JACK MILLS'S TRICK.
So they kept on, side by side, the children still calling after them, and when they got away from the school house, Jack's voice was heard among the rest, shouting, 'tell-tale,' 'girl-baby,' and other provoking nicknames.
Frank took no notice of them, until his sister stooped down to pick a flower, and as she did so, he saw the paper on her back.
"Who did this?" he said, and as he turned toward the children, he saw Jack throwing a stone. The stone flew past him, hitting his sister in the face. Fanny screamed, and the blood started from her nose.
Jack ran, and Frank's first impulse was to spring after him; but he did not know how badly his sister might be hurt, and so he staid with her, and wiped the blood from her face. The children crowded around, and Harry Day unpinned the pieces of paper, for he felt ashamed, for the part he had taken.
All the while, Frank's heart was full of angry feeling toward Jack, and he could not have kept them down, if he had not had his sister to take care of. He was very glad to find that she was not seriously hurt; for the stone had not hit her with its full force, only grazing her nose, between the eyes.
When they got home, Fanny told her grandmother all about it; but Frank did not say a word. It was plain to be seen by the way in which his head moved, as he walked the floor, that he was striving to obtain a mastery over his passions. After a while he said,
"I wish I could fight Jack Mills, grandmother."
"My dear Frank," she answered, "you have forgotten the golden rule."
"No, I haven't forgotten it, grandmother; for if Jack Mills had a sister, and I had thrown a stone at her, he might have fought me, and welcome."