Stories Worth Rereading Part 18

"I cannot do it, Miss Andrews," he said, "I tried it as many as fifty times, I think, in fifty different ways, and I could not get near the answer."

"That is very sad!" said Miss Andrews, trying not to laugh. "If you had not tried so many ways, but worked faithfully at one, you might have done better."

Then she called on the boy next to him, with no better success. A long row of downcast eyes and blus.h.i.+ng faces. Some of the pupils confessed that they had not even attempted the problem, but had been discouraged by the reports of others.

"Is there no one who is willing to go to the board," said Miss Andrews, "and attempt the work, carrying it as far as he can?"

At just that moment she caught sight of Earle Hamlin's face, and spoke to him.

"Will you try it, Earle?"

And Earle went. Silence in the cla.s.s-room. All eyes on the blackboard, and the quick fingers of one boy handling the crayon. How fast he worked! Had be multiplied right?--No. Yes, that was right. O, but he had blundered in subtraction! No, he had not; every figure was right. Ah! now he had reached the place where none of them knew what to do next. But he knew! Without pause or confusion, he moved on, through to the very last figure, which he made with a flourish. Moreover, he knew how to explain his work, just what he did, and why he did it. As he turned to take his seat, the admiring cla.s.s, whose honor he had saved, broke into applause, which the smiling teacher did not attempt to check.

"I think we owe Earle a vote of thanks," she said. "I confess my surprise as well as pleasure in his work; I did not expect any of you to succeed. In truth, I gave you the example rather as a trial of patience than in the hope that you could conquer it. You remember, however, that I gave you permission to secure help if you utterly failed. Will you tell us, Earle, if you had any help?"

"Yes'm," said Earle. "My Cousin Carrol helped me."

And then Cousin Carrol's astonishment suddenly broke into laughter.

"I have not the least idea what he means," she said, in her clear, silvery voice. "I was so far from helping him that I tried all by myself to do the example, and failed."

The cla.s.s began to cheer again, but hushed suddenly to hear what Earle was saying.

"All the same, she helped me," he said, st.u.r.dily. Then, seeing that he must explain, he added, hurriedly "We had been talking about the giants, you know, and the gra.s.shoppers, just the night before, and I thought to myself then that I was not a gra.s.shopper, anyhow; but I never thought about the example being a giant, and I was just going to quit it when Cousin Carrol came to the door and spoke about the giants, and then I went at it again."

Some of the pupils looked hopelessly puzzled. Mr. Hamlin's face was one broad smile. "Students of Old Testament history have the advantage here today, I fancy," he said.

"Earle," said Miss Andrews, "are you willing to tell us how long you worked on the example?"

"I began it at six o'clock," said Earle, "and I got it just as the clock struck eleven."

There was no use in trying to keep that cla.s.s from cheering. They felt that their defeat had been forgotten in Earle's victory.

Mr. Hamlin and Judge Dennison stood talking together after the cla.s.s was dismissed.

"Do you know, I like best of all that word of his about his cousin's helping him?" said Judge Dennison. "It was plucky in the boy to keep working, and it took brains to study out that puzzle; but that little touch which showed that he was not going to accept the least sc.r.a.p of honor that did not belong to him was what caught me. You have reason to be proud of your son, Mr. Hamlin."--_Pansy, by permission of Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co._

AS GOOD AS HIS BOND

I remember that a good many years ago, when I was a boy, my father, who was a stone-mason, did some work for a man named John Haws. When the work was completed, John Haws said he would pay for it on a certain day. It was late in the fall when the work was done, and when the day came on which Mr. Haws had said he would pay for it, a fearful storm of sleet and snow and wind raged from morning until night. We lived nine miles from the Haws home, and the road was a very bad one even in good weather. I remember that father said at the breakfast-table:--

"Well, I guess that we shall not see anything of John Haws today. It will not make any difference if he does not come, as I am not in urgent need of the money he owes me. It will make no difference if it is not paid for a month."

But about noon Mr. Haws appeared at our door, almost frozen, and covered with sleet and snow.

"Why, John Haws!" exclaimed my father, when he opened the door, and saw who it was that had knocked. "I had not the least idea that you would try to ride away out here in this fearful storm."

"Did I not say that I would come?" asked John Haws, abruptly.

"O, yes; but I did not regard it as a promise so binding that you must fulfil it on a day like this!"

"Any promise that I make is binding, regardless of wind and weather. I said that I would pay the money today, and I am here to keep my word."

"But, then, it is only a small sum, and I do not really need it."

"I need to keep my word. If the sum had been but ten cents, and you were a millionaire, and I had said that I could pay it today, I would be here to pay it if I had been compelled to ride fifty miles."

Do you wonder that it was often said of John Haws that his word was as good as his bond? He was as truthful as he was honest. I remember that a neighbor of ours stopped at our house one day on his way home from the town. He had an almost incredible story to tell about a certain matter, and father said:--

"Why, it hardly seems possible that such a thing can be true."

"John Haws told me about it."

"O, then it is true!"

"Yes, or John Haws never would have told it."

It is a fine thing to have a reputation like that. It is worth more than much worldly glory and honor when they are combined with the distrust of the people. There are men in high positions, with all that wealth can buy at their command, who are much poorer than humble John Haws, because their word is of no value, and they have none of that high sense of honor that glorifies the humblest life.--_Selected_,

PLAIN BERNICE

The last stroke of the bell was dying away ere Bernice Dahl walked timidly across the schoolroom floor, and sat down in the nearest empty seat.

"O, my, my!" whispered Myrtle Fling across the aisle to her chum. "She is the plainest-looking girl I ever saw."

Elizabeth nodded her head very positively, and two or three others exchanged knowing glances. A moment later a little piece of paper fluttered down at Myrtle's feet from a desk top. On it was written: "She's so plain.

She's Rocky Mountainy--all ridges and hubbles."

Meanwhile Bernice sat very still, her great black eyes fixed on the teacher's face.

Have you ever held a frightened bird in your hand, and felt its heart beat?

That is the way Bernice's heart was going. She was a stranger. Her father had moved to this place from a distant town, and she had walked to school that morning with a pupil who lived on the same street, but who had fluttered away into a little bevy of children almost as soon as she had shown the new girl the cloak-room; and Bernice, naturally a bit diffident and sensitive, felt very much alone.

This feeling was heightened when the bell struck, and one by one the pupils filed past into the schoolroom, with only a rude stare or indifferent glance, quite as if she were some specter on exhibition. When the last one had pa.s.sed her, she clasped and unclasped her hands nervously.

"It is because I am so homely!" she thought.

A month or more went by. Somehow Bernice and her schoolmates had not made so much progress in getting acquainted as one would have thought. The new girl was un.o.btrusive, attended strictly to her studies, and made few demands on those about her; yet it was true that there was among them at least an unacknowledged conspiracy to taboo her, or an understanding that she was to be ignored almost completely. This Bernice attributed to her looks. Ever since she could remember, she had been called "homely," "ugly,"

"plain," and similar epithets. Now, though she preserved a calm exterior, she could not help being unhappy because she was thus slighted.