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But Shocky was a poet, and a poet understands silence more quickly than he does speech. The little fellow shivered as the truth came to him. "Is that the poor-house?" he said, catching his breath. "Is my mother in that place? Won't you take me in there, so as I can just kiss her once? 'Cause she can't see much, you know. And one kiss from me will make her feel so good.
In the midst of my dreams of lords and ladies, queens and dukes, I found myself deeply concerned with backwoods farming, spelling schools, protracted meetings and the like familiar homely scenes. To us "Mandy" and "Bud Means," "Ralph Hartsook," the teacher, "Little Shocky" and sweet patient "Hannah," were as real as Cyrus Button and Daddy Fairbanks.
Hank was entirely off his guard, and, with his eyes fixed upon the slate on the teacher's desk, he sidled round upon the broad loose board misplaced by his own hand, and in an instant the other end of the board rose up in the middle of the school-room, almost striking Shocky in the face, while Henry Banta went down into the ice-cold water beneath the school-house.
I'll keep closte behind you, and ef anybody offers to trouble you, do you let off a yell and I'll be thar in no time." When Ralph left the school-house he felt mean. There were Bud and Shocky gone on an errand of mercy, and he, the truant member of the Church of the Best Licks, was not with them.
What the boy's first name or last name was the teacher did not know. He had given his name as Shocky, and all the teacher knew was that he was commonly called Shocky, that he was an orphan, that he lived with a family named Pearson over in Rocky Hollow, and that he was the most faithful and affectionate child in the school.
He did a deal of thinking and brought to mind every cave for forty or fifty miles around, then shook his shocky head. It was of no use whatever. It was all war. So, when he came back with a bundle of hares they had to cook their supper without any fire, and every one knows how hard that is. What was nearly as bad, they could not depend on the fire to keep out night prowlers.
For Mrs Pearson's, stuck to me and I mean to stick to him, you see." Bud led Shocky through the graveyard. But when they reached the forest path from the graveyard he thought that perhaps it was not best to "show his hand," as he expressed it, too soon. "Now, Shocky," he said, "do you run ahead and tell the ole man that I want to see him right off down by the Spring-in-rock.
He sat musing a good while, trying to convince himself of the truth of what he had just been saying to Shocky that God would indeed bring things out right at last. Would it all come out right if Bud married Hannah? Would it all come out right if he were driven from Flat Creek with a dark suspicion upon his character? Did God concern himself with these things? Was there any God?
The more he thought of it the more he seemed to be a coward, and the more he despised himself; so, yielding as usual to the first brave impulse, he leaped nimbly over the fence and started briskly through the forest in a direction intersecting the path on which were Bud and Shocky. He came in sight just in time to see the first conflict of the Church in the Wilderness with her foes.
White followed his nephew to the stable to request that he would be a little careful what he did about anybody in the poor-house, as any trouble with the Joneses might defeat Mr. White's nomination to the judgeship of the Court of Common Pleas. When Ralph got back to Miss Nancy Sawyer's, Shocky was sitting up in bed talking to Miss Nancy and Miss Semantha.
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