twice, just to catch one more smile from Ralph. And then he
hied away through the tall trees, a very happy boy, kicking and
ploughing the brown leaves before him in his perfect delight, saying
over and over again: "How he looked at me! how he did look!" And when
Ralph came up to the school-house door, there was Shocky sauntering
along from the other direction, throwing bits of limestone at fence
rails, and smiling still clear down to his shoes at thought of the
master's kind words.

"What a quare boy Shocky is!" remarked Betsey Short, with a giggle. "He
just likes to wander round alone. I see him a-comin' out of the sugar
camp just now. He's been in there half an hour." And Betsey giggled
again; for Betsey Short could giggle on slighter provocation than any
other girl on Flat Creek.

When Ralph Hartsook, with the quiet, dogged tread that he was
cultivating, walked into the school-room, he took great care not to seem
to see the trap set for him; but he carelessly stepped over the board
that had been so nicely adjusted. The boys who were Hank's confidants in
the plot were very busy over their slates, and took pains not to show
their disappointment.

The morning session wore on without incident. Ralph several times caught
two people looking at him. One was Mirandy. Her weak and watery eyes
stole loving glances over the top of her spelling-book, which she would
not study. Her looks made Ralph's spirits sink to forty below zero, and
congeal.

But on one of the backless little benches that sat in the middle of the
school-room was little Shocky, who also cast many love glances at the
young master; glances as grateful to his heart as Mirandy's ogling--he
was tempted to call it ogring--was hateful.

"Look at Shocky," giggled Betsey Short, behind her slate. "He looks as
if he was a-goin' to eat the master up, body and soul."

And so the forenoon wore on as usual, and those who laid the trap had
forgotten it, themselves. The morning session was drawing to a close.
The fire in the great old fire-place had burnt low. The flames, which
seemed to Shocky to be angels, had disappeared, and now the bright
coals, which had played the part of men and women and houses in Shocky's
fancy, had taken on a white and downy covering of ashes, and the great
half-burnt back-log lay there smouldering like a giant asleep in a
snow-drift. Shocky longed to wake him up.

As for Henry Banta, he was too much bothered to get the answer to a
"sum"