"I'm expelled, Teddy."
"Allyn!"
"Yes, I know."
"Not really?"
She read confirmation in his eyes.
"What for?" she demanded.
"For insulting Mr. Mitchell."
"What did you say?"
"I told him what I thought of him, and he didn't like it."
Theodora frowned at the tone of boyish bravado.
"Allyn," she said steadily; "tell me, what you have done."
"I told him he was a great deacon," the boy said hotly; "and I'm glad I
did it, too. He ought to know what we think of him. He goes to church
every Sunday, with a long face on him; and, all the rest of the week, he
bullies the fellows."
"At least, you think he does," Theodora amended.
"He does," Allyn returned fiercely. "He is a coward, too, and never goes
for our crowd; but takes boys like Jamie Lyman, stupid, shabby little
milksops that don't dare stand up to him. It isn't their fault that they
are dunces, and he ought to know it. I told him so."
Theodora looked perplexed.
"Sit down, Allyn," she said. "I want to talk this over quietly. Does
papa know?"
"No; it's only just now, and I came straight to you. I thought perhaps
you would help me tell him. I'm sorry, Ted, honestly sorry; but there
wasn't anything else to do."
Up to this moment, Theodora had been trying to hold on to the threads of
her interrupted chapter. Now she dropped them entirely, as she rested her
arm on Allyn's shoulder.
"I am glad to have you tell me things," she said. "Now make a clean
breast of it, Allyn."
And Allyn did make a clean breast of it, sparing nothing of the detail of
weeks of petty tyranny. It was a story which fortunately is rare in these
latter days, a story of a nervous, toadying teacher who vented his bad
temper in those directions where there was least chance of its rousing a
just resentment.
"I couldn't help it, Ted," he said at length. "I've no sort of use for
Jamie Lyman; he lisps and he has warts, and he hasn't the pluck of a
white rat. He looks like one, anyhow, with his tow head and his little
pinky eyes. I told Mr. Mitchell it was a shame. He talked a good deal,
and I suppose I did. We both were pretty mad, and then he told me I must
take it back, or else get out. I couldn't take it back, so I walked off."
In the boy's excitement, the words came tumbling over each other and his
brown eyes lighted. Then they grew dull again, as his sister spoke.
"I am sorry about it, Allyn," she said slowly; "sorry for you, because
you must go back and apologize."
"I won't."
"I think you'll have to. There isn't any other way."
"But it was all true."
"Perhaps so. I am not sure. I know you meant to stand up for the right
side; still, you must apologize to Mr. Mitchell, all the same."
The boy stared at her reproachfully.
"But I thought you would understand, Ted."
"I do, dear. If I didn't understand quite so well, I shouldn't be so
sure what you ought to do. When I was your age, I was always getting into
just such scrapes as this, simply because I used to burn up all my powder
without taking aim. All the good it did, was to show up the weak spots of
my position. Go slow, Allyn, and don't be so ready to fight. It never
does any good."
"But I wasn't going to sit still and let him bully that little baby,"
Allyn argued.
"No; but you needn't have tried to bully him in your turn," his sister
answered promptly, though in her heart of hearts she was in perfect
sympathy with her young brother. She gloried in his fearlessness, even
while she told herself that he must submit to discipline. "It wasn't your
place to tell Mr. Mitchell what he ought to do. He is an older man, and
he may have reasons that you don't know. He is not accountable to you,
Allyn, and his judgment may be better than yours. Moreover, you owe him
obedience, and the McAlisters always pay their debts."
"Have I got to eat humble pie and go back, Teddy?"
"You've got to eat humble pie," she said, as a laughing note crept into
her voice when she thought of Jamie Lyman, insignificant and warty cause
of such a storm. "About your going back, that is for papa to say, dear. I
think you ought to do it."
"I hate that school!" he muttered restively.
"Why?"
"Don't like the fellows."
"What is the matter with them?"
"Foolish."
"Try the girls, then."
"They're worse."
"Hm." Theodora mused aloud. "Given ten boys: if nine of them all like
each other, and the tenth doesn't like any of them, where does the
trouble lie? Allyn you are getting cranky."
"Maybe so; but I can't help it."
