As spring came on he grew restless under the confinement of walls and rules, and longed for the dewy fields and fragrant lanes. If only he might spend the days outside, he thought, instead of sitting mewed up in this dreary schoolroom, what splendid woodland pictures he could draw. Twice he asked the schoolmaster to excuse him, but Mr. Burroughs curtly refused, since it would be unfair to dismiss one pupil to roam the meadows and keep the others at their tasks. Tommy next tried his father, but that gentleman replied with all seriousness,--
"My son, you have worked so well this term that I wish you to keep a perfect record until the end of the year. When vacation comes you will be free to spend every day out of doors, but your education is too important to be slighted for pleasure."
Tommy was much disappointed at this decision, and, I am sorry to say, closed the door quite ungently as he started for school.
The day was an enchanting one, and as the boy trudged along the unpaved streets that ran between rows of quaint and ancient houses, a feeling of hot rebellion took possession of him.
"Father does as he likes," he muttered, "and I think I ought to do the same way once in a while. What is the sense in listening to old Burroughs drone all day about nouns and divisors?"
The fresh spring breeze, with its scents of green things growing, was so tantalizing that he paused before the schoolhouse door and thoughtfully wrinkled his brow. Presently his face grew defiant, and he dashed into the schoolroom with the look of a man who had made up his mind to do as he pleased.
Finding himself to be the first arrival, he hurried to his desk. Deftly tearing from his copy-book a slip of paper resembling those upon which Mr. Gainsborough wrote Tommy's occasional excuses, the boy dipped his pen and quickly wrote the words,--
Now if he had used his own style of penmanship the ruse would have been readily understood by the schoolmaster; but he boldly imitated his father's finely pointed lettering to a nicety, and at the end jotted down the initials, "_J. G._," with two short lines drawn under them, just as his father would have signed the note.
Carefully drying his pen, he closed his desk and left the building before any one else arrived. He waited around the corner until almost time for school to begin, then rushed into the schoolroom, now filled with noisy pupils, marched straight up to the master's desk, and presented his forged excuse.