CHAPTER IV.
A BRAVE HEART.
“There,” said the widow, when Ben finished eating and sat back, flushing as he realized he had left not a morsel before him, “now I know y’u feel better. It jest done me good to see you eat. It sort of reminded me of the way Joel used to stow victuals away. He was a marster hand to eat, but it never seemed to do him no good. Even when he was in purty good health, which was seldom, he never could eat all he wanted to without feelin’ oppressed arterwards an’ havin’ to lay down and rest. He was a good one at restin’,” she added, with a slight whimsical touch.
Once more Ben tried to find words to express his thanks, and once more Mrs. Jones checked him.
“It ain’t been no trouble,” was her declaration, “an’ it was wuth a good deal to me to see you enjoy it so. What’re y’u doin’ with your trunk pulled out this way?”
This question reminded him again of his determination to leave Oakdale directly; and, knowing the good woman had regarded the room as engaged by him for the time of the fall term of school, and also feeling that to leave her thus and so deprive her of the rent money she expected to receive for weeks to come would be a poor return for her kindness, he hesitated in confusion and reluctance to tell her the truth.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, noting his manner. “Has anything happened? I noticed you was pale, an’ didn’t look jest well, when you come in. Is there anything wrong?”
“Yes, Mrs. Jones,” he forced himself to say; “everything is wrong with me.”
“At the academy? Why,” she exclaimed, as he nodded in answer to her question, “I thought y’u passed the exammernation all right? Didn’t y’u?”
“It’s not that; but I must leave school just the same.”