"Will you--will you?" he cried, running over to the sofa. "Will you give
our things, if we make them, to some poor sick boys who are hurt, Mrs.
Sterling?"
"I surely will, Joel," promised Mrs. Sterling, taking his two brown hands
in her thin one.
"Then I'm going to make things," declared Joel, who never in his life
before had been willing to sit still and cut out and snip and paste and
write, and he plunged back to his seat. "Oh!" he cried, in dismay, and his
face grew terribly red, "did I upset that?"--pointing to the mucilage
bottle.
"You surely did," said Gibson tartly, and taking up the last of the sticky
mess with a wet towel, "and I suppose you'll do it again, or some of the
rest of you boys will. It don't make much difference which," and she moved
off slowly.
"Gibson--Gibson," said Mrs. Sterling gently.
"Oh, Gibson!" Joel flew after her and twitched her apron string.
"What is it?" She turned on him with asperity. "I never will upset the
mucilage bottle again, I won't, Gibson, really."
"See that you don't," replied Gibson, moving off with small faith in such
promises.
And another promise had that very evening been made, just before the boys
had gathered in Mrs. Sterling's handsome sitting-room.
Curtis Park had been through several spasms of distress over his attack on
Jack, when, whirling around from the friendly attitude he had chosen to
assume, he had made a tirade on the grocer's son.
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