crash; Daisy cried out, “I knew it wasn’t Nat;” Nan began to cry,
and Mrs. Jo left the room, looking so disappointed, sorry, and
ashamed that Dan could not bear it. He hid his face in his hands a
moment, then threw up his head, squared his shoulders as if
settling some load upon them, and said, with the dogged look, and
half-resolute, half-reckless tone he had used when he first came
“I did it; now you may do what you like to me, but I won’t say
another word about it.”
“Not even that you are sorry?” asked Mr. Bhaer, troubled by the
change in him.
“I ain’t sorry.”
“I’ll forgive him without asking,” said Tommy, feeling that it was
harder somehow to see brave Dan disgraced than timid Nat.
“Don’t want to be forgiven,” returned Dan, gruffly.
“Perhaps you will when you have thought about it quietly by
yourself, I won’t tell you now how surprised and disappointed I am,
but by and by I will come up and talk to you in your room.”
“Won’t make any difference,” said Dan, trying to speak defiantly,
but failing as he looked at Mr. Bhaer’s sorrowful face; and, taking
his words for a dismissal, Dan left the room as if he found it
impossible to stay.
It would have done him good if he had stayed; for the boys talked
the matter over with such sincere regret, and pity, and wonder, it
might have touched and won him to ask pardon. No one was glad
to find that it was he, not even Nat; for, spite of all his faults, and
they were many, every one liked Dan now, because under his
rough exterior lay some of the manly virtues which we most
admire and love. Mrs. Jo had been the chief prop, as well as
cultivator, of Dan; and she took it sadly to heart that her last and
most interesting boy had turned out so ill. The theft was bad, but
the lying about it, and allowing another to suffer so much from an
unjust suspicion was worse; and most discouraging of all was the
attempt to restore the money in an underhand way, for it showed
not only a want of courage, but a power of deceit that boded ill for
the future. Still more trying was his steady refusal to talk of the
matter, to ask pardon, or express any remorse. Days passed; and he
went about his lessons and his work, silent, grim, and unrepentant.
As if taking warning by their treatment of Nat, he asked no
sympathy of any one, rejected the advances of the boys, and spent
his leisure hours roaming about the fields and woods, trying to find
playmates in the birds and beasts, and succeeding better than most
boys would have done, because he knew and loved them so well.
“If this goes on much longer, I’m afraid he will run away again, for
he is too young to stand a life like this,” said Mr. Bhaer, quite
dejected at the failure of all his efforts.
“A little while ago I should have been quite sure that nothing
would tempt him away, but now I am ready of any thing, he is so
changed,” answered poor Mrs. Jo, who mourned over her boy and
could not be comforted, because he shunned her more than any
one else, and only looked at her with the half-fierce,
half-imploring eyes of a wild animal caught in a trap, when she
tried to talk to him alone.
Nat followed him about like a shadow, and Dan did not repulse
him as rudely as he did others, but said, in his blunt way, “You are
all right; don’t worry about me. I can stand it better than you did.”
“But I don’t like to have you all alone,” Nat would say, sorrowfully.
“I like it;” and Dan would tramp away, stifling a sigh sometimes,
for he was lonely.
Passing through the birch grove one day, he came up on several of
the boys, who were amusing themselves by climbing up the trees
and swinging down again, as they slender elastic stems bent till
their tops touched the ground. Dan paused a minute to watch the