going to let Yank run the school the rest of the term, rather than fight him? They might have believed that of some teachers, but not of Ned Gardner. Wednesday witnessed at repetition of the occurrences of Monday and Tuesday, with increased boldness on Yank's part. He began to half hope that he might find Ned as "sof' pudd'n'" as his three former victims. But Ned was simply giving Yank plenty of rope, in order to make the lesson the more impressive.

About half-past three o'clock Wednesday afternoon Ned said to Yank in an ordinary tone and without looking at him: "Henry, bring your copybook here."

Yank hesitated an instant. But it was not a part of his plan to precipitate a struggle by disobeying a mild command in the regular routine of school work. So, lazily, sullenly, scraping his feet along and kicking a desk here and there as he passed down the aisle, Yank walked out to the open space by the stove and stopped near Ned. Ned laid down the book he held and looked straight at Yank.

"Henry," he said, quietly but in a tone that sent a chill through Yank, "you have done so well up to this week that I hoped you would keep on to the end of the term. But I guess you and I have got to have a settlement before we go any further."

Yank knew what that meant, and he felt that his side of the account would be pretty sure to show up badly in the settlement if he faced Ned there squarely on the open floor. He must get back to his seat at all hazzards. The question whether it would be an act of cowardice to turn and run did not occur to him, and wouldn't have troubled him if it had. And so, before Ned had hardly finished speaking Yank wheeled about and started for his corner. Ned was

prepared for this maneuver. While Yank was trying to get his ponderous bulk in motion, Ned quickly tripped him and brought him down sprawling at full length on the floor. 'Yank and everybody else expected Ned to follow up his advantage. He did nothing of the sort. He stood quietly by, pulling off his coat, while Yank slowly regained his feet. Then Ned moved straight towards him. These tactics surprised and confused Yank; but seeing himself brought to bay with nothing to do but fight or surrender, he aimed a terrific blow with his fist at Ned's face. Ned easily dodged the slow, clumsy blow, and, throwing up his left hand, let Yank's fist hit his open palm with a sounding smack. The

NED CHASTISES THE BULLY

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failure of Yank's blow to hit anything substantial threw him off his balance, and before he could recover, Ned, having given him two fair chances to defend himself, took the offensive.

Catching Yank by both shoulders, Ned gave him a sudden wrench, and, tripping him at the same instant, brought his huge, unwieldly hulk to the floor a second time with a tremendous crash that shook the building, knocked the wind out of Yank, and left him more or less stunned and disabled; which was precisely the effect Ned had intended. This time, however, Ned did not give the bully a chance to rise. While stars innumerable were still dancing above his eyes, Ned was upon his breast with both knees and had seized his biceps, one in each hand, with a grip that made him wince with pain. The only thing Yank could do was to throw up his heavy cowhide boots and strike Ned in the head from behind, which he attempted to do. But Ned was on his guard. Still holding Yank flat on his back, Ned dragged him feet foremost till the big boots were shoved under a bench.

During this movement, however, Yank managed to give the stove a heavy kick that brought down the pipe, from stove to chimney, filling the air with soot and smoke. The children screamed with fright. Yank fully expected this incident to end his punishment, and he would gladly have taken his seat and behaved himself for the rest of the term. But Ned foresaw that to let Yank off at this stage would leave him ground for claiming the honors of a drawn battle; and he was determined that Yank should be thoroughly cowed. So the only attention Ned paid to the stove was to direct that some of the windows be opened.

Then that awful grip on Yank's biceps tightened again till the big muscles were numb and the strength was all gone out of them. Yank writhed and squirmed, all to no purpose. Ned's weight seemed crushing him, while Ned's knees were digging into his ribs most uncomfortably and making it impossible for him to draw a full breath. After another short, futile struggle, Yank subsided and lay motionless and panting.

And now Ned proceeded to the next act in the drama. Letting go the biceps, Ned buried his hands in Yank's hair and began pounding his head on the floor. This roused Yank to renewed but weak efforts to throw Ned off. Again

Ned seized Yank's biceps with a grip that made him cry out with pain; whereupon Ned once more resumed the thumping process, while Yank pawed at Ned's arms and sides with aimless clutches, no longer capable of a welldirected effort to release himself. Ned gave no farther heed to Yank's feeble motions, but kept up that steady thump, thump, thump till the bully bellowed with pain. Ned, however, had not lost his self-possession in the least, and had been careful not to pound Yank's head hard enough to cause any more serious result than a dazed condition of mind and a racking headache.

When satisfied that he had completely subdued Yank, Ned arose, panting somewhat from his exertion, but still fresh enough to have chastized another such fellow.

