“We are near the last bend, Tim.  Yes—­I’ll say good-by to Mary for you.  I’ll tell her that in the hurry you forgot her.  And she will believe me!  Why didn’t you go up the hill last night, instead of sneaking off this way?—­for you know you didn’t forget her.  That last smoke—­that’s right—­you and Captain and I, and our pipes.  I fear she did pass from our minds, but we had many things to talk over in those last hours.  I promise you I will go up to-night and explain.  Tell Weston about that fox on Gander Knob—­of course I shall.  School starts tomorrow, else I’d be after him myself; but on Saturday we’ll hie to the mountain, Weston and Captain and I. You, Tim, shall have the skin, a memento of the valley.  I’ll say good-by to Captain again, and I’ll keep the guns oiled, and Piney Carter shall have the rifle whenever he wants it—­provided he cleans it every hunting night.  And I’ll tell old Mrs. Bolum—­but the train is going to start.  Are you sure you have your ticket, and your check, and your lunch?  Yes, I’ll say good-by to Mary for you.—­Good-by, Tim!”

And Tim went around the bend.

VIII

Books!  Books!  Eternal, infernal books!  The sun was printing over the floor the shadow skeleton of the juniper-tree by the westerly window.  That always told me it was one o’clock.  And one o’clock meant books again—­three long hours of wrangling with dull wits, of fencing with sharper ones; three long hours of a-b-abs, of two-times-twos and three-times-threes; hours of spelling and of parsing, hours of bounding and describing.  With it all, woven through it, now swelling, now dying away, now broken by a shrill cry of pain or anger, was the ceaseless buzzing of the school.  There was no rest for the eye, even.  The walls were white, their glare was baneful, and through the chalk-dust mist the rustling field of young heads suggested anything but peace and repose to one of my calling.  That was the field I worked in.

I had been with Tim.  His letter from New York was in my hands, and over and over I had read it, until I knew every twist in the writing.  In the reading I had been carried away from myself, and seemed to be beside him in his battle in the world, laying about with him right lustily.  Then by force of habit I had looked up and had seen the shadow of the juniper-tree.  I was back in my prison.  And it was books!

[Illustration:  I was back in my prison.]

“Brace up there, Daniel Arker, and quit your blubbering!” I cried.

Daniel was a snuffler.  Whenever I had a companion in the schoolhouse at the noon recess, it was generally this lad, and when he was there he was nursing a wound and snuffling.  If there was any trouble to be got into, if there was a flying ball to come in contact with, ice to break through or a limb to snap, Daniel never failed to be on hand.  Then he would burst rudely into my solitude and while I sopped cold water over his injured members, he would blubber.  When I turned from him to my own corner by the window, the blubber would die away into a snuffle, and there he would sit, his head buried in his hands, snuffling and snuffling until books.