he added:

"I shall be very grateful to you for anything you can do to help us all
out of this dilemma and get 'Dodd' on his feet again. For what we must
do, in any event, is to save the boy."

"I shall do all in my power," returned Mr. Weaver, "but I thought he
was doing so well with you, and now he is all at sea again," and with a
groan he left the house.

Mr. Bright sat down to dinner and ate a few hurried mouthfuls.

He had just risen from his slight repast, when a twin Weaver burst into
the room and shouted out:

"Pap wants you to come over to the house as quick as you kin," and
having thus said, he turned and ran.

Mr. Bright remembered the words of "Dodd's" mother, and he feared that
father and son had closed in deadly conflict. He hurried down the
street, and made all haste toward the parsonage.

CHAPTER XV.

When Parson Weaver left Mr. Bright's house he went directly home.
"Dodd" was there before him, and when the elder arrived he found the
boy and his mother together, both apparently indignant and excited.

"To think that he should have struck you over the head with a stick,"
exclaimed Mrs. Weaver, "and then should have the face to come here and
trump up a story about your running away! I always did more than half
suspect that man of lying, and I have found him out now!"

"Why, what is this?" inquired the parson, with a puzzled look.

"Mr. Bright has been striking 'Dodd' over the head with a stick,"
explained Mrs. Weaver; "just see where he hit him!" She pushed the
hair back off her son's forehead as she spoke, and revealed a long red
streak, made, apparently, by a blow from some solid substance.

Elder Weaver was dumbfounded. "Tell me all about this affair," he
demanded of "Dodd," as he led the way to another room, leaving Mrs.
Weaver to go on with her housework.

"All there is of it," answered "Dodd," "Old Bright gave me some of his
lip because I couldn't do an example, and when I tried to explain he
got mad and hit me over the head with a club, and so I got up and left."

"Is that the actual truth of the matter?" asked the elder, anxiously.

"You don't think I'd lie about a thing like that, do you?" said "Dodd."
"You can see where he hit me," he proceeded, himself revealing the welt
on his forehead.

This mark was too much for the good parson. He might have doubted
"Dodd's" word, but there was no disputing the mark.

Now a welt raised by a teacher on the body of a child will