"What are you doing here?" asked Ben, who evidently did not understand how a boy could be there alone, unless he was occupied about something.

"Nothing."

"Been in the water?"

"No."

"Fishing?"

"No."

Ben was nonplussed. He suspected that Harry had been engaged in some mysterious occupation, which he desired to conceal from him.

"How long have you been here?" continued Ben, persistently.

"About half an hour."

Ben stopped to think. He could make nothing of it. It was worse than the double rule of three, which he conscientiously believed had been invented on purpose to bother school boys.

"You are up to some trick, I know. Tell me what you come down here for."

"Didn't come for anything."

"What is the use of telling that. No feller would come clear down here for nothing."

"I came down to think, then, if you must know," answered Harry, rather testily.

"To think! Well, that is a good one! Ain't the poor-farm big enough to do your thinking on?"

"I chose to come down here."

"Humph! You've got the blues, Harry. I should think old Walker had been afoul of you, by your looks."

Harry looked up suddenly, and wondered if Ben knew what had happened.

"I should like to have the old rascal down here for half an hour. I should like to souse him into the river, and hold his head under till he begged my pardon," continued Ben.

"So should I," added Harry.

"Should you? You are a good feller, then! I mean to pay him off for what he did for me the other day. I wouldn't minded being turned out of school. I rather liked the idea; but the old muttonhead got me up before all the school, and read me such a lecture! He thinks there isn't anybody in the world but him."

"The lecture didn't hurt you," suggested Harry.

"No; it didn't. But that warn't the worst of it."

"What else?"

"My father give me a confounded licking when I got home. I haven't done smarting yet. But I will pay 'em for it all."

"You mean Squire Walker."

"And the old man, too."

"If I only had a father, I wouldn't mind letting him lick me now and then," replied Harry, to whom home seemed a paradise, though he had never understood it; and a father and mother, though coa.r.s.e and brutal, his imagination pictured as angels.

"My father would learn you better than that in a few days," said Ben, who did not appreciate his parents, especially when they held the rod.

Harry relapsed into musing again. He thought how happy he should have been in Ben's place. A home, a father, a mother! We value most what we have not; and if the pauper boy could have had the blessings which crowned his reckless companion's lot, it seemed as though he would have been contented and happy. His condescension in regard to the flogging now and then was a sincere expression of feeling.

"What's old Walker been doing to you, Harry?" asked Ben, suspecting the cause of the other's gloom.

"He is going to send me to Jacob Wire's to live."

"Whew! That is a good one! To die, you mean; Harry, I wouldn't stand that."

"I don't mean to."

"That's right; I like your s.p.u.n.k. What do you mean to do?"

Harry was not prepared to answer this question. He possessed a certain degree of prudence, and though it was easy to declare war against so powerful an enemy as Squire Walker, it was not so easy to carry on the war after it was declared. The overseer was a bigger man to him than the ogre in "Puss in Boots." Probably his imagination largely magnified the grandeur of the squire's position, and indefinitely multiplied the resources at his command.

"What do you mean to do?" repeated Ben, who for some reason or other took a deep interest in Harry's affairs.

"I don't know. I would rather die than go; but I don't know how I can help myself," answered the poor boy, gloomily.

"I do."

Harry looked up with interest and surprise. Ben sympathized with him in his trials, and his heart warmed towards him.

"What, Ben?"

"I daresn't tell you now," replied Ben after a short pause.

"Why not?"

"Can you keep a secret?"

"Of course I can. Did I ever blow on you?"

"No, you never did, Harry. You are a first rate feller, and I like you. But you see, if you should blow on me now, you would spoil my kettle of fish, and your own, too."

"But I won't, Ben."

"Promise me solemnly."

"Solemnly," repeated Harry.

"Well, then, I will get you out of the sc.r.a.pe as nice as a cotton hat."