Slowly, half sniveling and half groaning, Yank rolled over on his side and sat up, holding his head with both hands, as though afraid the skull would burst. Finally he pulled his feet out from under the bench, and taking hold of a desk drew himself up, with uncertain, unsteady motion, as if a touch would topple him over. A sorry sight he was: his loose, ill-fitting, baggy clothes whitened with dust and drawn all ways askew, his trousers wrinkled and the bottoms pushed up out of the tops of his boots, his long hair tangled, full of dust, and sticking out in all directions, his face livid, his dull eyes red and swelled. He had not even life enough left to feel ashamed at his inglorious downfall, or to scowl at the boys around him whose faces shone with glee at the terrible beating he had received.

Meantime the pipeless stove was still pouring out its fumes; though not in large volume, because, as usual, the fire had been allowed to burn low toward the closing hour of school. The fact was, Ned had chosen his time for dealing with Yank, foreseeing the possibility of some accident of this kind that might necessitate dismissal of school for the day. And now, turning his attention from the crestfallen bully, Ned pulled out his watch and said:

"It is nearly four o'clock. Henry and I will put up the stovepipe and the rest of you may go home. Henry, take

this pipe out-doors, clean it, and bring it back."

This command surprised everybody, Yank most of all. It seemed to put new life into him. An ugly gleam came into his eye. The scholars looked chagrinned that Ned

should give Yank such a fine chance to get even

Ned walked to the door and opened it. Yank picked up two lengths of pipe and started out. Just as he was going through the doorway, Ned said to him, quietly but emphatically and with a significant look:

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Henry, be careful not to jam the pipe, and bring it in just as soon as you give it a good cleaning."

Then Yank knew, and the school knew, that Ned's eyes were open, and that if Yank carried out his plan of battering the pipe out of shape and "skedaddling" for home, Ned would be after him in a jiffy and would give him a drubbing that would make him forget all about the one he had just received. Ned said nothing more and did not once glance out of door or window to see whether Yank was obeying orders.

Turning his attention again from Yank to the school, Ned discovered that Paul Granger had been injured. His hand was bleeding from a cut made by the jagged edge of one of the falling lengths of stovepipe. Although it hurt pretty badly, and Paul had screamed out with the rest when the pipe came down, he had been so interested in the main action of the play that he had simply wrapped the cut with the little cloth that did duty with him as a handkerchief, and had then gone on watching the struggle between Ned and Yank.

"I guess 'tain't hurt much, teacher," said Paul as Ned looked at it.

But Ned knew that a wound made by a rough, sooty, rusty stovepipe was different from a clean cut with a sharp instrument. He washed the little hand as well as he could, and wrapped it with a bandage from his satchel. So intently was he occupied in dressing Paul's hand that he forgot all about Yank until the latter came in with the pipe, laid it down gently, and went out with another armful.

"Kin I stay an' walk home with you as fer as Deacon Willett's, teacher?" asked Paul wistfully.

"Of course you may, Paul, if you want to," answered Ned, glad to gratify the boy. And Paul was happy, in spite of the hurt; for he had become more attached to Ned than to anybody else he had ever known except his mother and father. Ned continued to dress Paul's hand till such care was no longer needed.

So Paul staid while Ned and Yank put up the stovepipe, and Ned swept up the soot as well as he could. Then Ned

said to Yank in a frank, manly way, without any show of anger or ill will:

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Henry, it's time you stopped this sort of thing. You can't afford it, to say nothing about its being all wrong. Your bullying ways will make everybody hate and despise you. Now, I am willing, if you are, to let by-gones be bygones. If you will come to school and behave yourself, I will treat you just as though this trouble of ours to-day had never happened. You need more schooling than you have got, or can possibly get. Don't you think we had better shake hands and begin over?"

Ned held out his hand. Yank glanced up, and his right arm swung out slightly from his side, as though he were going to extend his hand. But the worse within him conquered the better, and he continued standing with a sulky, stolid mien, looking down at the floor.

The expression of generous forgiveness and good will on Ned's face gave place to a look of regret and disappointment, unmixed, however, with anger or resentment.

"You may go," he said; and Yank strode out.

The next day Yank did not come to school, and at night his sister took his books home. Ned heard during the following months, however, that from the day of his great drubbing Yank was a different fellow. The bullying spirit had been completely crushed out of him, and he had been permanently eliminated as a disturbing factor in the Sugar Hill community. Moreover, Ned felt satisfied that the wisdom that he had been compelled to hammer into Yank's head by thumping it on the schoolroom floor, had done him more good, for all the practical purposes of life, than any amount of instruction in the rudiments of the three r's could have done. What Yank had needed most was ethical culture, and this Ned had administered in the form best suited to Yank's mental and moral condition.

CHAPTER 12

NED GARDNER ACQUITTED OF HERESY

NED saw from Paul's manner, after Yank had left them alone in the schoolhouse that Wednesday afternoon, that there was something on his mind.