“No, I couldn’t.  Rathburn was sure to give it to his favorite.”

“And who is his favorite?” questioned Squire Haynes, not yet siding with his son.

“Frank Frost, to be sure.”

“Frank Frost!” repeated the squire, rapidly wheeling round to his son’s view of the matter.  His dislike of the father was so great that it readily included the son.  “What makes you think he is the teacher’s favorite?”

“Oh, Rathburn is always praising him for something or other.  All the boys know Frank Frost is his pet.  You won’t catch him praising me, if I work ever so hard.”

John did not choose to mention that he had not yet tried this method of securing the teacher’s approval.

“Teachers should never have favorites,” said the squire dogmatically.  “It is highly detrimental to a teacher’s influence, and subversive of the principles of justice.  Have you got your essay with you, John?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You may sit down and read it to me, and if I think it deserving, I will take care that you sha’n’t lose by the teacher’s injustice.”

John readily obeyed.  He hurried up to his chamber, and, opening his writing-desk, took out a sheet of foolscap, three sides of which were written over.  This he brought down-stairs with him.  He began to hope that he might get the boat after all.

The squire, in dressing-gown and slippers, sat in a comfortable armchair, while John in a consequential manner read his rejected essay.  It was superficial and commonplace, and abundantly marked with pretension, but to the squire’s warped judgment it seemed to have remarkable merit.

“It does you great credit, John,” said he emphatically.  “I don’t know what sort of an essay young Frost wrote, but I venture to say it was not as good.  If he’s anything like his father, he is an impertinent jackanapes.”

John pricked up his ears, and listened attentively.

“He grossly insulted me at the town meeting to-day, and I sha’n’t soon forget it.  It isn’t for his interest to insult a man who has the power to annoy him that I possess.”

“Haven’t you got a mortgage on his farm?”

“Yes, and at a proper time I shall remind him of it.  But to come back to your own affairs.  What was the prize given to young Frost?”

“A blue-and-gold copy of Whittier’s Poems, in two volumes.”

“Plain binding, I suppose.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well.  The next time I go to Boston, I will buy you the same thing bound in calf.  I don’t intend that you shall suffer by your teacher’s injustice.”

“It wasn’t so much the prize that I cared for,” said John, who felt like making the most of his father’s favorable mood, “but you know you promised me twenty-five dollars if I gained it.”

“And as you have been defrauded of it, I will give you thirty instead,” said the squire promptly.

John’s eyes sparkled with delight.  “Oh, thank you, sir!” he said.  “I wouldn’t change places with Frank Frost now for all his prize.”