Joel set the tongs back with an unsteady hand.  They slipped and fell to the hearth with a clang.

“Mamsie, I didn’t mean,” he began, finding his feet.  And before any one could draw a long breath, he rushed out of the room.

There was a dreadful pause.  Polly clasped her hands tightly together, and looked at her mother.  Mrs. Fisher quietly put her sewing into the big basket and got out of her chair.

“Oh! what is the matter with Joey?” cried Phronsie, standing quite still by the deserted hearth-rug.  “Mamsie, do you suppose his head aches?”

“I think it must,” said Mrs. Fisher gravely.  Then she went out very quietly and they could hear her going up the stairs.

With a firm step she went into her own room, and turned up the gas.  The flash revealed Joel, face downward on the broad, comfortable sofa.  Mrs. Fisher went over and closed the door, then came to his side.

“I thought, my boy,” she said, “that I should find you here.  Now then, tell mother all about it,” and lifting his head, she sat down and took it into her lap.

“O dear!” cried Joel, burrowing deep in the comfortable lap, “O dear—­O dear!”

“Now, that is silly, Joey,” said Mother Fisher, “tell me at once what all this trouble is about,” passing her firm hands over his hot forehead, and trying to look in his face.  But he struggled to turn it away from her.

“In the first place I just hate school!” he exploded.

XXII

JOEL

“Hate school?” cried Mother Fisher.  “Oh, Joey! think how Ben wanted more schooling, only he wouldn’t take the chance when Mr. King offered it to him because he felt that he must be earning money as soon as possible.  Oh, Joey!”

That “Oh, Joey!” cut deeply.  Joel winced and burrowed deeper under his mother’s fingers.

“That’s just it,” he cried.  “Ben wanted it, and I don’t.  I hate it, and I don’t want to go back.”

“Don’t want to go back?” repeated Mrs. Fisher in dismay.

“No, I don’t.  The fellows are always twitting me, and every one gets ahead of me, and I’m everlastingly staying in from ballgames to make up lessons, and I’d like to fire the books, I would,” cried Joel with venom.

Mrs. Fisher said nothing, but the hands still stroked the brown stubby head in her lap.

“And nobody cares for me because I won’t be smart like the others, but I can’t help it, I just hate school!” finished Joel in the same strain.

“Joel,” said Mrs. Fisher slowly, “if that is the case, I shall go down to Mr. King and tell him that we, Father Fisher and I, Polly and Phronsie, will not go abroad with him.”

Joel bolted upright and, putting down his two hands, brought his black eyes to bear on her.

“What?”

“I shall go directly downstairs and tell Mr. King that Father Fisher and I, Polly and Phronsie, will not go abroad with him,” repeated his mother slowly and distinctly while she looked him fully in the face.