“He left home without leave. I shall go up to-morrow and bring him back.”
He went to New York the next day, and had an unsatisfactory interview with Sam. The latter admitted having seen Joshua, but said he did not like to betray him. He said that he had tried to induce Joshua to return home, but that the latter had refused. He said he did not know where he was now, but thought he had gone to Boston. Mystified and bewildered, Mr. Drummond was forced to go home without his son, who was now some distance on the way to Chicago. Having accompanied him thus far, we must now go back to our principal hero, and inquire how Walter was getting on with his Western school.
CHAPTER XXI
AN EVENTFUL MONDAY.
And now to return to Walter Conrad, whom we left looking forward to commencing school as Mr. Barclay’s successor, on Monday morning. It was certainly a difficult and responsible task for one who was in age but a schoolboy, especially as Walter had reason to believe that there were some who had resolved in advance to dispute his authority. Had he been of a nervous or timid character, he would have been led to back out at the eleventh hour, but Walter was resolute and plucky. He had a modest self-reliance, which his brief experience as a book agent had confirmed. The spirit in which he approached his new vocation may be inferred from his own remark to Allen Barclay, at the end of the tenth chapter: “At any rate, the die is cast; I have agreed to take the school, and I shall do what I can to succeed.
“‘In battle I’ll fall, or in death be laid low,
With my face to the field, and my feet to the foe.’”
Monday morning came at length. So far as the weather was concerned, it opened auspiciously. The excitement of having a new teacher, more especially one who, as was generally supposed, even among the more orderly scholars, would fail in discipline, caused the pupils to assemble earlier than usual on the green plot in front of the schoolhouse.
Among these was Peter Groot, already described as more likely than any other to prove troublesome. It had always been found necessary by past teachers to appeal to force in this case. When he found that the teacher could “whip” him, he subsided into a sullen submission. Allen Barclay had been compelled to flog him on the second day, and he did it so effectually that Peter never needed a second lesson. But as, both in appearance and reality, Peter was a little older than the new teacher, and, as he himself supposed, considerably stronger, he looked forward with confidence to “licking” Walter, if the latter should endeavor to enforce the commands which he intended to disobey.
“How are you, Peter?” said John Wall, on arriving at the schoolhouse, twenty minutes early. “How do you like having a new teacher?”