[Illustration: Tip Pulsifer leaned on my gate.]
Just a few minutes before I had awakened. I had lifted my head from my
desk, half-dazed, and gazed around the school-room. I had rubbed my
eyes to drive away the veils that hid my scholars from me. I had
pounded the floor with a crutch and cried: "It's books." The silence
answered me. I had not been napping in school, nor was I dreaming.
The long, miserable night flashed back to me, and I stamped into the
misty morning. Weary and dishevelled, I was crawling home, purposeless
as ever, now vowing I would break with my brother, now quickening my
steps that I might sooner wish him all the joy a brother should. A few
dogs greeted me and then Tip, calmly smoking as though it were my usual
time to be about of a morning.
"You are going over the mountain, Tip?" said I.
"Yes," he answered, throwing open the gate. "This is the last Six
Stars will see of me. I'm done. The missus was a-yammerin' and
a-yammerin' all day yesterday. If it wasn't this, it was that she was
yammerin' about.
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