“He’s a gentleman compared with the rest o’ you,” I said.  “He had courage enough to say what he thought.  There’s not another one o’ you would dare do it—­not a one o’ you.”

Then said the schoolmaster: 

“If there’s any more o’ you boys that has any such opinion o’ Bart Baynes let him be man enough to step up an’ say it now.  If he don’t he ought to be man enough to change his mind on the spot.”

A number of the boys and certain of the townsfolk who had gathered about us clapped their hands.  For a long time thereafter I wondered why Henry had called me a thief.  I concluded that it was because “thief” was the meanest word he could think of in his anger.  However that might be, The Thing forsook me.  I felt no more its cold, mysterious shadow between me and my school fellows.  It had stepped out of my path into that of Henry Wills.  His popularity waned and a lucky circumstance it was for him.  From that day he began to take to his books and to improve his standing in the school.

I observed that he did not go about with Sally as he had done.  I had had no word with her since the night of Mr. Hacket’s lecture save the briefest greeting as we passed each other in the street.  Those fine winter days I used to see her riding a chestnut pony with a long silver mane that flowed back to her yellow curls in his lope.  I loved the look of her as she went by me in the saddle and a longing came into my heart that she should think well of me.  I made an odd resolve.  It was this:  I would make it impossible for her to think ill of me.

I went home one Saturday, having thought much of my aunt and uncle since The Thing had descended upon us.  I found them well and as cheerful as ever.  For fear of disturbing their peace I said nothing of my fight with Wills or the cause of it.  Uncle Peabody had cut the timber for our new house and hauled it to the mill.  I returned to school in a better mind about them.

May had returned—­a warm bright May.  The roads were dry.  The thorn trees had thatched their shapely roofs with vivid green.  The maple leaves were bigger than a squirrel’s foot, which meant as well, I knew, that the trout were jumping.  The robins had returned.  I had entered my seventeenth year and the work of the term was finished.

[Illustration:  She stopped the pony and leaned toward me.]

Having nothing to do one afternoon, I walked out on the road toward Ogdensburg for a look at the woods and fields.  Soon I thought that I heard the sound of galloping hoofs behind me.  Turning, I saw nothing, but imagined Sally coming and pulling up at my side.  I wondered what I should say if she were really to come.

“Sally!” I exclaimed.  “I have been looking at the violets and the green fields and back there I saw a thorn tree turning white, but I have seen no fairer thing than you.”

They surprised me a little—­those fine words that came so easily.  What a school of talk was the house I lived in those days!