wan cheeks, and the slender hands moved
uneasily on the outside of the blue coverlet, the puny arms were bare to
the elbows.

Mrs. Risdale beckoned Jack to come forward, and he came and stood at the
bed-foot. Then Columbus opened his large eyes and fixed them on Jack for
a few seconds.

"Come, Jack, dear old fellow," he whispered.

Jack came and bent over him with tearful eyes, and the poor little
reed-like arms were twined about his neck.

"Jack," he sobbed, "the master's right over there in the corner all the
time, straightening out his long switches. He says he's going to whip me
again. But you won't let him, will you, Jack, you good old fellow?"

"No, he shan't touch you."

"Let's run away, Jack," he said, presently. And so the poor little
fellow went on, his great, disordered brain producing feverish images of
terror from which he continually besought "dear good old Jack" to
deliver him.

When at last he dropped again into a troubled sleep, Jack slipped away
and drove up the Risdale cow, and then went back to his breakfast. He
was a boy whose anger kindled slowly; but the more he thought about it,
the more angry he became at the master who had given Columbus such a
fright as to throw him into a brain fever, and at the "mean, sneaking
contemptible villains," as he hotly called them, who wouldn't come
forward and confess their trick, rather than to have the poor little lad
punished.

"I suppose we ought to make some allowances," his mother said, quietly.

"That's what you always say, mother. You're always making allowances."

After breakfast and chores, Jack thought to go again to see his little
friend. On issuing from the gate, he saw Will Riley and Ben Berry
waiting for him at the corner. Whether they meant to attack him or not
he could not tell, but he felt too angry to care.

"I say, Jack," said Riley, "how did you know who put the powder in the
stove? Did Columbus tell you?"

"Mind your own business," said Jack, in a tone not so polite as it might
be. "The less you say about gunpowder, hereafter, the better for you
both. Why didn't you walk up and tell, and save that little fellow a
beating?"

"Look here, Jack," said Berry, "don't you tell what you know about it.
There's going to be a row. They say that Doctor Lanham's taken Susan,
and all the other children, out of school, because the master thrashed
Lummy, and they say Bob Holliday's quit, and that you're going to quit,
and Doctor Lanham's gon