“Oh, aren’t you ashamed of yourselves! Aren’t—you—ashamed!”
With their reckless, brutish faces flickering 437 before him again, he thought he was watching only her—watching—while her low voice went vibrating on—till they turned from her, swearing and laughing! And then she was stretching out her white hand, catching at one of the pillars, while she slipped down—down beside him on the step—and her arms fell around him helplessly.
“You’ll—take—care of me!” she cried faintly, “won’t you—Ezekiel!”
“Yas’m,” came a broken whisper from the grass, “I’ll tek cyare o’ yer, Mis’ Simons!”
But there was another low voice which he did not understand, and his eyes opened wide, looking up vacantly at Miss North.
“Ezekiel! Have you—have you—been hurt? Oh, Ezekiel——”
“Yas’m, I reckon I is, Mis’ Simons, jes a li’l’,” he mumbled, struggling painfully to his feet; “but I’ll—tek cyare o’ yer—I’ll tek cyare o’ yer, Mis’ Simons!”
The next morning he sat in his seat at school, watching Miss North with large, absent eyes.
“You ought not to have come this morning, Ezekiel,” she began gently, as her eyes rested on his thin, wistful little face; “I don’t think you ought to stay.”