“Yes I do, indeed I do. Please let me.”
“You’ll tell.”
“No I won’t—deed and deed and double deed won’t.”
“You won’t tell anybody at all? Ever, as long as you live?”
“No, I won’t ever tell any body. Now let me.”
“Oh, you don’t want to see!”
“Now that you treat me so, I will see.” And she put her small hand upon his and a little scuffle ensued, Tom pretending to resist in earnest but letting his hand slip by degrees till these words were revealed: “ I love you. ”
“Oh, you bad thing!” And she hit his hand a smart rap, but reddened and looked pleased, nevertheless.
Just at this juncture the boy felt a slow, fateful grip closing on his ear, and a steady lifting impulse. In that wise he was borne across the house and deposited in his own seat, under a peppering fire of giggles from the whole school. Then the master stood over him during a few awful moments, and finally moved away to his throne without saying a word. But although Tom’s ear tingled, his heart was jubilant.
As the school quieted down Tom made an honest effort to study, but the turmoil within him was too great. In turn he took his place in the reading class and made a botch of it; then in the geography class and turned lakes into mountains, mountains into rivers, and rivers into continents, till chaos was come again; then in the spelling class, and got “turned down,” by a succession of mere baby words, till he brought up at the foot and yielded up the pewter medal which he had worn with ostentation for months.