CHAPTER VWHILING AWAY TIME
DIAGRAM OF TEE-TAH-TOE BOARD.DIAGRAM OF TEE-TAH-TOE BOARD.
Excluded from the plays of the older fellows, Jack drew around him a circle of small boys, who were always glad to be amused with the stories of hunting, fishing, and frontier adventure that he had heard from old pioneers on Wildcat Creek. Sometimes he played “tee-tah-toe, three in a row,” with the girls, using a slate and pencil in a way well known to all school-children. And he also showed them a better kind of “tee-tah-toe,” learned on the Wildcat, and which may have been in the first place an Indian game, as it is played with grains of Indiancorn. A piece of board is grooved with a jack-knife in the manner shown in the diagram.
One player has three red or yellow grains of corn, and the other an equal number of white ones. The player who won the last game has the “go”—that is, he first puts down a grain of corn at any place where the lines intersect, but usually in the middle, as that is the best point. Then the other player puts down one, and so on until all are down. After this, the players move alternately along any of the lines, in any direction, to the next intersection, provided it is not already occupied. The one who first succeeds in getting his three grains in a row wins the point, and the board is cleared for a new start. As there are always three vacant points, and as the rows may be formed in any direction along any of the lines, the game gives a chance for more variety of combinations than one would expect from its appearance.
JACK AMUSING THE SMALL BOYS WITH STORIES OF HUNTING, FISHING, AND FRONTIER ADVENTURE.JACK AMUSING THE SMALL BOYS WITH STORIES OF HUNTING, FISHING, AND FRONTIER ADVENTURE.
Jack had also an arithmetical puzzle which he had learned from his father, and which many of the readers of this story will know, perhaps.
“Set down any number, without letting me know what it is,” said he to Joanna Merwin.
She set down a number.
“Now add twelve and multiply by two.”
“Well, that is done,” said Joanna.
“Divide by four, subtract half of the number first set down, and your answer will be six.”
“Oh, but how did you know that I put down sixty-four?” said Joanna.
“I didn’t,” said Jack.
“How could you tell the answer, then?”
“That’s for you to find out.”
This puzzle excited a great deal of curiosity.To add to the wonder of the scholars, Jack gave each time a different number to be added in, and sometimes he varied the multiplying and dividing. Harvey Collins, who was of a studious turn, puzzled over it a long time, and at last he found it out; but he did not tell the secret. He contented himself with giving out a number to Jack and telling his result. To the rest it was quite miraculous, and Riley turned green with jealousy when he found the girls and boys refusing to listen to his jokes, but gathering about Jack to test his ability to “guess the answer,” as they phrased it. Riley said he knew how it was done, and he was even foolish enough to try to do it, by watching the slate-pencil, or by sheer guessing, but this only brought him into ridicule.
“Try me once,” said the little C. C. G. W. M. de L. Risdale, and Jack let Columbusset down a figure and carry it through the various processes until he told him the result. Lummy grew excited, pushed his thin hands up into his hair, looked at his slate a minute, and then squeaked out:
“Oh—let me see—yes—no—yes—Oh, I see! Your answer is just half the amount added in, because you have——”
But here Jack placed his hand over Columbus’s mouth.
“You can see through a pine door, Lummy, but you mustn’t let out my secret,” he said.
But Jack had a boy’s heart in him, and he longed for some more boy-like amusement.
CHAPTER VIA BATTLE
One morning, when Jack proposed to play a game of ball with the boys, Riley and Pewee came up and entered the game, and objected.
“It isn’t interesting to play with greenhorns,” said Will. “If Jack plays, little Christopher Columbus Andsoforth will want to play, too; and then there’ll be two babies to teach. I can’t be always helping babies. Let Jack play two-hole cat or Anthony-over with the little fellows.” To which answer Pewee assented, of course.
That day at noon Riley came to Jack, with a most gentle tone and winning manner, and whiningly begged Jack to show him how to divide 770 by 14.
“It isn’t interesting to show greenhorns,” said Jack, mimicking Riley’s tone on the playground that morning. “If I show you, Pewee Rose will want me to show him; then there’ll be two babies to teach. I can’t be always helping babies. Go and play two-hole cat with the First-Reader boys.”
That afternoon, Mr. Ball had the satisfaction of using his new beech switches on both Riley and Pewee, though indeed Pewee did not deserve to be punished for not getting his lesson. It was Nature’s doing that his head, like a goat’s, was made for butting and not for thinking.
But if he had to take whippings from the master and his father, he made it a rule to get satisfaction out of somebody else. If Jack had helped him he wouldn’t have missed. If he had not missed his lesson badly, Mr. Ball would not have whippedhim. It would be inconvenient to whip Mr. Ball in return, but Jack would be easy to manage, and as somebody must be whipped, it fell to Jack’s lot to take it.
