in a vain endeavor to escape from Riley's
clutches, getting only a sharper cuff for his pains. Ben Berry, arriving
presently, enjoyed the sport, while some of the smaller boys and girls,
coming in, looked on the scene of torture in helpless pity. And ever, as
more and more of the scholars gathered, Columbus felt more and more
mortified; the tears were in his great sad eyes, but he made no sound of
crying or complaint.

Jack Dudley came in at last, and marched straight up to Riley, who let
go his hold and backed off. "You mean, cowardly, pitiful villain!" broke
out Jack, advancing on him.

"I didn't do anything to you," whined Riley, backing into a corner.

"No, but I mean to do something to you. If there's an inch of man in
you, come right on and fight with me. You daren't do it."

"I don't want any quarrel with you."

"No, you quarrel with babies."

Here all the boys and girls jeered.

"You're too hard on a fellow, Jack," whined the scared Riley, slipping
out of the corner and continuing to back down the school-room, while
Jack kept slowly following him.

"You're a great deal bigger than I am," said Jack. "Why don't you try to
corner me? Oh, I could just beat the breath out of you, you great, big,
good-for-nothing----"

Here Riley pulled the west door open, and Jack, at the same moment,
struck him. Riley half dropped, half fell, through the door-way, scared
so badly that he went sprawling on the ground.

The boys shouted "coward" and "baby" after him as he sneaked off, but
Jack went back to comfort Columbus and to get control of his temper. For
it is not wise, as Jack soon reflected, even in a good cause to lose
your self-control.

"It was good of you to interfere," said Susan, when she had come in and
learned all about it.

"I should have been a brute if I hadn't," said Jack, pleased none the
less with her praise. "But it doesn't take any courage to back Riley out
of a school-house. One could get more fight out of a yearling calf. I
suppose I've got to take a beating from Pewee, though."

"Go and see him about it, before Riley talks to him," suggested Susan.
And Jack saw the prudence of this course. As he left the school-house at
a rapid pace, Ben Berry told Riley, who was skulking behind a fence,
that Jack was afraid of Pewee.

"Pewee," said Jack, when he met him starting to school, after having
done his "chores," including the milking of his cow,--"Pewee, I want to
say something to you."

Jack's