I had hoped better things of you, Reuben; but it's just the way, it's your bright boys as mostly gets into mischief." At this moment the door of the school room opened, and a lady with two girls, one of about fourteen and the other eleven years of age, entered.
"What is the matter now ?" the lady asked, seeing the schoolmaster, cane in hand, and the boy standing before him.
"Reuben Whitney! What, in trouble again, Reuben?
I am afraid you are a very troublesome boy." "I am not troublesome, ma'm," the boy said sturdily.

"That is, I wouldn't be if they would let me alone; but everything that is done bad, they put it down to me." "But what have you been doing now, Reuben ?" "I have done nothing at all, ma'm; but he's always down on me," and he pointed to the master, "and when they are always down on a fellow, it's no use his trying to do right." "What has the boy been doing now, Mr.White ?" the lady asked.
"Look there, ma'm, at those four windows all smashed, and the squire had all the broken panes mended only a fortnight ago." "How was it done, Mr.White ?" "By a big stone, ma'm, which caught the frame where they joined, and smashed them all." "I did not do it, Mrs.Ellison, indeed I didn't." "Why do you suppose it was Reuben ?" Mrs.Ellison asked the master.
"Because I had kept him in, half an hour after the others went home to dinner, for pinching young Jones and making him call out; and he had only just gone out of the gate when I heard the smash; so there is no doubt about it, for all the others must have been in at their dinner at that time." "I didn't do it, ma'm," the boy repeated.

"Directly I got out of the gate, I started off to run home.

I hadn't gone not twenty yards when I heard a smash; but I wasn't going for to stop to see what it was.

It weren't no business of mine, and that's all I know about it." "Mamma," the younger of the two girls said eagerly, "what he says is quite true.