ho
were keeping watch, often said afterwards that it seemed to them almost
a lifetime, such was the crowd of fearful and wretched thoughts and
forebodings, such the anxiety, and hopelessness of their situation.
There in the silence of the wood lay their young companion, stretched
lifeless, and they were the cause. The least rustle amongst the leaves
they mistook for a movement of the sufferer; but he moved not. How did
they watch Mr. Parker's face as he knelt down and applied his fingers to
the boy's wrist first, and then to his heart! With what intense anxiety
did they watch the preparations for applying remedies and restoratives!
"Was he, was he dead, _quite_ dead?" they asked. No, not dead, but the
doctor shook his head seriously, and their exclamations of joy and
relief were soon checked.

Not to follow them through the process of restoring animation, we will
say that he was carefully removed to Mr. Barton's house, and tenderly
watched by his kind wife. He had been stunned by the fall, but this was
not the extent of the mischief. It was found upon examination that the
spine had received irreparable injury, and that if poor White lived,
which was doubtful, it would be as a helpless cripple. Who can tell the
reflections of those boys? Who can estimate the misery of hearts which
had thus returned evil for evil? It was a sore lesson, but one which of
itself could yield no good fruit.

It was a great grief to Fred that his presence, in the excitable state
of the sufferer, seemed to do him harm. He would have liked to sit by
him, and share in the duties of his nursing, but whenever Fred
approached, White became restless and uneasy, and continually alluded,
even in his delirium, to the sod he had thrown, and to other points of
his ungrateful malicious conduct to his school-fellow. This feeling,
however, in time wore away, and many an hour did Fred take from play to
go and sit by poor Joe's couch.

He had no mother to come and watch beside that couch, no kind gentle
sister, no loving father. He was an orphan, taken care of by an uncle
and aunt, who had no experience in training children, and were
accustomed to view young persons in the light of evils, which it was
unfortunately necessary to _bear_ until the _fault_ of youth should have
passed away. Will you not then cease to wonder that Joe seemed to have
so little heart? Affection needs to be cultivated; his uncle thought
that in sending him to school and giving him a g