CHAPTER VII.
The hum of Tom’s schoolroom had gone steadily on all this time, and was busier than ever, if possible just now, looking forward to the few days’ vacation just at hand, after which would come the short closing term of the year, followed by examination-day, the culmination of all excitement to the graduating class. Aleck was at the head of that, and Tom tried not to think of the day when he would go; it seemed to him school would be like a boxing-match without gloves after that; he wondered if he ever should get used to rubs and knocks so as to go on comfortably through the world. As for a world where people did not like giving them well enough to keep you in much danger, he never dreamed of such a possibility. If he could only pluck up enough not to mind it more than other boys! And yet he was sure, if the truth were told, they didn’t like snubbing and being crowed over much better than he, but they had a way of getting over it as he couldn’t.
However, if he stopped for more reflections, his arithmetic examples would not be done, and he plunged in among them with such zeal, that the last one was soon unravelled, and stopping to breathe a moment before taking up his Latin, he caught sight of a little performance going on between two of his neighbors, Carter, the catcher who had retrieved fortunes for Tom the afternoon when luck was so against him on the ball-ground, and Davis, who sat just behind him, and at Tom’s elbow. They were in a class higher than Tom’s, and had some pretty tough knots come in their way, as he very well knew, and they were at work at them just now, but each very much in his own fashion. Carter sat with one hand drawn through his hair, and pressing it tight with all his fingers as if that would help pull through his difficulties, and with knotted brow was working away like a Trojan, with no eyes or ears for anything off the battle-field, while Davis behind him shuffled over his pages for some rules or example that should throw a little light, frowned, put down a few figures, rubbed them out again, and pushed his slate impatiently aside.
At last, happening to peep over Carter’s shoulder, he saw the result of his toil. Every example but the last done to a fraction, and lying in neat figures in its own corner of the slate. A gleam of satisfaction spread over his face, and drawing a little closer, he quietly and with rapid strokes, transferred every one to his own slate. All but the last. Carter was still at work upon that, but it wouldn’t come. Over and over again the figures were erased, and the example begun again at the beginning.
“Pshaw!” exclaimed Davis under his breath, “time’s nearly up;” and writing a note to one of the older boys who sat near, he quietly passed it over to him, and in a few moments received it again, with the example clear as daylight on the back, and requiring but a moment to transfer it to his slate.
None too soon, however, for the bell rang as he put down the last figure, and the class was called to the blackboard.
Carter was at the head, a place he had held for some time by persistent, hard work, and accordingly explained the first example with a precision that showed it lay clear-cut in his own mind. Others followed rapidly, and the last fell to Davis.
“Have you the last, Davis?” asked the professor.
“Yes, sir.”
“Let us have it, then.”