Page:Fairview Boys and their Rivals.djvu/76

72 "What's the matter with you, anyway, the last day or two?"

"Nothing."

"Yes, there is."

"I'm sort of feeling cross, that's all."

Sammy fell back with a rather glum face, and Bob walked about alone. He was not feeling cross at all, although he thought he was. He was thinking.

Bob had felt for two days that he was in disgrace. Miss Williams showed no change in her manner towards him before the scholars, but he did not feel as free and friendly with her as of old.

Bob had worried some, but he had no hard feelings against anybody. He knew that he was not to blame about the stolen spelling list. One thing troubled Bob greatly, however; he believed that Tom Chubb had taken the list from the teacher's desk.

That was the very first thought that had come into Bob's mind when Miss Williams spoke of the list. Bob hated to think that Tom could do a mean trick. Something he remembered, however, helped to turn his mind in that way.

Ever since Tom had come to school, he had told a lot of stories of the ways down at Springville Academy. The boys there had taught him a good many tricks, as they called them.

Tom said it was quite usual for the fellows to have key books and carry notes with them, when they were trying for a new grade. What was worse, the fat boy did not seem to see much wrong in these acts.

So Bob had jumped at once to the conclusion that Tom had stolen the spelling list out of Miss Williams' desk.

"Didn't he have every word right?" Bob asked himself. "How could it come in his desk, or rather my desk, which he was using, unless he put it in there?"

Only guessing this, however. Bob was not willing to give