Andy the Acrobat | Page 2

school. And now," concluded Mr. Darrow, his lips setting grimly, "you must toe the mark."
A hush of expectancy, of rare excitement, pervaded the room. The schoolmaster swung aloft the ruler with one hand. He swung Andy around directly in front of him with the other hand.
Andy's face suddenly grew serious. He tugged to get loose.
"Hold on, Mr. Darrow," he spoke quickly. "You mustn't strike me."
"How? what! defiance on top of rebellion!" shouted the irate pedagogue. "Keep your seats!" he roared, as half the school came upright under the tense strain of the moment.
The next he was struggling with Andy. Forward and backward then went over the clear recitation space. The ruler was dropped in the scrimmage. As Mr. Darrow stooped to repossess it, Andy managed to break loose.
Dodging behind the zinc shield that fronted the stove, he caught its top with both hands. He moved about presenting a difficult barrier against easy capture. Andy looked pretty determined now. The schoolmaster was so angry that his face was as red as a piece of flannel. He advanced again upon the culprit, so choked up that his lips made only inarticulate sounds.
"One minute, please, Mr. Darrow," said Andy. "You mustn't try to whip me. I can't stand it, and I won't. It hasn't been the rule here, ever. I did wrong, though I couldn't help it, and I'm sorry for it. I'll stand double study and staying in from recess and after school for a month, if you say so. You can put me in the dark hole and keep me without my dinner as long as you like. I have lots of good friends here. I'd be ashamed to face them after a whipping--and I won't!"
"Yes, yes--he's right!" rang out an earnest chorus.
"Silence!" roared the schoolmaster. "An example must be made. I shall do my duty. Andrew Wildwood--Graham! what do you mean, sir?"
The scholars thrilled, as a new and unexpected element came into the situation.
Graham, quite a young man, and double the weight of the schoolmaster, had arisen from his seat. He walked quietly between Mr. Darrow and Andy, quite pushing back the former gently.
"The lad is right, Mr. Darrow," he said, in his quiet, drawling way. "I wouldn't punish him before the scholars if I were you, sir."
"What's this? You interfere!" flared out the pedagogue.
"Don't take it that way, Mr. Darrow," said Graham. "You are displeased, and justly so, sir, but boys will be boys. Andy is the right kind of a lad, I assure you, only in the wrong kind of a place. They did the same thing with me when I was young. If they hadn't, I wouldn't be here spelling out words of two syllables at twenty-eight years of age."
Andy's eyes glistened at the big scholar's friendliness. A murmur of approbation ran round the room.
Silently the pedagogue fumed. The disaffection of the occasion, mild and respectful as it was, disarmed him. He regarded Andy with a despairing look. Then he straightened up with great dignity.
"Take your seat, sir!" he ordered Andy severely, marching back to his own desk.
"Yes, sir," said Andy humbly.
"Pack up your books."
Andy looked up in dismay. The fixed glint in the schoolmaster's eye told him that this new move meant no fooling.
"Now you may go home," resumed Mr. Darrow, as Andy had obeyed his first mandate.
Andy kept a stiff upper lip, though he felt that the world was slipping away from him.
A picture of an unloving home, a stern, hard mistress who would make use of this, his final disgrace, as a continual club and menace to all his future peace of mind, fairly appalled him.
He arose to his feet, swinging his strapped up books to and fro airily, but there was a dismal catch in his voice as he turned to the teacher's desk, and said:
"Mr. Darrow, I guess I would rather take the whipping."
"Too late," pronounced the relentless schoolmaster in icy tones.
And then, as Andy reached the door amid the gruesome silence and awe of his sympathetic comrades, Mr. Darrow added the final dreadful words:
"You are expelled."

CHAPTER II
HOOP-LA!
Andy Wildwood passed out of the village schoolhouse an anxious and desolate boy.
The brightest of sunshine gilded the spires and steeples of the village. It flooded highway and meadows with rich yellow light, but Andy, swinging his school books over his shoulder, walked on with drooping head and a cheerless heart.
"It's pretty bad, it's just the very worst!" he said with a deep sigh, as he reached a stile and sat down a-straddle of it.
Andy tossed his books up into the hollow of a familiar oak near at hand. Then he fell to serious thinking.
His gaze roving over the landscape, lit on the farmhouse of Jabez Dale. It revived the recent allusion of the old schoolmaster.
"I didn't steal that calf," declared Andy, straightening up indignantly.