“Well, I had the row all right,” mused Joe, as he sat down in the chair near a window. “It was just as I expected. As if I could help getting my suit scorched!”
From his window Joe could look across the fields to the fireworks factory, now mostly a heap of ruins. He thought of the professor he had saved, and he also thought of what Mr. Crabb had said of Joe’s father and mother.
“If you were only alive now,” thought Joe, with a sigh, “things would be different. I’d be with you in the circus, and what great times we’d have together!”
With shining eyes, in which there was a small trace of tears, Joe gazed off into the distance. He realized that his feelings were getting the best of him.
“Come, come, old man!” he told himself. “This won’t do! Not at all! Not for a minute! You’ve got to brace up!”
He arose, raised his arms, and, taking off his coat, began to go through some simple gymnastic exercises. Even under his shirt one could see the ripple and play of his superb muscles. Joe was not the sort of athlete that develops into a “strong man.” He was more of the all-around type, though he did possess unusual strength for a youth of his age. He could use it to advantage, too. The trapeze was his favorite, though he could do some startling feats on the flying rings and the horizontal bars.
“There, I feel better!” Joe announced, as he sat down, breathing a little faster because of the rapid exercise he had taken. “But I do wish I had a regular gym. I could work myself up in better shape. But what’s the use of wishing.”
He could hear, from downstairs, the murmur of the voices of his foster-father and mother.
“Talking about me, I suppose,” mused Joe. “Trying to decide what punishment to inflict. Well, I know one thing, and that is if he tries to give me a whipping I won’t stand it! No, sir! That’s the limit! He scolded me enough, and he humiliates me by sending me up here, as if I were some five-year-old child. But that’s as far as I’ll let him go! He shan’t beat me!
“If he does—if he does, I’ll——”