n advantage--it was two hands agin one. Leander had
but the one to operate his stick with, while Ernest was drivin' both
fists right into the darkness in front of him. The stick was making no
impression, and some of the small boys that didn't know no better begin
to cheer. Boys, you otter 'a' been there. You'd have enjoyed it,
Henery. Leander seen what he needed was tactics, and his regular
tactics was to hold the scholar at arm's length by the hair. He tried
it and it didn't work. Ernest was usin' tactics too. He wasn't
wastin' strength and beatin' his arms around. He just smiled. That
smile aroused the teacher in Leander agin. He couldn't stand it. He
had never had a boy do that before; he forgot himself and sailed in.
Boys, that was fightin' then. You'd have enjoyed it, Henery. Still, I
guess it couldn't have been much to watch, for there was nothin' to see
but dust--a rollin', roarin' cloud of it, backward and forward over the
platform. I don't know just what happened. Pap couldn't tell.
Leander couldn't 'a' told you. Ernest couldn't 'a' told you. There
was war--real war, and after it come peace."

"Ernest whipped, I know," cried Henry Holmes.

"The teacher was licked--good--good!" shouted Isaac Bolum.

"No, boys," said Josiah solemnly, "that couldn't have been. Even in
fairy stories sech things couldn't happen. But when the dust cleared
away, Leander's body lay along the floor, and towerin' over him, one
foot on his boosom, stood the darin' scholar. I guess the teacher had
been took ill."

"Mebbe it was appleplexy," suggested Elmer Spiker.

"Mebbe it was," said Josiah. "It must have been somethin' like that;
but whatever it was, there stood the boy. 'You is free,' he says,
addressin' the scholars. And the children broke from the seats and
started for'a'd to worship him. And Pinky Binn was almost on her knees
at his feet, when a strange thing happened.

"There was music. It come soft first, and hushed the school, and froze
the scholars like statutes. Louder it come and louder--a heavenly
choir--the melodium, the cordine, and the fiddle. Then a great white
light flooded the school-room. It blinded the boys, and it blinded the
girls. The music played softer and softer--the melodium, the cordine,
and the fiddle--and with it, keepin' time with it, the light come
softer, too; so lookin' up the scholars seen there in the celestial
glow, a solemn company gethered round the boy--the he-ro