Clark glanced at the board, and taking in the situation, instantly snatched the eraser and rubbed out the drawing as he passed the board. It was barely done before Mr. Horton entered the room. He looked in surprise at Clark turning away from the board, but the boy quietly took his seat, while Reed, with a sigh of relief, settled back in his; and as it was almost nine o’clock, the teacher asked no questions.
At recess, Reed joined Clark, who was walking up and down the sidewalk alone, as usual.
“It was awfully good of you to rub out my scrawl, Clark,” he said.
Before Clark had time to reply, Hamlin joined him, and, with a nod, he turned away from Reed, and the latter, after a moment’s hesitation, strolled back to the boys in the playground.
It was that same day that Clark took a roundabout way home for the sake of the air and exercise. He was walking slowly down a shady, pleasant street, when he noticed a pretty little three-year-old girl coming down the steps of a handsome house near the corner. The little thing had evidently escaped from her nurse, for she cast anxious glances back at the open door as she trotted across the sidewalk. She was just in the middle of the street, when a fire-engine came dashing around the corner at full speed. The child, hearing the gong and seeing the galloping horses coming straight towards her, stopped short in a bewildered fashion, too frightened even to cry out. It was impossible for the driver to stop the horses or turn them aside enough to pass her, but in that instant of time Clark sprang forward, his rapid rush carrying both himself and the child just out of the way of the engine. He and the little girl both rolled in the dirt, but neither was hurt beyond a bruise or two.
As he got on his feet and lifted the frightened child, she began to cry and held out her arms to her mother, who, with a white, shocked face, came running down the steps. She held the little one close, and for a moment she could not speak, but then her eyes filled with tears of gratitude as she turned to Clark and tried to thank him. But, boy-like, Clark felt shy and embarrassed now, and tried to slip away through the crowd that had quickly gathered.
“Do tell me your name,” the mother pleaded earnestly.
Clark opened his lips to give it, but seeing a reporter whip out his notebook and pencil, listening eagerly for the answer, and not wanting to figure as a newspaper hero, he said quickly, “I’m very glad that the little girl was not hurt,” and lifting his hat, slipped through the crowd and was gone.
With a disappointed look, the mother carried her little girl into the house, while the reporter, casting an injured glance after Clark, proceeded to gather from the crowd all the particulars of the affair.
When Clark reached the school-room the next morning, Reed was talking away excitedly to a group of the boys, who were listening and questioning him with eager interest.