“Although we were very poor, my father was determined that I should have an education, and I attended the public school in Hilton, where we lived. I know I’m not handsome, Eliot, and could never be much of a favorite; but the fact that we lived in such humble circumstances and that my father seemed so worthless caused the boys who dared do so to treat me with disdain. Naturally I have a violent temper, and when it gets the best of me I am always half crazy with rage. I always was pretty strong, and I made it hot for most of the boys who dared taunt me about my father or call me names. It seems to me now that I was almost always fighting in those times. I hated the other boys and despised them in a way as much as they despised me.
“My only boy friend and confidant was my little blind brother, Jerry, whose sight was almost totally destroyed by falling from a window when he was only four years old. Although I always wished for a boy chum near my own age, I never had one; and I think perhaps this made me all the more devoted to Jerry, who, I am sure, loved me as much as I did him.
“Jerry’s one great pleasure was in fiddling. Father had a violin, and without any instructions at all Jerry learned to play on it. It was wonderful how quickly he could pick up a tune. I used to tell him he would surely become a great violinist some day.
“Of course my temper and frequent resentment over the behavior of other boys toward me got me into lots of trouble at school. Once I was suspended, and a dozen times I was threatened with expulsion. But I kept right on, and after a while it got so that even the older and bigger boys didn’t care much about stirring me up. If they didn’t respect me, some of them were afraid of me.
“There was a certain old woman in the village who disliked me, and she was always saying I would kill somebody some day and be hanged for it. Don’t think I’m boasting of this, Eliot, for I’m not; I am heartily ashamed of it. I tell it so you may understand what led me into the affair with Bernard Hayden and made him and his father my bitter enemies.
“I suppose it was because I was strong and such a fighter that the boys gave me a chance on the school football team. Hayden opposed it, but I got on just the same. He always was a proud fellow, and I think he considered it a disgrace to play on the team with me. But I was determined to show the boys I could play, and I succeeded fairly well. This changed the bearing of some of them toward me, and I was beginning to get along pretty well at school when something happened that drove me, through no fault of my own, in shame and disgrace from the school and cast a terrible shadow on my life.”
Here Stone paused, shading his eyes with his square, strong hand, and seemed to shrink from the task of continuing. Roger opened his lips to speak a word of encouragement, but suddenly decided that silence was best and waited for the other lad to resume.
“For some time,” Ben finally went on, “my father had been working much in secret in a garret room of our house. Whenever anything was said to him about this he always declared he was working out an invention that would enable him to make lots of money. I remember that, for all of our great poverty, he was in the best of spirits those days and often declared we’d soon be rich.
“There was in the village one man, Nathan Driggs, with whom father had always been on intimate terms. Driggs kept a little shop where he did watch and clock repairing, and he was noted for his skill as an engraver. Driggs was also rather poor, and it was often remarked that a man of his ability should be better situated and more successful.
“One dark night, near one o’clock in the morning, I was aroused by hearing someone knocking at our door. My father went to the door, and, with my wonder and curiosity aroused, I listened at an upper window that was open. The man at the door talked with my father in low tones, and I fancied he was both excited and alarmed.