* * * * *
It was two weeks after this before Ralph was able to return to his
work. So much excitement, so much mental distress and bodily fatigue
in so short a time, had occasioned a severe shock to his system, and
he rallied from it but slowly.
One Monday morning, however, he went back to his accustomed work at
the breaker.
He had thought that perhaps he might be ridiculed by the screen-room
boys as one who had tried to soar above his fellows and had fallen
ignominiously back to the earth. He expected to be greeted with
jeering words and with cutting remarks, not so much in the way of
malice as of fun. He resolved to take it calmly, however, and to give
way to no show of feeling, hoping that thus the boys would soon forget
to tease him.
But when he came among them that morning, looking so thin, and
pale, and old, there was not a boy in all the waiting crowd who had
the heart or hardihood to say an unpleasant word to him or to give
utterance to a jest at his expense.
They all spoke kindly to him, and welcomed him back. Some of them did
it very awkwardly indeed, and with much embarrassment, but they made
him to understand, somehow, that they were glad to see him, and that
he still held his place among them as a companion and a friend. It was
very good in them, Ralph thought, very good indeed; he could scarcely
keep the tears back for gratitude.
He took his accustomed bench in the screen-room, and bent to his task
in the old way; but not with the old, light heart and willing fingers.
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