Jim Mills did not repeat his denial; he only gave a great heaving sob. The scholars stood up in their seats to see.
"What a wicked boy!" exclaimed a woman near John Henry.
"He ought to be put in jail," returned another.
"He didn't do it!" John Henry cried out, wildly.
"He must have," said the first woman.
"Yes; you're a real good boy to stand up for him, but he must have," agreed the second woman.
"I tell you he didn't!" almost screamed John Henry; but they paid no more attention. He called the teacher, waving his arms frantically, but she was still busy with Jim Mills, and did not hear or see him. He tried to get up the aisle to her, but it was now blocked. He could not reach his father and mother for the same reason.
Finally John Henry Lewis made a desperate plunge down the aisle, and into the middle of the floor beside the tree. He raised his hand, and everybody stared at him. He was very pale, and his voice almost failed him, but he persisted in the first speech of his life.
"I did it," said he. "He mustn't be blamed. He didn't know anything about it. I told him he'd better come to-night, 'cause he'd get something nice, but that was all he knew about it. All he had last Christmas was an orange and a candy-bag and a girl's book, and he wasn't coming again. I had all the presents and he didn't have anything, and so I swapped. He ain't the one to be blamed; I am."
John Henry, pretty little mother's boy that he was, stood before them all, tingling with the rare shame of a generous action, meeting the astonished faces with the courage of one who invites punishment for guilt.