes. “Well, really, I begin to think I do not, though I must confess that I did a few moments ago. Tell me all about it, Dixon. Evidently you know something about the matter.”
“Oh, yes; I wish I didn’t,” and again the freckled face was hidden by the stained fingers. After a moment’s silence, he went on:—
“Mr. Horton, if I can promise you sure that nothing else will be taken, won’t that do?” he asked imploringly.
“I’m afraid that won’t do, Dixon. I see that you are trying to shield the guilty person, but it is not fair to those who have been robbed, nor do I believe that it would be best for the one who deserves punishment to go scot free. It would encourage him to repeat the crime. Yes,” as Dixon started at the word, “it is a crime, and one that will put the guilty person behind the prison bars, if continued.”
“Oh, Mr. Horton, you won’t put him in prison, will you? Promise me you won’t, or I’ll never tell. I’ll go to prison for it myself first,” he cried excitedly.
“Easy, easy, my boy,” and Mr. Horton laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “If you do not tell what you know, we shall surely find out for ourselves who is the guilty person, and then it may be too late for any word of yours to be of any benefit to him. Be persuaded, Dixon, and tell me all you know about the matter, now.”
“Well—I will,” said the boy, after a moment’s thought; “only, Mr. Horton, I shall depend on you to save him from prison, if you anyway can. You see he’s a little fellow, only thirteen, and it will break his mother’s heart if he’s sent to prison. His mother is an old friend of my mother’s, and when I came in to the city to go to school, last year, I went to her house to board. She’s a widow, and keeps a boarding-house ’way up town. Well, sir, the very day after I went there, I was taken sick with typhoid fever, and my mother was sick at home, so she couldn’t come to me, and Mrs. Gray took care of me just as if I had been her own boy. She sat up nights with me, and oh, I can’t tell you how good she was through all those weeks. The doctor told mother afterwards that I owed my life to Mrs. Gray’s care and nursing, so you see, I can’t help thinking a lot of her, and I’ve tried my best to keep Willie straight; but lately, he’s got to going with one or two bad fellows in the school, and I think, Mr. Horton, that they make a cat’s-paw of him, and make him do things that he’d never think of doing himself, for he isn’t a bad boy really—Willie isn’t—and he’s all his mother has left.”
Again the rough red head went down on the desk, and the boy’s low sobs proved the depth of his sympathy for the widowed mother.