Mr. Tarton stopped speaking and waited. It grew very still and quiet in the room. If any one had dropped a pin it could have been heard in the farthest corner. But no one dropped a pin. Nor did any one speak. Nor did any boy stand up to say he had broken the window.
The silence continued. The teachers, sitting in a row back of Mr. Tarton on the platform, looked at the faces of the boys and girls in front of them.
“Well,” said the principal in a low voice, “I am waiting.”
Still no one got up. Some of the boys and girls began to shift uneasily in their seats and shuffled their feet. They were getting what an older person would call “nervous.”
“It does not seem,” went on Mr. Tarton, “that the boy who broke the window is going to be man enough to own up to it. I dislike to do this, but I must ask if any one here knows anything about it. I mean did any of you see any one throw a snowball at the church window?”
There was a further silence, but only for a few seconds. Then up went the hand of Sam Todd. Some of the girls gasped loudly, seeming to guess what was coming next.
“Well, Sammie,” said Mr. Tarton kindly, “what do you know about breaking the church window? Did you do it?”
“No, sir!”
“Do you know who did?”
“Yes, sir!”