“Well,” said Ray discontentedly, “I don’t see what I can do except go with him to-morrow. It isn’t likely he’ll ever ask me again, and if he does I needn’t go; but after I’ve accepted his invitation, he’d be mad if I didn’t go this time.”
“Y—es, I suppose so,” said Edith doubtfully; “but I just can’t bear the thought of your being with such a fellow even for one drive, Ray.” Crawford appeared promptly the next day at the hour appointed, and though his talk with Edith had made Freeman uncomfortable, yet he could not repress a thrill of very real pleasure, as the horses bore the light carriage so swiftly through the wide, smooth streets. Crawford exerted himself to be entertaining, and he could be very entertaining when he chose, and before the drive was over, Freeman wondered how he could ever have considered his companion ugly and disagreeable.
“I’ve had a jolly good time, Crawford,” he said heartily, as the carriage stopped again at his own door. “Thank you ever so much for taking me along.”
“Glad you’ve enjoyed it,” replied Crawford. “We’ll repeat it some day soon.”
As he drove off, he chuckled and said to himself, “Little fool! ’Twill be easy enough to get hold of him. And the innocent way the baby told me about St. Clark. Oh my! If it wasn’t rich!”
He drove around for Henderson, and told him what he had wormed out of the unconscious Freeman, and the two put their heads together and planned that which was to bring shame and deep sorrow upon Clark.
As to Freeman, he was so loud in his praises of Crawford and his kindness, that Edith began to wonder if she could have misjudged him, and to think that it might have been merely thoughtlessness and boyish roughness after all, instead of meanness and cruelty, as she had thought, that had made him treat her brother so.
Freeman looked at Crawford doubtfully when he saw him at school on Monday. Even yet, he could not feel quite sure that his new friendliness would be lasting, but Crawford called out a gay greeting and summoned him to join the group about him, and the others followed Crawford’s lead, wondering somewhat at this sudden friendliness towards “little Freeman,” but ready enough to take him in; and he, flattered by Crawford’s notice, and always too ready to follow, soon began to be counted in as one of “Crawford’s crowd.”
One morning a week or two later, Crawford and Henderson were the first to enter the class-room. After a hasty glance around, Crawford exclaimed, “You stay here at the door, Henderson, to see that nobody comes.”
Whatever Crawford had to do was quickly accomplished, and he and Henderson were lounging in the hall, when the other boys began to come in, and all went into D class-room together, where, perched on desks and backs of chairs, they dropped into lively conversation.