“Nor the boys?”
“No.”
Then he told me he had been turned away from one school on account of
his bad actions, and he wouldn’t have his father hear of this for
anything; and said that, if I wouldn’t tell, he would give me a
four-bladed knife, and quite a large balloon, and show me how to send
her up, and if I was flogged he would give me a good deal more, would
give money,--would give two dollars.
“I don’t believe he’ll whip you,” says he, “for he likes you. And if he
does, he wouldn’t whip a small boy so hard as he would a big one.”
I said a little whipping would hurt a little boy just as much as a great
whipping would hurt a great boy. But I said I wouldn’t be mean enough to
tell or to take pay for not telling.
He didn’t say much more. And we went towards home then. But before we
came to the house, he turned off into another path.
A little while after, I heard somebody walking behind me. I looked
round, and there was the master. He’d been watching with a sick man all
night.
He asked me where I had been so early. I said I had been taking a walk.
He asked who the boy was that had just left me. I said ’t was Tom Cush.
He asked if I was willing to tell what we had been talking about. I said
I would rather not tell.
Says he, “It has a bad look, your being out with that boy so early,
after what happened last night.”
Then he asked me where I had found my overjacket. I said, “In my
chamber, sir, on a chair-back.”
“And how came it there?” says he.
“I don’t know, sir,” says I.
And, Grandmother, I almost cried; for everything seemed going against
me, to make me out a bad boy. I will tell the rest after supper.
Your affectionate grandchild,