Joel sprawled a moment on the floor; then he sprang up, hanging to his book, and faced them. “I'm not going. Clear out.” And in a moment the room was as still as if an invasion had never taken place. In their astonishment they forgot to utter a word.
And in ten minutes the news was all over the playground and in all the corridors, “Joe Pepper isn't going to Moose Island.”
If they had said that the corner stone of the dormitory was shaky, the amazement would not have been so great in some quarters; and the story was not believed until they had it from Joe himself. Then amazement changed to grief. Not to have Joe Pepper along, was to do away with half the fun.
Percy ran up to him in the greatest excitement just before supper. “What is it, Joe?” he cried. “The fellows are trying to say that you're not going to Moose Island.” He was red with running, and panted dreadfully. “And Van is giving it to Red Hiller for telling such a whopper.”
“Well, he needn't,” said Joel, “for it's perfectly true. I'm not going.”
Percy tried to speak; but what with running, and his astonishment, his tongue flapped up idly against the roof of his mouth.
“Dr. Marks won't let me,” said Joel, not mincing matters. “I've got to study; so there's an end of it.” But when Davie came in, a woe begone figure, for Mr. Harrow had kept his promise, then was Joel's hardest time. And he clenched his brown hands to keep the tears back then, for David gave way to such a flood in the bitterness of his grief to go without Joel, that for a time, Joel was in danger of utterly losing his own self-control.
“I'm confounded glad.” It was Jenk who said it to his small following; and hearing it, Tom Beresford blazed at him. “If you weren't quite so small, I'd knock you down.”
“Well, I am glad,”—Jenk put a goodly distance between himself and Tom, notwithstanding Tom's disgust at the idea of touching him—“for Pepper is so high and mighty, it's time he was taken down,” but a chorus of yells made him beat a retreat.
Dr. Marks paced up and down his study floor, his head bent, his hands folded behind him.