"Yes, you can, too. Do you know, you need a chum."
A sudden flash of fun came into Allyn's eyes.
"What's the matter with you, Ted?"
"Me? I'm too old. Besides, I am producing literature."
"And I interrupted," he said penitently, for he took much satisfaction in
his sister's work.
"No; at least, not much. I want you to tell me things, Allyn. We have
always been chums, and I should be a good deal jealous of any one else."
"But I don't want any one else. What's the use?"
"Yes, you want somebody to antic with, while I am busy, just as I have
Billy, somebody of your own age, only you must always like me best. Now
come over to see if papa is in his office and talk things over with him.
He can advise you a good deal better than I can, Allyn; but, this time, I
think I know about what he will say." And she did.
It took more than an hour for Dr. McAlister to explain to his young son
the difference between independence and anarchy. There was a fearlessness
in the boy's point of view that roused his father's admiration, and more
than once he was forced to turn away to hide his amusement at Allyn's
disclaimers of anything like personal affection for Jamie.
"Jamie!" he said, in one final outburst. "Jamie! Fifteen years old, and
calls himself Jamie! If he'd only brace up and be Jim, there'd be some
sort of hope for him."
The result of the discussion was the doctor's sending Allyn back to
apologize and take his old place in the school once more, while he sat
himself down to write a plain note to the master. Theodora, meanwhile,
went in search of Mrs. McAlister. She found her in her own room, humming
contentedly to herself over the family mending. Forgetful of her years
and her inches, Theodora cast herself down on the floor at her
stepmother's feet.
"Whatever made you do it?" she asked without preface.
"Do what?"
"Marry papa."
"Because--well, because he asked me."
"You never would have done it, if you had seen us first," Theodora
responded half whimsically, half discontentedly. "Hope and Hubert are all
right; but the rest of us are enough to turn your hair white. I was bad
enough; and now Phebe is forsaking the world and taking to skeletons, and
Allyn is at war with the whole human race, including Mr. Mitchell. Well,
Phebe, what now?"
"I heard my name and thought I'd come and take a hand in the discussion,"
Phebe announced, as she strolled into the room. "Have I done anything you
don't like? If I have, just mention it."
"Nothing more than usual," Theodora said, laughing. "Goodness me, Babe!
What's that?"
"What's what?" Phebe cast an apprehensive glance behind her.
"In your hand?"
"That? Oh, that's my tibia. I was studying where it articulates into the
fibula. It's ever so nice. Just see the cunning little grooves."
"Booh!" Theodora laughed, even in her disgust. "I am not weak-minded,
Babe, but those things do not appeal to me."
"Every one to his taste," Phebe said loftily. "I like bones better than
Browning, myself. Isabel St. John thinks she will be a nurse."
"Then you can hunt in pairs," Theodora commented irreverently. "I pity
the patient. Do you really like this sort of thing, Babe?"
Phebe rested her cheek meditatively against the upper end of her tibia.
"Yes, of course; or else I shouldn't be doing it. Bones, that is, dead
ones, are nice and neat; and I don't think I should mind setting live
ones. Of course it isn't going to be all bones; but I suppose even
literature has its disagreeable sides."
"Yes," Theodora assented, with a passing memory of the pillow reposing
on the lawn outside her window. "After all, Babe, I think you lack the
real artist's devotion to your work. Even mumps ought to be beautiful in
your eyes and meningitis a delight to your soul. The day will come that
you will give up medicine and take a course in plain cooking, now mark
my words."
"Thanks; but I prefer tibias to tomatoes," Phebe responded. "When I am
the great Dr. McAlister, you will change your tune."
"There will never be but one great Dr. McAlister," Theodora answered
loyally. "No, mother, I must not stay to lunch, not even if Babe would
grill her tibia for me. Billy gets very grumpy, if I leave him alone at
his meals. Good-bye, Babe. Don't let anything happen to your grooves."
She went away with a laugh on her lips; but the laugh vanished, as she
went up to her writing-room once more and paused for a moment before her
closed desk. Then her face cleared, as she hurriedly put herself into
Billy's favorite gown and ran down the stairs to meet him in the hall.
The woes of book-making and the worries of her family never clouded
Theodora's welcome to her husband.