Harry Fenimore's Principles

by Isabel Thompson Hopkins

CHAPTER V.

The black horse had begun his work in some of the up-town streets before Enoch had finished his, and was hurrying past a handsome brick building just as a crowd of boys were entering it.

“There’s about the place, now,” said Doctor Thorndyke, “where I’d like to see my little patient with the crooked back, after I once get him on his feet again. He’d hold his own with the best of them in his books, if he couldn’t in a foot-race, I’ll warrant, if he only had the chance; and there’s nothing that would shake him up, and put a stop to that miserable ‘all but me’ notion of his, like taking his place among his mates, as he would in a school like that. The only thing is to get him there. It takes a good deal of a back to sit at one of those desks;” upon which the doctor fell into such a fit of musing that he drove three doors beyond the house he was aiming at before he bethought himself what he was about.

Meanwhile the schoolhouse, at which he had looked with such covetous eyes for Creepy, seemed half alive with hustling, bustling boys; the five-minute bell had already rung, and all were making the best of their way to their places, some flying up to the second floor, two stairs at a time, some passing in more quietly at other doors, while here and there a lingering step ventured on a few seconds’ delay to steal a last glance at a lesson that would have no further chance after exercises were once commenced. Only one figure stood still at the foot of the stairs: poor little Tom Haggarty, who had slept off his humiliation about the chess to some extent, but felt it rushing on again with most disagreeable force at sight of Hal, and was terribly anxious to keep at a safe distance from him for the present.

“If I can just keep out of his track till recess,” thought Tom, “he’ll get warmed up with something else, and wont be apt to think of it. I don’t want him to be telling all the boys he can wind me round his finger in a game like that. ’Twasn’t hardly fair, either, for I hadn’t tried but two or three times, and he’s had lots of lessons, and there’s no end of pieces and moves to carry in a fellow’s head.”

But Hal was one of the lingerers, and it seemed as if he never would move on. All the other boys on his floor had passed in, and were taking their seats, while with half an eye on the clock, Hal still stood outside the partly open door mulling over his arithmetic lesson, that he knew would be the first to come upon the floor. Tick, tick, went the clock, and pit-a-pat went Tom’s heart. Could he dare another second? If that door should be shut before he reached the top of the stairs, there was a tardy mark for him, and he was making a tremendous effort about marks this term. Would Hal never move? Perhaps he could creep up softly without his noticing. He put his foot on the first stair, then on the second, keeping his eye on Hal, when suddenly he was no longer there. He had glided in and the door was shut! In a second Tom was at the top and with his hand on the door-knob. The monitor, who had not really removed his own from it to turn the key, allowed it to open. Tom who felt small enough at that moment to have gone through the keyhole, was admitted, and stealing a glance at Hal, already in his seat, met a look that told him things were worse than ever.

He would have given his new hat if he had not seen it, for let him work as he would at his lessons, that look, with what it promised for recess, hung about him like some ugly hobgoblin all the morning, and seemed to put a twist into everything. He called Eheu a noun, and said the Barbadoes were in the Arctic ocean, and finished an algebra example, on the blackboard, in long division, and altogether, when recess came, he felt so completely down that he didn’t care about going out at all, and if he had cared ever so much, he would not have come across Hal for all the recesses in the quarter. So he sat at his desk, and heard the shouts of some tremendous fun coming up to his window, and when the rest came in all aglow with October sun and air, his head ached, and he couldn’t see head or tail to the lesson that lay before him.

But one o’clock came at last; out poured the stream again, and luckless Tom ran on with the rest, hoping that the tide swelled high enough to hide him between the waves, but they parted just in time to let Hal get a glimpse of him.

“Hallo, Checkmaty!” he shouted, “how are bishops this morning? Don’t you want to send your compliments to a fellow’s queen?”

“Checkmaty?” echoed Ned Farraday, a boy in the next class to Tom’s; “what’s that? Did you corner him?”