“For two years I have kept you number two in the class,” Dally said, speaking in an easier tone as if to lighten the strain on everybody.  “You should have been number one.  Davidson, whom I placed above you has at no time been your superior in anything but self-control.  But it was just your—­what I have sometimes called your fuzzy-wuzziness, that made me afraid of placing you where you rightly belonged, at the head of the class.  It is my belief that you have in you greater gifts than any other boy in this class, but I am not yet sure of what you will do with them.  It was my eagerness to see you make full use of them that made me poke fun at you and keep you out of the place that rightfully was yours.  Perhaps I did wrong, but my meaning was right.  I shall always watch you closely, and I hope you will try your best not to disappoint me.  Will you promise that?”

“I will,” gasped Keith.

The clock had already struck three.  The moment Dally stopped, the class broke up, but only to gather about Keith—­every one of them except Davidson, who slipped out of the room with a face white as chalk.  Keith caught a glimpse of that face, and a sense of reckless elation shot through him.

He sped as never before on his way home.  It was still impossible for him to think the matter through.  First he must tell his parents and hear what they had to say about it.

On hearing what had happened, his mother hugged and kissed him, her face all smiles while big tears dripped down her cheeks.  Then the father came home and was told everything.  His mother looked serious by that time, and Keith noticed a wavering expression in her voice.

“Your teacher evidently knows you,” was the father’s first remark to Keith, but by his tone the boy knew that he was pleased.  Then he hesitated, and after a while he said as if speaking to himself:  “But if Keith really had earned the first place....”

“That’s what I have been thinking,” the mother broke in with blazing eyes.  “Do you remember what I said about that boy Davidson?  He was the richest boy in the class, and Lector Dahlstroem simply did not dare to put Keith above him.  Now he is trying to make up for it when it’s too late.”

“Perhaps,” said the father thoughtfully.  “The sum of it is what I have always said:  the coin that was made for a farthing will never be a dollar.”

“But Keith was not made for a farthing,” the mother retorted sharply and indignantly.  “That is the main point of what his teacher confessed in school this very day.”

“Well, if not,” said the father wearily, “it is up to him to prove it.”

And Keith, too, all of a sudden felt very, very tired.

XII

Keith was one of the first to enter the class room on the morning of Commencement Day.  He was still standing near the door when Davidson appeared and evidently meant to walk past him without a greeting.