He quickly rallied from the daze into which he was
thrown at first, and with his old swagger, looked at the teacher and
replied with an insolence that was defiance itself:
"My father is trustee, and I've as much right here as you or any one
else, and I'm going to stay till I'm ready to go home and you
can't----" but, before he had completed his defiant sentence, the
slightly built teacher was at his side and had grasped the nape of his
coat. It seemed to the lad, that an iron vise had caught his garment
and a span of horses were pulling at him. He clutched desperately at
everything within reach and spread his legs apart and curled up his
toes in the effort to hook into something that would stay proceedings,
but it was in vain. Out he came from the seat, and to the awed
children who were looking on it seemed that his body was elongated to
double its length during the process,--and he was run through the open
door, and his hat tossed after him. Then the teacher walked quietly
back to his seat behind the desk on the platform, and without the
slightest sign of flurry or mental disturbance, he told one of the
sweetest and most delightful incidents to which his pupils had ever
listened. He closed with the promise to give them another at the end
of the week, if they continued in the good course on which they were so
fairly started.
"He catched me foul," explained the indignant Tom Britt the following
day in discussing his hurried exit from the schoolroom; "if he had only
let me know he was coming, it would be him that dove out the door
instead of me.
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