Dick Brown's affliction was a crooked back, yet he bore his burden so
cheerfully, that Demi once asked in his queer way, "Do humps make people
good-natured? I'd like one if they do." Dick was always merry, and did
his best to be like other boys, for a plucky spirit lived in the
feeble little body. When he first came, he was very sensitive about his
misfortune, but soon learned to forget it, for no one dared remind him
of it, after Mr. Bhaer had punished one boy for laughing at him.

"God don't care; for my soul is straight if my back isn't," sobbed Dick
to his tormentor on that occasion; and, by cherishing this idea, the
Bhaers soon led him to believe that people also loved his soul, and did
not mind his body, except to pity and help him to bear it.

Playing menagerie once with the others, some one said,

"What animal will you be, Dick?"

"Oh, I'm the dromedary; don't you see the hump on my back?" was the
laughing answer.

"So you are, my nice little one that don't carry loads, but marches by
the elephant first in the procession," said Demi, who was arranging the
spectacle.

"I hope others will be as kind to the poor dear as my boys have learned
to be," said Mrs. Jo, quite satisfied with the success of her teaching,
as Dick ambled past her, looking like a very happy, but a very feeble
little dromedary, beside stout Stuffy, who did the elephant with
ponderous propriety.

Jack Ford was a sharp, rather a sly lad, who was sent to this school,
because it was cheap. Many men would have thought him a smart boy, but
Mr. Bhaer did not like his way of illustrating that Yankee word, and
thought his unboyish keenness and money-loving as much of an affliction
as Dolly's stutter, or Dick's hump.

Ned Barker was like a thousand other boys of fourteen, all legs,
blunder, and bluster. Indeed the family called him the "Blunderbuss,"
and always expected to see him tumble over the chairs, bump against the
tables, and knock down any small articles near him. He bragged a good
deal about what he could do, but seldom did any thing to prove it, was
not brave, and a little given to tale-telling. He was apt to bully the
small boys, and flatter the big ones, and without being at all bad, was
just the sort of fellow who could very easily be led astray.

George Cole had been spoilt by an over-indulgent mother, who stuffed him
with sweetmeats till he was sick, and then thought him too delicate
to study, so that at twelve years old, he was