The lesson went on, but a more vivid picture filled Aleck’s mind than any Carter’s pencil could produce. That face at the desk in the other room! Their eyes had met, and Creepy had recognized him at the same instant and with a great bound of joy, and was over his book now without seeing a word, with no room for anything but the thought that he was here; and Aleck himself had to take good care that he did not stumble in his recitation, he was so busy thinking what Nelly would say when he told her whom he had found, and how she would delight to surprise him with a handful of flowers on his desk now and then.
But the recitation was over at last and with it the first division of the morning session; the bell rang for recess and the stream poured out once more, though soberly as a funeral procession compared with the way it had passed in a few hours before.
This was what Creepy had been longing for, and yet when the moment fairly came, it seemed to him he could not stir. If he could only see that face that had looked in at the door! But he saw only one strange one after another, and each glancing curiously at him as it passed.
But the professor caught sight of him just then and divined the difficulty.
“Don’t you feel like going out? I think I would try if I were you,” he said with the same smile that had been so reassuring in the morning. “Here, Haggarty,” he added to Tom, who had hung behind as usual, to keep clear of something he knew Hal had on his tongue’s end, “take this boy along with you, can’t you, and see that he makes a good time out of it somehow. It don’t do to sit here too long without a breath of air.”
They went down stairs together, and though Creepy thought Tom seemed to be casting sidelong glances at him, it never occurred to him that he saw anything peculiar beyond his being a stranger, and the shouts coming up from the playground had such a tempting sound, that he hurried over the stairs in a way that astonished Tom beyond measure.
“This is the way,” said Tom, pushing open the door, and leading Creepy out, with a feeling that he would do anything in the world if he only knew what was the right thing, but that he really didn’t, he took refuge in a corner close at hand, and a little off the common track of the players.
“Hurrah for Carter and his almanac!” was the shout just now coming up, “Carter’s almanac, the newest thing out!”