a brand-new knife!

"Squire Tucker told Mark," said Mrs. Calkins, enjoying the joke,
"that he guessed James would like our society full as well as that
of the prisoners."

As for Jim, he grinned affably, and took another slice of his apple.

The awful picture which Miss Ware had drawn of Jim's dreadful
isolation and misery and her own indignant sympathy rushed upon
Farnsworth's mind, and were so comically out of relation with the
facts that he sank weakly into the nearest chair and roared.

"This--is--the way--you go to jail--is it?" he gasped.

Mrs. Calkins smiled in sympathy, and Jim, half-suspecting that he
ought to be offended at this frank mirth, looked sheepishly at the
floor.

Farnsworth recovered himself. "A mighty good friend of yours," he
said, "sent me over here."

"Miss Ware?" asked Jim, much pleased.

"Yes. She's coming herself right after school, loaded down with
things to console your desolate prison life, I believe," and
Farnsworth had to stop to laugh again. "But she wanted me to start
right in and help you out of this, and that's what I'm here for."

"Thank you," said Jim, embarrassed, but polite. But it struck
Farnsworth, as he said afterward, that the boy "shied" a little.

"Miss Ware says," he went on, "that she doesn't believe you fired
that shot, and she wants you to tell me exactly what did happen. Now
if we can show that you didn't shoot, I can get you out of here
quick."

"What they going to do to me?" said Jim.

"That depends. It makes a difference how much Lamoury's hurt. The
penalty might be severe if he's got a bad wound. But even then, if
we could show that you didn't know he was there, or that the gun
went off by accident, or that you were firing at something else, it
would make a big difference. And if you can show that you weren't
there at all--why, out you go, scot-free. But, Jim, you can see
yourself that if you don't tell what you know, everybody'll think
that you shot and meant to hurt Lamoury, and then it might go pretty
hard with you. Now come, tell me what happened."

"You'd better tell, Jimmie," said Mrs. Calkins, straightening up
from her wash-tub. "You won't find any better friends than Mr.
Farnsworth and Miss Ware."

The young man, as he talked, watched the boy curiously. Jim flushed
and squirmed, and looked now at the floor and now out at the window,
with a marked uneasiness and embarrassment that greatly puzzled his
friend. And when he stopped, and the bo