Day in, day out, the stocky,
sturdy form of Samuel might be seen, manfully plodding through all
varieties of weather, and he had a good-morning or a good-evening ready
for all he met. When he learned his lessons was a puzzle, but learn them
he did, and nobody could complain that in anything he fell off, though
his face did sometimes wear a preoccupied look, and his mother said that
at night he slept like the dead and she just hated to have to call him
in the morning. Through December and January and February and March,
Sammy made as good a sexton as the church had ever had, and by April,
Mr. Anderson was well again.
The queer thing about it all was that Sammy had forgotten the prize for
valor altogether. Nothing was said about it in school, and most of the
boys were so busy looking out for brave deeds to come their way, that
if one had appeared, they would not have recognized it. In fact,
everybody thought the prize for valor was going by the board.
Till July came. And then, when the visitors were there, and the prizes
were all given out, the President looked keenly through his spectacles
and said:
"Will Master Samuel Slocum step forward to the platform?"
Modestly blushing, up rose Sammy, and somewhat awkwardly he made his way
to the front.
"Last winter," said the President, "there was a boy who not only did his
whole duty in our midst, but denied himself for another, undertook hard
work for many weeks, without pay and without shirking.
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