The sehoolhouse stood with a wide sloping green before it and a tangle of second growth forest behind it. It was not an old building, but had the appearance of senile old age. Its coat of cheap terra-cotta paint had cracked into many wrinkles; its windows looked dully out like the lustreless eyes of an old, old man. The ante-room roof had been blown off by a winter's gale and replaced inaccurately, so that it set awry, jaunty and defiant, challenging the world. Its door hung on one hinge, leaning sleepily against a knife-scarred wall. A rail fence ran about the yard which was filled to choking with a rank growth of smart-weed. In one corner of the yard was a well with a faded blue pump holding the faded red arm of a handle toward the skies, as though evoking high heaven to bear witness that it was never intended to lead such a lonely and useless existence.,
Captain Acton bowed, but his distress was lively.,
Maurice Keeler, wan, hollow-eyed, and miserable, was seated on a stool just outside the door in the early morning sunlight. Near him sat his mother, peeling potatoes, her portly form obscured by a trailing wistaria vine. What Maurice had endured during his two weeks with the measles nobody knew but himself. His days had been lonely, filled with remorse that he had ever been born to give people trouble and care; his nights longer even than the days. Hideous nightmares had robbed him of slumber. Old Scroggie's ghost had visited him almost nightly. The Twin Oaks robbers, ugly, hairy giants armed with red-hot pitch-forks, had bound him to a tree and applied fire to his feet. What use to struggle or cry aloud for help? Even Billy, his dearest chum, had sat and laughed with all the mouths of his eight heads at his pain. Of course he had awakened to learn these were but dreams; but to a boy dreams are closely akin to reality..
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