else you can do for yourself. Now let's drop in here to see my
friend, who keeps what you need, and to-morrow I'll call for you and
take you into the class and introduce you to Miss Clayson, and you'll
be all right. You didn't start right."

When he walked in with Radbourn the next morning and was introduced to
the teacher, Nettie Russell stared in breathless astonishmemt. He was
barbered and wore a suit which showed his splendid length and strength
of limb.

"Well said! Aint we a big sunflower! My sakes! aint we a-coming out!"
"No moon last night." "Must 'a ben a fire." "He got them with a basket
and a club," were some of the remarks he heard.

Bradley felt the difference in the atmosphere, and he walked to his
seat with a self-possession that astonished himself. And from that time
he was master of the situation. The girls pelted him with chalk and
marked figures on his back, but he kept at his work. He had a firm grip
on the plow-handles now, and he didn't look back. They grew to respect
him, at length, and some of the girls distinctly showed their
admiration. Brown came over to get help on a sum and so did Nettie, and
when he sat down beside her she winked in triumph at the other girls
while Bradley patiently tried to explain the problem in algebra which
was his own terror.

He certainly was a handsome fellow in a rough-angled way, and when the
boys found he could jump eleven feet and eight inches at a standing
jump, they no longer drew any distinctions between his attainments in
algebra and their own. Neither did his poverty count against him with
them. He sawed wood in every spare hour with desperate energy to make
up for the sinful extravagance of his new fifteen dollar suit of
clothes.

* * * * *

He was sawing wood in an alley one Saturday morning where he could hear
a girl singing in a bird-like way that was very charming. He was
tremendously hungry, for he had been at work since the first faint gray
light, and the smell of breakfast that came to his senses was
tantalizing.

He heard the girl's rapid feet moving about in the kitchen and her
voice rising and falling, pausing and beginning again as if she were
working rapidly. Then she fell silent, and he knew she was at
breakfast.

At last she opened the door and came out along the walk with a
tablecloth. She shook her cloth, and then her singing ceased and
Bradley went on with his work.

"Hello, Brad!" call