As soon as Colton understood the state of Lewie’s feelings on this tender point, and noticed How his cheeks would flush with passion whenever the subject was mentioned, he took advantage of it to harass and enrage him, renewing the subject most unmercifully at every convenient opportunity.  Thus, whenever, in their sports, Lewie took upon himself to dictate, in his authoritative way, Colton would ask the boys if they were going to be governed by a baby who had not yet broken loose from his mother’s apron-strings; and when Lewie could no longer restrain his passion, and began to show signs of becoming pugnacious, Colton would advise him to “run to mother,” to be petted and soothed.

For sometime prudence restrained Lewie from making an attack upon this boy, so much larger and stronger than himself, for he was almost certain that he would get the worst of it in an encounter with him.  But one day when Colton was more aggravating than ever, Lewie suddenly lost all command of himself, and flew at him in a most fearful storm of rage, and with all the might of his passion concentrated in one blow, he dashed the great boy against a tree; and after he was down, and lying insensible, with his head cut and bleeding, Lewie could scarcely be restrained, by the united strength of those about him, from rushing upon his senseless body, and by renewed blows continuing to injure him.

His rage was fearful to witness, and his companions stood aghast, for they saw clearly that murder was in his heart, and that nothing but the restraint they exercised upon him, prevented him from carrying his horrible purpose into execution.  Colton was borne to the house, and it was long feared that he would never entirely recover from the effects of the severe blow upon his head as he fell.  Lewie seemed to feel nothing like remorse; he had always hated Colton, and everything this boy had done had tended to increase and aggravate his feelings of dislike; he thought nothing in his frantic rage of the consequences to himself, but would have rejoiced to see his tormentor dead at his feet.

This last affair decided Dr. Hamilton that it would not do to keep a boy of such fierce, unrestrained temper, longer in the school.  Lewie had all this time been progressing rapidly in his studies; a fierce ambition seemed to have seized upon, him, and he applied himself to his books as if he had come to the determination that he would at least rise superior to his school-mates, in his standing in the class, if they would not acknowledge his superiority in anything else.

Dr. Hamilton called soon after Lewie’s attack upon Colton, to see Mrs. Elwyn, and while he spoke of Lewie as one on whom he could justly be proud, as the best and most forward scholar in his classes, he said it was impossible for him to allow him to remain; that the lives of his other pupils were hardly to be considered safe with so passionate a companion, and for the sake of the reputation of his school, he