d expected a petition for a holiday on Christmas day. Such holidays
are deducted from the teacher's time, and it is customary for the boys
to "turn out" the teacher who refuses to grant them, by barring him out
of the school-house on Christmas and New Year's morning. Ralph had
intended to grant a holiday if it should be asked, but it was not
asked. Hank Banta was the ringleader in the disaffection, and he had
managed to draw the surly Bud, who was present this morning, into it. It
is but fair to say that Bud was in favor of making a request before
resorting to extreme measures, but he was overruled. He gave it as his
solemn opinion that the master was mighty peart, and they would be beat
anyhow some way, but he would lick the master fer two cents ef he warn't
so slim that he'd feel like he was fighting a baby.

And all that day things looked black. Ralph's countenance was cold and
hard as stone, and Shocky trembled where he sat. Betsey Short tittered
rather more than usual. A riot or a murder would have seemed amusing to
her.

School was dismissed, and Ralph, instead of returning to the Squire's,
set out for the village of Clifty, a few miles away. No one knew what he
went for, and some suggested that he had "sloped."

But Bud said "he warn't that air kind. He was one of them air sort as
died in their tracks, was Mr. Hartsook. They'd find him on the ground
nex' morning, and he lowed the master war made of that air sort of stuff
as would burn the dog-on'd ole school-house to ashes, or blow it into
splinters, but what he'd beat. Howsumdever he'd said he was a-goin' to
help, and help he would; but all the sinno in Golier wouldn't be no
account again the cute they was in the head of the master."

But Bud, discouraged as he was with the fear of Ralph's "cute," went
like a martyr to the stake and took his place with the rest in the
school-house at nine o'clock at night. It may have been Ralph's
intention to preoccupy the school-house, for at ten o'clock Hank Banta
was set shaking from head to foot at seeing a face that looked like the
master's at the window. He waked up Bud and told him about it.

"Well, what are you a-tremblin' about, you coward?" growled Bud. "He
won't shoot you; but he'll beat you at this game, I'll bet a hoss, and
me, too, and make us both as 'shamed of ourselves as dogs with
tin-kittles to their tails. You don't know the master, though he did
duck you. But he'll larn you a good lesson this time, and