<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></SPAN>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
<h3>A LOSS AND A GAIN.</h3>
<p>Dr. Small, silent, attentive, assiduous Dr. Small, set himself
to work to bind up the wounded heart of Bud Means, even as he had
bound up his broken arm. The flattery of his fine eyes, which
looked at Bud's muscles so admiringly, which gave attention to his
lightest remark, was not lost on the young Flat Creek Hercules.
Outwardly at least Pete Jones showed no inclination to revenge
himself on Bud. Was it respect for muscle, or was it the influence
of Small? At any rate, the concentrated extract of the resentment
of Pete Jones and his clique was now ready to empty itself upon the
head of Hartsook. And Ralph found himself in his dire extremity
without even the support of Bud, whose good resolutions seemed to
give way all at once. There have been many men of culture and more
favorable surroundings who have thrown themselves away with less
provocation. As it was, Bud quit school, avoided Ralph, and seemed
more than ever under the influence of Dr. Small, besides becoming
the intimate of Walter Johnson, Small's student and Mrs. Matilda
White's son. They made a strange pair—Bud with his firm jaw
and silent, cautious manner, and Walter Johnson with his weak chin,
his nice neck-ties, and general dandy appearance.</p>
<p>To be thus deserted in his darkest hour by his only friend was
the bitterest ingredient in Ralph's cup. In vain he sought an
interview. Bud always eluded him. While by all the faces about him
Ralph learned that the storm was getting nearer and nearer to
himself. It might delay. If it had been Pete Jones alone, it might
blow over. But Ralph felt sure that the relentless hand of Dr.
Small was present in all his troubles. And he had only to look into
Small's eye to know how inextinguishable was a malignity that
burned so steadily and so quietly.</p>
<p>But there is no cup of unmixed bitterness. With an innocent man
there is no night so dark that some star does not shine. Ralph had
one strong sheet-anchor. On his return from Lewisburg on Monday Bud
had handed him a note, written on common blue foolscap, in round,
old-fashioned hand. It ran:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>"Dear Sir: Anybody who can do so good a thing as you did for our
Shocky, can not be bad. I hope you will forgive me. All the
appearances in the world, and all that anybody says, can not make
me think you anything else but a good man. I hope God will reward
you. You must not answer this, and you hadn't better see me again,
or think any more of what you spoke about the other night. I shall
be a slave for three years more, and then I must work for my mother
and Shocky; but I felt so bad to think that I had spoken so hard to
you, that I could not help writing this. Respectfully,</p>
</div>
<div class='blockquot'><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"HANNAH
THOMSON.</span><br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"To MR. R. HARTSOOK,
ESQ."</span></div>
<p>Ralph read it over and over. What else he did with it I shall
not tell. You want to know whether he kissed it, and put it into
his bosom. Many a man as intelligent and manly as Hartsook has done
quite as foolish a thing as that. You have been a little silly
perhaps—if it is silly—and you have acted in a
sentimental sort of a way over such things. But it would never do
for me to tell you what Ralph did. Whether he put the letter into
his bosom or not, he put the words into his heart, and,
metaphorically speaking, he shook that little blue billet, written
on coarse foolscap paper—he shook that little letter full of
confidence, in the face and eyes of all the calamities that haunted
him. If Hannah believed in him, the whole world might distrust him.
When Hannah was in one scale and the whole world in the other, of
what account was the world? Justice may be blind, but all the
pictures of blind cupids in the world can not make Love blind. And
it was well that Ralph weighed things in this way. For the time was
come in which he needed all the courage the blue billet could give
him.</p>
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