"Why, I'll get him mad, and then I'll lick him; and I know how I'll
get him mad." So Jack, in accordance with his wicked resolution, wrote
in very large letters upon a slip of paper, 'BOY-GIRL;' on another
slip, he wrote, 'GIRL-BOY,' and giving Harry the one he had first
written, he told him to pin it on to Fanny's back, when they stopped
in the entry, to get their bonnets and caps. At the same time, he
slily pinned the other on Frank's roundabout. So when Frank and Fanny
went along out of school, as usual, the little children, amused by the
slips of paper, ran after them, some calling, 'boy-girl,' and others,
'girl-boy,'
Frank did not know what all this meant; but he kept on without looking
back.
"Look behind you," cried Harry Day, as he ran up to Fanny. Jack kept
some distance behind, and said nothing.
"Look behind you, I say," shouted Harry again.
Fanny was turning to look, when Frank said to her in a low tone,
without moving his head,
"Don't look around, Fanny, and don't mind what they call us, for I
don't care."
[Illustration: JACK MILLS'S TRICK.]
So they kept on, side by side, the children still calling after them,
and when they got away from the school house, Jack's voice was heard
among the rest, shouting, 'tell-tale,' 'girl-baby,' and other
provoking nicknames.
Frank took no notice of them, until his sister stooped down to pick a
flower, and as she did so, he saw the paper on her back.
"Who did this?" he said, and as he turned toward the children, he saw
Jack throwing a stone. The stone flew past him, hitting his sister in
the face. Fanny screamed, and the blood started from her nose.
Jack ran, and Frank's first impulse was to spring after him; but he
did not know how badly his sister might be hurt, and so he staid with
her, and wiped the blood from her face. The children crowded around,
and Harry Day unpinned the pieces of paper, for he felt ashamed, for
the part he had taken.
All the while, Frank's heart was full of angry feeling toward Jack,
and he could not have kept them down, if he had not had his sister to
take care of. He was very glad to find that she was not seriously
hurt; for the stone had not hit her with its full force, only grazing
her nose, between the eyes.
When they got home, Fanny told her grandmother all about it; but Frank
did not say a word. It was plain to be seen by the way in which his
head moved, as he walked the floor, that he was striving to obtain a
mastery over his passions. After a while he said,
"I wish I could fight Jack Mills, grandmother."
"My dear Frank," she answered, "you have forgotten the golden rule."
"No, I haven't forgotten it, grandmother; for if Jack Mills had a
sister, and I had thrown a stone at her, he might have fought me, and
welcome."
"But now that Jack has thrown the stone, cannot you set him the
example of overcoming evil with good?"
"I don't know, grandmother; I think it would be very hard."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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