"We all have to go through 'bout the same row o' stumps, don't we, Shep? The way to do with 'em is to jest pay no 'tention to 'em."
But the good-will and sympathy of the boys could not prevail upon Bradley to go with them. He persisted in his determination to leave school. And the boys finally went out leaving him alone. Their influence had been good, however; he was distinctly less bitter after they left him and his thoughts went back to Miss Wilbur. What would she think of him if he gave up all his plans the first day, simply because some mischievous girls and boys had made him absurd? When he thought of her he felt strong enough to go back, but when he thought of his tormentors and what he would be obliged to endure from them, he shivered and shrank back into despondency.
He was still fighting his battle, when a slow step came down the stairs ending in a sharp rap upon the door. He said, "Come in," and Radbourn, the most powerful and most popular senior, entered the room. He was a good deal of an autocrat in the town and in the school, and took pleasure in exercising his power on behalf of some poor devil like Bradley Talcott.
"Jennings tells me you're going to give it up," he said, without preliminary conversation.
Bradley nodded sullenly. "What's the use, anyhow? I might as well. I'm too old, anyhow."
Radbourn looked at him a moment in silence. "Put on your hat and let's go outside," he said at length, and there was something in his voice that Bradley obeyed.
Once on the outside Radbourn took his arm and they walked on up the street in silence for some distance. It was still, and clear, and frosty, and the stars burned overhead with many-colored brilliancy.
"Now I know all about it, Talcott, and I know just about how you feel. But all the same you must go back there to-morrow morning."
"It aint no use talkin', I can't do it."
"Yes, you can. You think you can't, but you can. A man can do anything if he only thinks he can and tries hard. You can't afford to let a little thing like that upset your plans. I understand your position exactly. You're at a disadvantage," he changed his pace suddenly, stopping Bradley. "Now, Talcott, you're at a disadvantage with that suit. It makes you look like a gawk, when you're not. You're a stalwart fellow, and if you'll invest in a new suit of clothes as Jennings did, it'll make all the difference in the world."
"I can't afford it."
"No, that's a mistake, you can't afford not to have it. A good suit of clothes will do more to put you on an equality with the boys than anything else you can do for yourself. Now let's drop in here to see my friend, who keeps what you need, and to-morrow I'll call for you and take you into the class and introduce you to Miss Clayson, and you'll be all right. You didn't start right."
When he walked in with Radbourn the next morning and was introduced to the teacher, Nettie Russell stared in breathless astonishmemt. He was barbered and wore a suit which showed his splendid length and strength of limb.
"Well said! Aint we a big sunflower! My sakes! aint we a-coming out!" "No moon last night." "Must 'a ben a fire." "He got them with a basket and a club," were some of the remarks he heard.
Bradley felt the difference in the atmosphere, and he walked to his seat with a self-possession that astonished himself. And from that time he was master of the situation. The girls pelted him with chalk and marked figures on his back, but he kept at his work. He had a firm grip on the plow-handles now, and he didn't look back. They grew to respect him, at length, and some of the girls distinctly showed their admiration. Brown came over to get help on a sum and so did Nettie, and when he sat down beside her she winked in triumph at the other girls while Bradley patiently tried to explain the problem in algebra which was his own terror.
He certainly was a handsome fellow in a rough-angled way, and when the boys found he could jump eleven feet and eight inches at a standing jump, they no longer drew any distinctions between his attainments in algebra and their own. Neither did his poverty count against him with them. He sawed wood in every spare hour with desperate energy to make up for the sinful extravagance of his new fifteen dollar suit of clothes.
He was sawing wood in an alley one Saturday morning where he could hear a girl singing in a bird-like way that was very charming. He was tremendously hungry, for he had been at work since the first faint gray light, and the smell of breakfast that came to his senses was tantalizing.
He heard the girl's rapid feet moving about in the kitchen and her voice rising and falling, pausing and beginning again as if she were working rapidly. Then she fell silent, and he knew she was at breakfast.
At last she opened the door and came out along the walk with a tablecloth. She shook her cloth, and then her singing ceased and Bradley went on with his work.
"Hello, Brad!" called a sudden voice.
He looked up and saw Nettie Russell's roguish face peering over the board fence.
"Hello," he replied, and stood an instant in wordless surprise. "I didn't know you lived there."
"Well, I do. Aint tickled to death to find it out, I s'pose? Say, you aint so very mad at me, are yeh?" she added insinuatingly.
He didn't know what to say, so he kept silent. He noticed for the first time how childishly round her face was!
She took a new turn. "Say, aint you hungry?"
Bradley admitted that he had eaten an early breakfast. He did not say it was composed of fried pork and potatoes and baker's bread, without tea, coffee, or milk.
The girl seemed delighted to think he was hungry.
"You wait a minute," she commanded, and her smiling face disappeared from the top of the fence. Brad went to work to keep from catching cold, wondering what she was going to do. She reappeared soon with a fat home-made sausage and a couple of warm biscuits which she insisted upon his taking.
"They're all buttered and – they've got sugar on 'em," she whispered significantly.
"Say, you eat now, while I saw," she commanded, coming around through the gate.
She had put on her fascinator hood, but her hands and wrists were bare. She struggled away on a log, putting her knee on it in a comically resolute style.
"The saw always goes crooked," she said in despair. Bradley laughed at her heartily.
"Say, do you do this for fun?" she asked, stopping to puff, her cheeks a beautiful pink.
"No, I don't. I do it because I'm obliged to."
She threw down the saw. "Well, that beats me; I can't saw, but I can cook. I made them biscuits." She challenged his opinion, as he well knew.
"They're first rate," he admitted, and they were friends. She watched him eat with apparent satisfaction.
"Say, I can't stay here, I'll freeze. Are yeh going to be here till noon?"
"Yes."
"Well, when I whistle you come in and get some grub, will yeh?" Bradley smiled back at her laughing face.
"This ain't your folks' wood pile."
"What's the difference?" she replied. "You jest come in, will yeh?"
"Yes, I'll come."
"Like fun you will! Honest?" she persisted.
"Hope to die," he said solemnly.
