“I should like to help you out of it,” replied Clinton; “but I couldn’t do that.”
“Then,” added Jerry, in a decided tone, “I shall never see the inside of the old school-house again. I don’t know of anybody else that I can get to write the note, and I am not going there without it, to have the breath beat out of my body. I shall go to Boston, and take my chance,—I wont stay about here any longer.”
“Don’t talk so,” said Clinton. “Why not tell your mother that you didn’t go to school yesterday afternoon, and ask her to write an excuse? She would do it, I guess, if you made the confession, rather than have you punished.”
“She do it!” exclaimed Jerry, with some bitterness; “no, more likely she would write a note requesting old Eaton to lick me like blazes. But,” he continued, “why wont you write the excuse, Clinty?”
Clinton hesitated what reply to make to this question. If he had honestly confessed his feelings, he would have said, “It would be wrong, very wrong, to do such a thing;” for his conscience told him this, and this alone was the objection that weighed in his mind. And yet Clinton, though a well-trained and virtuous boy, had a foolish dread of confessing that he was afraid to do a wrong act. This was especially the case in his intercourse with Jerry, who, he knew, seldom had scruples of this kind, and whose ridicule he dreaded more than that of his other associates. So, after a brief pause, he said,
“Why, there would be a great risk in doing that. If Master Eaton should discover that I wrote the excuse, it would be a bad piece of business for both of us.”
“But how can he find it out? He doesn’t know my mother’s hand-writing, and if you write it neat and fine, he wont suspect anything. Come, you write it when you get home, and bring it with you this afternoon, and I’ll meet you on the road. If you don’t I shan’t go to school, that’s all.”
By this time they had reached Mr. Preston’s house, and after a few more words of coaxing and entreaty, Jerry left his friend, with a pretty confident feeling that he would accede to his wishes. True, Clinton did not actually promise to write the note; but Jerry knew how difficult it was for him to say no, to any pressing suitor, and he felt almost sure that his wicked plan would be successful.
When Clinton was left to his own thoughts, there came on a severe struggle in his mind. He could not bear the idea of lending himself to such a mean and wicked piece of deception, and yet he feared to meet Jerry with a refusal. He thought, also, what the consequences would be to himself, should the fraud be discovered. And then he thought of Jerry’s threat to leave school and run away from home, if he did not write the excuse. If he could prevent this great sin on the part of Jerry, might it not atone in a measure for the lesser sin of writing the note? This question arose in his mind, and many an older head has been led astray by a similar suggestion. No, Clinton, you must not do evil that good may come, or greater evil be prevented. You must not commit a sin, even in kindness to a friend. But he did not hear the voice, and when he reached his home, he was as undecided as ever what to do.
Clinton’s long walk to and from school, left him little more than time enough to eat his dinner. The noon meal not being quite ready, when he entered the house, he went to his father’s desk, and began to scribble something in the form of a note of excuse. After writing several, to see how they would look, he was called to dinner; and hastily selecting the best looking of the notes, he put it in his pocket, for future consideration, and destroyed the others. Even now, he was no nearer a decision than he was at first.