The school-house was deep red, and shamed the Boston pinks, which could not blush to the least advantage near it.  It stood on a sand-bank, with a rich crop of thistles on three sides, and an oak tree in one corner.  There were plenty of beautiful places in town; but the people of Perseverance, District Number Three, had chosen this spot for their school-house, because it was not good for anything else.

It was the middle of September, but the summer term was still in session, because school had not begun that year until after haying.  It was Saturday noon, and the fourth class was spelling.  The children were all toeing a chalk-mark in the floor, but Willy Parlin scowled and moved about uneasily.

“Order there,” said Miss Judkins, pounding the desk with her ruler.  “What makes you throw your head back so, William Parlin?”

“’Cause there’s somebody trying to tell me the word, and I don’t want anybody to tell me,” answered Willy, with another toss of his dark locks.

Fred Chase was sitting on a bench behind the class, with an open spelling-book before him, and was the “somebody” who had been whispering the word to Willy; but Willy was naturally as open as the day, and despised anything sly.  More than that, he knew his lesson perfectly.

Miss Judkins asked no more questions, for she was well aware that Fred Chase was constantly doing just such things.  She smiled as she looked at Willy’s noble face, and was well pleased soon after to hear him spell a word which had been missed by three boys above him, and march straight up to the head.  She always liked to have Willy “Captain,” for deep down in her heart he was her favorite scholar.  There were only a few more words to be spelled; then Willy called out “Captain,” the next boy said “Number One,” the third “Number Two,” and so on down the whole twenty; and after that the school was dismissed for the week.

The “mistress” put on her blue gingham “calash,” ­a big drawn bonnet shaped like a chaise-top, ­and as she was leaving the house she whispered to Willy, “Don’t forget what I told you to say to your mother.”

“No, marm; you told me to say you’d asked Mrs. Lyman if it was so, and Mrs. Lyman said, ‘Yes, it is too true.’”

“That is it, exactly, dear,” replied Miss Judkins, smiling.  “And be sure you don’t lose your medal.”

She said that just for fun, and it was such a capital joke that Willy’s eyes twinkled.  Lose the quarter of a dollar dangling from his neck by a red string! ­the medal which told as plainly as words can speak, that he had left off that day at the head of his class!

As it was Saturday, he was to keep the medal till Monday morning ­a great privilege, and one he had enjoyed two or three times before.  But there was this drawback; he had to slip the medal under his jacket, out of sight, on Sunday.  It was the more to be regretted, as he sat in one of the “amen pews,” not far from the pulpit; and if the medal might only hang outside his jacket, where it ought, Elder Lovejoy would certainly catch sight of it when he turned round, and looked through his spectacles, saying, “And now, seventhly, my dear hearers.”

Willy would sit, to-morrow, swelling with secret pride, and wishing Elder Lovejoy’s eyes were sharp enough to pierce through his jacket.  But then, as he told his mother, he “liked the feeling of the medal, even if it was covered up.”  I suppose there was some satisfaction in knowing he was more of a boy than people took him to be.

“Wonder what it is that Mrs. Lyman says is too true,” thought Willy, taking a piece of chalk out of his pocket, and drawing a profile of Miss Judkins on the door-sill, while that young lady tripped along the road, brushing the golden-rod and sweet-fern with the skirt of her dress.

“Now stop that, Gid Noonin,” said he, as a large boy came up behind him, and tickled him under the arms.  “Stop that!” repeated he, making chalk figures, as he spoke, in the ample nose of Miss Judkins.

“7ber 18001,” scrawled he, slowly and carefully. “7ber” was short for September; and Gideon could find no fault with that, for people often wrote it so; but he could not help laughing at the extra cipher in the year 1801.

“Give me that chalk,” chuckled he; and then he wrote, in bold characters, “7ber the 15th, 1801.”

Willy dropped his head.  He had not learned to write; but did he want to be taught by that great Gid Noonin, the stupidest boy in school?  Why, he had gone above Gid long ago, just by spelling “exact.”  Gideon spelt it e, g, z!  Did you ever hear of anything so silly?  And he a fellow twelve years old!  Willy was just eight, but he hoped he could spell!  If you doubted it, there was the medal!

Gideon was not only a poor scholar, ­he was regarded as a bad boy, and many mothers warned their little sons not to play with him.

“Look here, Billy, what you up to this afternoon?  Going anywhere?”

“Only up to the store, I guess.  Why?”

“O, nothing partic’lar.  Just asked for fun.”

“Well, give back that piece of chalk,” said Willy, “for it isn’t mine.  Steve keeps it in his pocket to rub his shoe-buckles with.”

Gideon laughed, but would not return the chalk till he had whitened Willy’s jacket with it and the top of his hat.  He never seemed to mean any harm, but just to be running over with good-natured, silly mischief.

Willy ran home whistling; but when he saw his father standing in the front entry, his tune grew a little slower, and then stopped.  Mr. Parlin was rather stern with his children, and did not like to have them make much noise in the house.

“Well, my son, so you have brought home the medal again.  That’s right, ­that’s right.”

