“Mother!”
“But, Zeb, my boy, I’m not at all sorry you tried to do your duty, and that you didn’t flinch.”
Zeb half believed his mother to be an angel at any time, but she had never before seemed nearer one than just then.
It was pretty certain her words would return to him some other time, when a question should arise between duty and “flinching.”
Just then, however, after a good bit of work at the wash-basin, Zeb went out to look after the wants of the bay colt, with a glow at his heart and a sort of feeling that he wouldn’t mind having his other eye blackened.
“I’m getting awful stiff, though,” he said to himself, “and I don’t believe I could make much of a wrestle till I get the marks of that club off my arms and legs.”
On his way to the pasture afterwards, Zeb learned from Bill Jones and Hy Allen the results of their day’s fishing, and the other boys assured him they had kept for him a liberal share of the spoils of the old “sweet tree.”
At Dr. Dryer’s house, that evening was an unusually lively one, for the doctor and his wife, and even Effie herself, were “on their good behavior” in one sense over the newcomer.