This did not sound very forgiving; but neither had Nate’s remark sounded very penitent.  Nate smiled good-naturedly and seemed satisfied.  The fact was, he and Jimmy were both of them trying, after the manner of boys, to hide their real feelings.  Nate knew that his conduct had been very shabby and contemptible, and he was ashamed of it, but did not like to say so.  Jimmy, for his part, was glad to make up, but did not wish to seem too glad.

Then they each tried to think of something else to say.  They were fully agreed that they had talked long enough about their foolish quarrel and would never allude to it again.

“Glad that watch has come,” said Nate.

“So am I. It has come, but it won’t go,” said Jimmy.  And they laughed as if this were a great joke.

Next Jimmy inquired about “the colonel,” and Nate asked:  “What colonel? 
Oh, you mean the mining engineer.  He’ll be here next week with his men.”

By this time the boys were feeling so friendly that Jimmy asked Nate to go with him before school next morning to see the knitting-woman’s pets and hear the blind canary sing.

“Do you suppose the magpie will be there?” returned Nate.  “I want to catch her some time and wring her old neck.”

“Wish you would,” said Jimmy.  “Hello, there’s Chicken Little crying again.  He’s more of a baby than our Eddo.”

Henry was crying now because Dave Blake had called him a coward.  So very, very unjust!  He stood near the schoolhouse door, wiping his eyes on his checked apron and saying:—­

“I’ll go tell the teacher, Dave Blake!”

“Well, go along and tell her then.  Fie, for shame!”

Henry, a feeble, petted child, was always falling into trouble and always threatening to tell the teacher.  Kyzie considered him very tiresome; but to-day when he came to her with his tale of woe, she listened patiently, because she had done him a wrong and wished to atone for it.  She had “really and truly” suspected this simple child of a crime!  He would not take so much as a pin without leave; neither would Joseph Rolfe.  Yet in her heart she had been accusing these innocent children of stealing her father’s watch!

“Miserable me!” thought Kyzie.  “I must be very good to both of them now, to make up for my dreadful injustice!”

She went to Joe and sweetly offered to lend him her knife to whittle his lead pencil.  He looked surprised.  He did not know she had ever wronged him in her heart.

She wiped Henry’s eyes on her own pocket handkerchief.

“Poor little cry-baby!” thought she.  “I told my mother I would try to make a man of him, and now I mean to begin.”

She walked part of the way home with him that afternoon.  He considered it a great honor.  She looked like a little girl, but her wish to help the child made her feel quite grown-up and very wise.

“Henry,” said she, “how nice you look when you are not crying.  Why, now you’re smiling, and you look like a darling!”