It is just like him. There he comes now;
I'll make him confess it." Miss Dobb's eyes flashed, her lips trembled,
she was so angry. She remembered that one of the pigs which Paul
painted, when he was a boy, was hers; she also remembered how he sent
Mr. Smith's old white horse on a tramp after a bundle of hay.

Paul was on his way to Mr. Chrome's shop, to begin work for the day. He
wondered at the crowd. He saw the sign, and laughed with the rest.

"You did that, sir," said Miss Dobb, coming up to him, reaching out her
long hand and clutching at him with her bony fingers, as if she would
like to tear him to pieces. "You did it, you villain! Now you needn't
deny it; you painted my pig once, and now you have done this. You are a
mean, good-for-nothing scoundrel," she said, working herself into a
terrible passion.

"I did not do it," said Paul, nettled at the charge, and growing red in
the face.

"You are a liar! you show your guilt in your countenance," said Miss
Dobb.

Paul's face was on fire. Never till then had he been called a liar. He
was about to tell her loudly, that she was a meddler, tattler, and
hypocrite, but he remembered that he had read somewhere, that "he who
loses his temper loses his cause," and did not speak the words. He
looked her steadily in the face, and said calmly, "I did not do it," and
went on to his work.

Weeks went by. The singing-school was drawing to a close. Paul had made
rapid progress. His voice was round, rich, full, and clear. He no longer
appeared at school wearing his grandfather's coat, for he had worked for
Mr. Chrome, painting wagons, till he had earned enough to purchase a new
suit of clothes. Besides, it was discovered that he could survey land,
and several of the farmers employed him to run the lines between their
farms. Mr. Rhythm took especial pains to help him on in singing, and
before winter was through he could master the crookedest anthem in the
book. Daphne Dare was the best alto, Hans Middlekauf the best bass, and
Azalia the best treble. Sometimes Mr. Rhythm had the four sing a
quartette, or Azalia and Paul sang a duet. At times, the school sang,
while he listened. "I want you to learn to depend upon yourselves," said
he. Then it was that Paul's voice was heard above all others, so clear
and distinct, and each note so exact in time that they felt he was their
leader.

One evening Mr. Rhythm called Paul into the floor, and gave him the
rattan with which he beat ti