he second,
which closed on Friday, and Bart turned gladly and eagerly toward
home, to his mother and brothers.

The close of that week had been a little under a cloud, which left
just a nameless shadow over the commencement of the third, and Bart
began it with an uneasy feeling.

Bingham, a short, stout, compact young ruffian, of twenty-two or
twenty-three, not quite as tall as Bart, but a third more in weight,
and who had an ugly reputation as a quarrelsome fellow of many fights,
had at first treated Bart with good-natured toleration, and said he
would let him go on awhile. With him consorted John Craft, a chap
of about his age, but of better reputation. Bingham had broken up a
school the winter before, just below in Mantua, and was from the
first an object of dread to parents in the new district. He was a
dull scholar, and his blunders had exposed him to ridicule, which the
teacher could not always repress. He left the school, on that Friday,
moody and sullen, and came back on Monday full of mischief.

Not a word was said, that reached Bart's ears, but the young women
had a scared look, and an ominous dread seemed to brood over the
school-room. Monday and Tuesday came and went, as did the scholars,
and also Wednesday forenoon.

The room was arranged with three rows of desks on two sides, and one
on the third. Behind these sat the large scholars, with Grid, near the
door. When he called the scholars in, after the recess, Bart quietly
locked the outside door, and put the key in his pocket. He was cool,
collected, and on the alert.

The first class began to read, each rising while reading, and then
sitting down. Bart had observed that Bingham sat with his book closed,
and wholly inattentive to the exercise, and quietly placed himself
within a few feet of his desk.

As it came Bingham's turn, he sat with an assumed look of swaggering
indifference. "Mr. Bingham," said Bart very quietly, "will you read?"

"I'm not goin' to read for any God damned----" the sentence was never
finished, though Grid was; yet just how, nobody who saw it could quite
tell. Something cracked, and Grid and his desk went sprawling into the
middle of the floor. A hand came upon his collar as the last word
was uttered. It was so sudden that he only seized his desk, which was
taken from its fastening at the bottom as if it were pasteboard,
and went in ruins with its occupant. As he struck, half stunned and
surprised, he arose partly to his feet