Read "Square and Compasses" by Oliver Optic online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Bolingbroke Millweed was a good scholar and a fair mechanic, but both instructors and students were astonished when both prizes were awarded to him. He had formerly been a "swell," but he had entirely recovered from the malady which made him such. Only a few weeks before he was too proud to work with his hands.
His pride, or rather vanity, had kept down his manhood, and made of him what the genuine boy called a "donkey. " His father had become the "head of the family," at home, and introduced a new order of things. The two sons were in the Beech Hill School, and the two girls were not only earning their own living, but were doing a great deal towards the support of the family.