ested 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.

Now I spoke sharply to the boy. He raised his head and fixed one red eye
on me, for the other was hidden by his hand.

"I guesst you was never hit on the eye by a ball, was ye?" he stuttered.

"I guess I have been," was my reply. "I was a good round-town player,
and you never saw me crying like that, either."

"I was playin' sock-ball," snuffled the boy, and a solitary tear rolled
down his snub nose. He flicked it away with his right hand, and this act
disclosed to me a great bluish swelling, from under which a bit of eye
was twinkling mournfully at me. The boy was hurt; my heart went out to
him, for the memory of my own sock-ball and tickley-bender days came back
to me.

"Come, come," I said more kindly, laying a hand on the black head.
"Brace up, Daniel, for I must call the others in, and you don't want them
to see you crying. Dare to be like the great Daniel, who wasn't even
afraid of the wild beasts."

"But Dan'el in the Lion's Den never played sock-ball," whimpered the boy,
covering each eye with a chubby fist as he rubbed away the traces of his
tears.

Beware, Daniel Arker! Form not in my mind such a picture as that of the
mighty prophet in his ro