d his right to wear it
without remark by beating the biggest boy in school. He stood erect,
equally poised on his two feet, looking straight ahead with a grave,
unsmiling air. He looked especially at no one, except once at his
sister Elmira. She had just raised her head from the curve of her
arm, in which she had been weeping, and her tear-stained eyes met her
brother's. He looked steadily at her, frowning significantly. Elmira
knew what it meant. She began to study her geography, and did not cry
again.

At recess the teacher went up to Jerome, and spoke to him almost
timidly. "I am very sorry about this, Jerome," she said. "I am sorry
you fought, and sorry I had to punish you in this way."

Jerome looked at her. "She's a good deal like mother," he thought.
"You had to punish somebody," said he, "an'--_I'd_ licked _him_."

The teacher started; this reasoning confused her a little, the more
so that she had an uneasy conviction that she had punished the lesser
offender. She looked at the proud little figure in the torn coat, and
her mild heart went out to him. She glanced round; there were not
many scholars in the room. Elmira sat in her place, busy with her
slate; a few of the older ones were in a knot near the window at the
back of the room. The teacher slipped her hand into her pocket and
drew out a lemon-drop, which she thrust softly into Jerome's hand.
"Here," said she.

Jerome, who treated usually a giver like a thief, took the
lemon-drop, thanked her, and stood sucking it the rest of the recess.
It was his first gallantry towards womankind.

This teacher remained in the school only a half-term. Some said that
she left because she was not strong enough to teach such a large
school. Some said because she had not enough government. This had
always been considered a man's school during the winter months, but a
departure had been made in this case because the female teacher was
needy and a minister's daughter.

The place was filled by a man who never tempered injustice with
lemon-drops, and ruled generally with fair and equal measure. He was
better for the school, and Jerome liked him; but he felt sad, though
he kept it to himself, when the woman teacher went away. She gave him
for a parting gift a little volume, a treasure of her own childhood,
purporting to be the true tale of an ungodly youth who robbed an
orchard on the Sabbath day, thereby combining two deadly sins, and
was drowned in crossing a brook on hi