“I am so sorry, Edith,” Clark answered, “I’ve tried to get him away from that set, but he doesn’t care to be with me any more. He as much as told me to ‘mind my own business’ and let him alone, the last time I spoke to him.”
“Yes,” sighed Edith, “that’s the way he answers me. But Stanley, Ray isn’t really a bad boy, and I’m sure that something is troubling him, and that is what makes him so cross, lately.”
“Perhaps it is his low rank in class,” suggested Clark.
Edith shook her head. “No, it’s something more than that, I’m sure,” she said. Then she added earnestly, “Don’t give him up, Stanley. He has always looked up so to you, and I’m sure he does care for you a great deal more than for those horrid big fellows that he goes with now, and—and, we must get him away from them somehow.”
Her voice trembled, and Clark’s face expressed the sympathy he felt.
“I’ll do all I can, cousin Edith. If only Crawford and Henderson wouldn’t come back to school, I think there would be much less trouble. They are the evil influence in the class,” he said, thoughtfully.
“Yes, and the evil influence that is leading my brother astray,” said Edith, sadly.
After this conversation, Clark was constantly on the watch for any opportunity to help his young cousin, not only for his own sake, but yet more for that of the sister whose loving heart was so heavily burdened with anxiety on her brother’s account. Clark had the true knightly spirit, and counted it the duty of a boy to care for his mother and sisters, and ward off from them, as far as possible, all sorrow and trouble. No mother ever had a more tender, thoughtful son than his mother had in him, and since he had no sister, he felt himself in duty bound to do for Edith, as far as he could, what her own brother failed to do; and above all, to bring back that brother to the path of duty and uprightness from which he had strayed.
But how to do this was the question—since Freeman avoided him and responded so coldly to all his advances. Clark pretended not to see this, and persisted in being friendly, yet he felt more than a little discouraged, and was often tempted to give it up, and leave the boy to do as he would. It was only the remembrance of Edith’s sorrowful face that kept him from doing so.
Out of school hours, Freeman now spent half his time in Crawford’s rooms, and during the weeks of Crawford’s and Henderson’s absence, he spent every recess with Coyle, Green, and others of like character.