if you
hadn't bestowed your old one on that ragamuffin in town, you wouldn't
have been in such a scrape." Tom tried to turn it off lightly.

"Oh, that made no difference," Joel made haste to say, "'cause I could
have borrowed another. But I'd got used to my new one. Besides,
Grandpapa sent it to me to practise with for this game, and I really
couldn't have done so well without it."

"Yes, I know--I know," said Tom remorsefully, "and that's what Jenk
knew, too, the beggar!"

"Well, it's all over now," said Joel merrily, "so say no more about it."

But it wasn't all over with Jenkins; and he resolved within himself to
pay Joel Pepper up sometime, after the boys had forgotten a little about
this last exploit, if they ever did.

And that afternoon Joel staid in, foregoing all the charms of a ball
game, to write Mamsie a complete account of the affair, making light of
the other boys' part in it, and praising up Tom Beresford to the skies.
"And oh, Mamsie," Joel wrote over and over, "Dave didn't have anything
to do with it--truly he didn't. And Mr. Harrow is just bully," he
wrote,--then scratched it out although it mussed the letter up
dreadfully--"he's fine, he is! And oh, I like Dr. Marks, ever so much, I
do"--till Mrs. Fisher had a tolerably good idea of the whole thing.

"I'm not sorry, Adoniram," she said, after Dr. Fisher had read the
letter at least twice, and then looked over his spectacles at her
keenly, "that I agreed with Mr. King that it was best that the boys
should go away to school."

"Now any other woman," exclaimed the little doctor admiringly, "would
have whimpered right out, and carried on dreadfully at the least sign of
trouble coming to her boy."

"No, I'm not a bit sorry," repeated Mrs. Fisher firmly, "for it's going
to be the making of Joel, to teach him to take care of himself. And I'd
trust him anywhere," she added proudly.

"So you may; so you may, my dear," declared the little doctor gaily.
"And I guess, if the truth were told, that Joel's part in this whole
scrape hasn't been such a very bad one after all."

Which came to be the general view when Dr. Marks' letter arrived, and
one from the under-instructor followed, setting things in the right
light. And although old Mr. King was for going off directly to interview
the master, with several separate and distinct complaints and
criticisms, he was at last persuaded to give up the trip and let matters
work their course under the proper guid