Stanley was wild with enthusiasm when he heard this and hastened to pack a box full to send home. "They _will_ be surprised," he said. Fortunately, Mrs. Corbett found out about this before the box was sent, and she had to tell him that the boys were only in fun.
When she told him that the boys had been just having sport there came over his face such a look of sadness and pain, such a deeply hurt look, that Mrs. Corbett went back to the barn and thrashed her sturdy young nephew, all over again.
When the matter came up for discussion again, Stanley implored her not to speak of it any more, and not to hold it against the boys. "It was not their fault at all," he said; "it all comes about on account of my being--not quite right. I am not quite like other boys, but when they play with me I forget it and I believe what they say. There is--something wrong with me,--and it makes people want--to have sport with me; but it is not their fault at all."
"Well, they won't have sport with you when I am round," declared Mrs. Corbett stoutly.
Years rolled by and Stanley still cherished the hope that some day "permission" would come for him to go home. He grew very fast and became rather a fine-looking young man. Once, emboldened by a particularly kind letter from his mother, he made the request that he should be allowed to go home for a few days. "If you will let me come home even for one day, dearest mother," he wrote, "I will come right back content, and father will not need to see me at all. I want to stand once more before that beautiful Tissot picture of Christ holding the wounded lamb in his arms, and I would like to see the hawthorn hedge when it is in bloom as it will be soon, and above all, dear mother, I want to see you. And I will come directly away."
He held this letter for many days, and was only emboldened to send it by Mrs. Corbett's heartiest assurances that it was a splendid letter and that his mother would like it!
"I do not want to give my mother trouble," he said. "She has already had much trouble with me; but it might make her more content to see me and to know that I am so well--and happy."
After the letter had been sent, Stanley counted the days anxiously, and on the big map of Canada that hung on the kitchen wall he followed its course until it reached Halifax, and then his mind went with it tossing on the ocean.