That very day there came to school the sullen-looking boy whom I had seen in the tobacco patch. I asked him his name and he answered that he had forgotten to bring it with him. "Perhaps," said I, "it would be well to go back and get it."
"If you want it wus'n I do I reckon you better go atter it."
This set the children to laughing. My humiliation was begun.
"I understand why you have come," said I, "and I must tell you that you must obey the rules if you stay here. What is your name?"
"Gibblits," he answered. The children laughed and he stood regarding me with a leer lurking in the corners of his evil-looking mouth.
"All right, Mr. Gibblits, where are your books?" He grinned at me and answered: "Ain't got none."
"Well, sit down over there and I'll attend to you after a while."
"Won't set down and won't be attended to."
"Well, then, I'll attend to you right now." I grabbed him by the collar, jerked him to me and boxed his jaws. He ran out howling when I turned him loose, and for a time he stood off in the woods, throwing stones at the house. The war was begun. And I expected to encounter the Aimes forces on my way home, but saw nothing of them as I passed within sight of the house. I hoped to see a look of sweet alarm on Guinea's face, when I should tell her of the danger that threatened me, and there was sweetness in her countenance, when I told her, though not a look of alarm, but a smile of amusement. Was it that she felt no interest in me? The other members of the family were much concerned, but that was no recompense for the girl's apparent indifference. The old man snorted, Mrs. Jucklin was so wrought upon that she strove to prepare me a soothing dish at supper, but Guinea remained undisturbed. I could not help but speak to Alf about it when we had gone up to our room. "Oh, you never can tell anything about her," he said. "It's not because she isn't scared, but because she hates to show a thing of that sort. I'm mighty sorry it has come about. But there's only one way out—fight out if they jump on you. I don't know how soon they intend to do anything, but I'll nose around and come over to the school this evening if I hear anything. Don't let it worry you; just put it down as a thing that couldn't be helped."
It did not worry me—the fact that I might be on the verge of serious trouble, did not; but the thought of Guinea's careless smile lay cold upon my heart, and all night I was restless under it. And when I went down stairs at dawn I met her in the passage way, carrying a light. She looked up at me, shielding the light with her hand to keep the breeze from blowing it out, and smiled, and in her smile there was no coolness, and yet there was naught to show me that she had passed an anxious night. Ah, love, we demand that you shall not only be happy, but miserable at our wish. We would dim your eye when our own is blurred; we would smother your heart when our own is heavy, and would pierce it with a pain. Upon her children this old world has poured the wisdom of her gathered ages, and could we look from another sphere we might see the minds of great men twinkling like the stars, but the human heart is yet unschooled, yet has no range of vision, but chokes and sobs in its own emotion, as it did when the first poet stood upon a hill and cried aloud to an unknown God.