s. My brain had gone back over the events of
that tragic moment--the fall, the swift dream, the look of the robber in
the dim light, the hurling of the stone. The man who fled was about the
size of Amos, but I had never thought of the latter as the guilty man.

"You saw the crime, I believe," said Mr. Hacket as he turned to me.

I told them all that I knew of it.

"Upon my word, I like you, my brave lad," said the schoolmaster. "I
heard of all this and decided that you would be a help to Michael Henry
and a creditable student. Come, let us go and pay our compliments to the
Senator. He rises betimes. If he stayed at the tavern he will be out and
up at his house by now."

The schoolmaster and I went over to Mr. Wright's house--a white, frame
building which had often been pointed out to me.

Mrs. Wright, a fine-looking lady who met us at the door, said that the
Senator had gone over to the mill with his wheelbarrow.

Mr. Hacket asked for the time and she answered:

"It wants one minute of seven."

I quote her words to show how early the day began with us back in those
times.

"We've plenty of time and we'll wait for him," said the schoolmaster.

"I see him!" said little John as he and Ruth ran to the gate and down
the rough plank walk to meet him.

We saw him coming a little way down the street in his shirt-sleeves with
his barrow in front of him. He stopped and lifted little John in his
arms, and after a moment put him down and embraced Ruth.

"Well, I see ye still love the tender embrace o' the wheelbarrow," said
Mr. Hacket as we approached the Senator.

"My embrace is the tenderer of the two," the latter laughed with a look
at his hands.

He recognized me and seized my two hands and shook them as he said:

"Upon my word, here is my friend Bart. I was not looking for you here."

He put his hand on my head, now higher than his shoulder, and said: "I
was not looking for you _here_."

He moved his hand down some inches and added: "I was looking for you
down there. You can't tell where you'll find these youngsters if you
leave them a while."

"We are all forever moving," said the schoolmaster. "No man is ever two
days in the same altitude unless he's a Whig."

"Or a _born_ fool," the Senator laughed with a subtlety which I did not
then appreciate.

He asked about my aunt and uncle and expressed joy at learning that I
was now under Mr. Hacket.

"I shall be here for a number of weeks," he said, "and I