When he entered the school-yard he quickly became aware that he was
the center of attraction for all eyes. The boys crowded around in an
awe-stricken way, and even his classmates and those with whom he was
well acquainted looked at him with a certain respect he had never
seen before.
CHAPTER VI
EXAMINATION DAY
It was plain that Fred and Charley had spread the news of their descent
into the Pit, and of their battle with the Simpson clan and the Fishes.
He heard the nine-o'clock bell with feelings of relief, and passed into
the school, a mark for admiring glances from all the boys. The girls,
too, looked at him in a timid and fearful way--as they might have looked
at Daniel when he came out of the lions' den, Joe thought, or at David
after his battle with Goliath. It made him uncomfortable and painfully
self-conscious, this hero-worshiping, and he wished heartily that they
would look in some other direction for a change.
Soon they did look in another direction. While big sheets of foolscap
were being distributed to every desk, Miss Wilson, the teacher (an
austere-looking young woman who went through the world as though it
were a refrigerator, and who, even on the warmest days in the classroom,
was to be found with a shawl or cape about her shoulders), arose, and
on the blackboard where all could see wrote the Roman numeral "I.
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