Surely not Harold for there he goes
Down so flat
he bumps his nose,
While Jimmy stops short.
The fat little elf,
Says he can't run a race
all by himself.
FACING THE WORLD.
"Glad I am, mother, the holidays are over. It's quite different going
back to school again when one goes to be captain--as I'm sure to be.
Isn't it jolly?"
Mrs. Boyd's face as she smiled back at Donald was not exactly "jolly."
Still, she did smile; and then there came out the strong likeness often
seen between mother and son, even when, as in this case, the features
were very dissimilar. Mrs. Boyd was a pretty, delicate little English
woman: and Donald took after his father, a big, brawny Scotsman,
certainly not pretty, and not always sweet. Poor man! he had of late
years had only too much to make him sour.
Though she tried to smile and succeeded, the tears were in Mrs. Boyd's
eyes, and her mouth was quivering. But she set it tightly together, and
then she looked more than ever like her son, or rather, her son looked
like her.
He was too eager in his delight to notice her much. "It is jolly, isn't
it, mother? I never thought I'd get to the top of the school at all,
for I'm not near so clever as some of the fellows. But now I've got my
place; and I like it, and I mean to keep it; you'll be pleased at that,
mother?"
"I should have been if--if--" Mrs. Boyd tried to get the words out and
failed, closed her eyes as tight as her mouth for a minute, then opened
them and looked her boy in the face gravely and sadly.
"It goes to my heart to tell you--I have been waiting to say it all
morning, but, Donald, my dear, you will never go back to school at all."
"Not go back; when I'm captain! why, you and father both said that if I
got to be that, I should not stop till I was seventeen--and now I'm only
fifteen and a half. O, mother, you don't mean it! Father couldn't break
his word! I may go back!"
Mrs. Boyd shook her head sadly, and then explained as briefly and calmly
as she could the heavy blow which had fallen upon the father, and,
indeed, upon the whole family. Mr. Boyd had long been troubled with his
eyes, about as serious a trouble as could have befallen a man in his

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