“We had a quarrel. He struck me. I knocked him down.” Bartley delivered up the truth, as a prisoner of war--or a captive brigand, perhaps--parts with his weapons one by one. “Very well,” said the doctor. “Get some water.” Bartley poured some out of the pitcher on his table, and the doctor, wetting his handkerchief, drew it again and again over Bird's forehead. “I never meant to hurt him,” said Bartley. “I didn't even intend to strike him when he hit me.” “Intentions have very little to do with physical effects,” replied the doctor sharply. “Henry!” The boy opened his eyes, and, muttering feebly, “My head!” closed them again. “There's a concussion here,” said the doctor. “We had better get him home. Drive my sleigh over, will you, from Smith's.” Bartley went out into the glare of the sun, which beat upon him like the eye of the world. But the street was really empty, as it often was in the middle of the forenoon at Equity. The apothecary, who saw him untying the doctor's horse, came to his door, and said jocosely, “Hello, Doc! who's sick?” “I am,” said Bartley, solemnly, and the apothecary laughed at his readiness. Bartley drove round to the back of the printing-office, where the farmers delivered his wood. “I thought we could get him out better that way,” he explained, and the doctor, who had to befriend a great many concealments in his practice, silently spared Bartley's disingenuousness. The rush of the cold air, as they drove rapidly down the street, with that limp shape between them, revived the boy, and he opened his eyes, and made an effort to hold himself erect, but he could not; and when they got him into the warm room at home, he fainted again. His mother had met them at the door of her poor little house, without any demonstration of grief or terror; she was far too well acquainted in her widowhood--bereft of all her children but this son--with sickness and death, to show even surprise, if she felt it. When Bartley broke out into his lamentable confession, “Oh, Mrs. Bird! this is _my_ work!” she only wrung her hands and answered, “_Your_ work! Oh, Mr. Hubbard, he thought the world of _you_!” and did not ask him how or why he had done it. After they had got Henry on the bed, Bartley was no longer of use there; but they let him remain in the corner into which he had shrunk, and from which he watched all that went on, with a dry mouth and faltering breath. It began to appear to him that he was very young to be involved in a misfortune like this; he did not understand why it should have happened to him; but he promised himself that, if Henry lived, he would try to be a better man in every way. After he had lost all hope, the time seemed so long, the boy on the bed opened his eyes once more, and looked round, while Bartley still sat with his face in his hands. “Where--where is Mr. Hubbard?” he faintly asked, with a bewildered look at his mother and the doctor.