Willy took off his hat when his father spoke to him, and answered, “Yes, sir,” with a respectful bow.

There were two or three men standing in the doorway which led into the bar-room.

“How d’ye do, my fine little lad?” said one of the men; “and what is your name?”

Now, this was a question which Deacon Turner had asked over and over again, and Willy was rather tired of answering it.  He thought the deacon might remember after being told so many times.

“My name is just the same as it was the other day when you asked me, sir,” said he.

This pert speech called forth a laugh from all but Mr. Parlin, who frowned at the child, and exclaimed, ­

“You are an ill-mannered little boy, sir.  Go to your mother, and don’t let me see you here again till you can come back with a civil tongue in your head.”

Tears sprang to Willy’s eyes.  He really had not intended any rudeness, and was ashamed of being reproved before strangers.  He walked off quite stiffly, wishing he was “a growed-up man, so there wouldn’t anybody dare send him out to his mother.”

But when he reached the kitchen, he found it so attractive there that he soon forgot his disgrace.  A roast of beef was sizzling before the fire on a string, and Siller Noonin was taking a steaming plum pudding out of the Dutch oven, while Mrs. Parlin stood near the “broad dresser,” as it was called, cutting bread.

“O, mother, mother! the mistress told me to tell you she asked Mrs. Lyman what you asked her to, and she told her to ask me to tell you it was too true. ­Now, what is too true, mother?”

“It is too true that you are right in my way, you dear little plague,” said Mrs. Parlin, stopping, in the very act of cutting bread, to hug the rosy-cheeked boy.  She was a “business woman,” and had many cares on her mind, but always found time to kiss and pet her children more than most people did, and much more than Siller Noonin thought was really necessary.

“But, then,” as Siller said, “their father never makes anything of them at all; so I suppose their mother feels obliged to do more than her part of the kissing.”

“Mother, mother! what is it that is too true?  How can anything be too true?” asked Willy, dancing across the hearth, and almost upsetting the dripping-pan in which Liddy had just made the gravy.

“You shall hear, by and by, all it is best for you to know,” replied Mrs. Parlin.  And after dinner was served, and Siller had gone home, she told him that Siller’s nephew, Gideon Noonin, had been a very naughty boy ­worse than people generally supposed him to be.

She did not like to repeat the whole of the sad story, ­how he had stolen money from Mr. Griggs, the toll-gatherer, and how poor Mr. Noonin, the father, had paid it back by selling some sheep, and begged Mr. Griggs not to send his bad son to jail.  She did not wish Willy to know all this; but she told him she was more than ever convinced that Gideon was a wicked boy.

“I don’t know what makes you little children all like him so well,” said she.  “He may be funny and good-natured, but he is not a suitable playmate for anybody, especially for a small boy like you.  Remember the old proverb, ‘Eggs should not dance with stones.’”

Willy looked deeply interested while his mother was talking, and said he would never speak to Gideon except to answer questions.

“But he does ask so many questions!  I tell you, mamma, he’s always taking hold of you, and asking if you don’t want to go somewhere, or do something.  And then he makes you go right along and do it, ’cause he’s so big.  Why he’s twice as big as me, mother; but he can’t spell worth a cent.”

A little while after this, Willy ran off, whistling, to buy some mackerel and codfish at Daddy Wiggins’s store.  Before he reached the store, he heard a voice up in the air calling out to him, ­

“Hullo, Billy Button! what you crying about down there?”

Willy stopped whistling, and looked up to see where the voice came from.  Gideon Noonin was sitting on the bough of a great maple tree, eating gingerbread.  The sight of his face filled Willy with strange feelings.  What a naughty, dreadful face it was, with the purple scar across the left cheek!  Willy had never admired that scar, but now he thought it was horrible.  His mother was right:  Gid must be a very bad boy.

At the same time Gid’s eyes danced in the most enticing manner, and laughing gleefully he threw down a great ragged piece of gingerbread, which Willy knew, from past experience, must be remarkably nice.  It was glazed on the top as smooth as satin, and had caraway seeds in it, and another kind of spice of an unknown name.  Willy intended to obey his mother, and beware of Gideon; but who had ever told him to beware of Gideon’s gingerbread?  Gid might be bad, but surely the gingerbread wasn’t!  Moreover, if nobody ate it, it would get stepped on in the road, and wasted.  So to save it Willy opened his mouth and began to nibble.  No harm in that ­was there?

“Wan’t to go swimming, Billy?”

Willy was walking along as fast as he could, but of course he must answer a civil question.

“No.  Don’t know how to swim.”

“Who s’posed you did ­a little fellow like you?” said Gid, in a warm-hearted tone, as he dropped nimbly down from the tree, and alighted on his head.  “Come ‘long o’ me, and I’ll show you how.”

Willy’s eyes sparkled, ­he didn’t know it, but they did, ­and he drew in his breath with a “Whew!” Not that he had the least idea of going with Gid; but the very thought of it was perfectly bewitching.  How often he had teased his two brothers to teach him to swim! and they wouldn’t.  He was always too young, and they never could stop.  They thought he was a baby; but Gid didn’t think so.  Ah, Gid knew better than that.