King Pewee did not fall upon his victim at the school-house door; this would have insured him another beating from the master. Nor did he attack Jack while Bob Holliday was with him. Bob was big and strong—a great fellow of sixteen. But after Jack had passed the gate of Bob’s house, and was walking on toward home alone, Pewee came out from behind an alley fence, accompanied by Ben Berry and Will Riley.
“I’m going to settle with you now,” said King Pewee, sidling up to Jack like an angry bull-dog.
It was not a bright prospect for Jack, and he cast about him for a chance to escape a brutal encounter with such abully, and yet avoid actually running away.
“Well,” said Jack, “if I must fight, I must. But I suppose you won’t let Riley and Berry help you.”
“No, I’ll fight fair.” And Pewee threw off his coat, while Jack did the same.
“You’ll quit when I say ‘enough,’ won’t you?” said Jack.
“Yes, I’ll fight fair, and hold up when you’ve got enough.”
“Well, then, for that matter, I’ve got enough now. I’ll take the will for the deed and just say ‘enough’ before you begin,” and he turned to pick up his coat.
“No, you don’t get off that way,” said Pewee. “You’ve got to stand up and see who is the best man, or I’ll kick you all the way home.”
“Didn’t you ever hear about Davy Crockett’s ’coon?” said Jack. “When the ’coon saw him taking aim, it said: ‘Is thatyou, Crockett? Well, don’t fire—I’ll come down anyway. I know you’ll hit anything you shoot at.’ Now, I’m that ’coon. If it was anybody but you, I’d fight. But as it’s you, Pewee, I might just as well come down before you begin.”
Pewee was flattered by this way of putting the question. Had he been alone, Jack would have escaped. But Will Riley, remembering all he had endured from Jack’s retorts, said:
“Oh, give it to him, Pewee; he’s always making trouble.”
At which Pewee squared himself off, doubled up his fists, and came at the slenderer Jack. The latter prepared to meet him, but, after all, it was hard for Pewee to beat so good-humored a fellow as Jack. The king’s heart failed him, and suddenly he backed off, saying:
“If you’ll agree to help Riley and me outwith our lessons hereafter, I’ll let you off. If you don’t, I’ll thrash you within an inch of your life.” And Pewee stood ready to begin.
Jack wanted to escape the merciless beating that Pewee had in store for him. But it was quite impossible for him to submit under a threat. So he answered:
“If you and Riley will treat me as you ought to, I’ll help you when you ask me, as I always have. But even if you pound me into jelly I won’t agree to help you, unless you treat me right. I won’t be bullied into helping you.”
“Give it to him, Pewee,” said Ben Berry; “he’s too sassy.”
Pewee was a rather good-natured dog—he had to be set on. He now began to strike at Jack. Whether he was to be killed or not, Jack did not know, but he was resolved not to submit to the bully.Yet he could not do much at defence against Pewee’s hard fists. However, Jack was active and had long limbs; he soon saw that he must do something more than stand up to be beaten. So, when King Pewee, fighting in the irregular Western fashion, and hoping to get a decided advantage at once, rushed upon Jack and pulled his head forward, Jack stooped lower than his enemy expected, and, thrusting his head between Pewee’s knees, shoved his legs from under him, and by using all his strength threw Pewee over his own back, so that the king’s nose and eyes fell into the dust of the village street.
“I’ll pay you for that,” growled Pewee, as he recovered himself, now thoroughly infuriated; and with a single blow he sent Jack flat on his back, and then proceeded to pound him. Jack could do nothing now but shelter his eyes from Pewee’s blows.
Joanna Merwin had seen the beginning of the battle from her father’s house, and feeling sure that Jack would be killed, she had run swiftly down the garden walk to the back gate, through which she slipped into the alley; and then she hurried on, as fast as her feet would carry her, to the blacksmith-shop of Pewee Rose’s father.
“Oh, please, Mr. Rose, come quick! Pewee’s just killing a boy in the street.”
“Vitin’ ag’in,” said Mr. Rose, who was a Pennsylvanian from the limestone country, and spoke English with difficulty. “He ees a leetle ruffen, dat poy. I’ll see apout him right avay a’ready, may be.”
And without waiting to put off his leathern apron, he walked briskly in the direction indicated by Joanna. Pewee was hammering Jack without pity, when suddenly he was caught by the collar and lifted sharply to his feet.
“Wot you doin’ down dare in de dirt wunst a’ready? Hey?” said Mr. Rose, as he shook his son with the full force of his right arm, and cuffed him with his left hand. “Didn’t I dells you I’d gill you some day if you didn’t gwit vitin’ mit oder poys, a’ready?”
“He commenced it,” whimpered Pewee.
“You dells a pig lie a’ready, I beleefs, Peter, and I’ll whip you fur lyin’ besides wunst more. Fellers likehim,” pointing to Jack, who was brushing the dust off his clothes,—“fellers like him don’t gommence on such a poy as you. You’re such anoder viter I never seed.” And he shook Pewee savagely.
“I won’t do it no more,” begged Pewee—“’pon my word and honor I won’t.”
“Oh, you don’t gits off dat away no more, a’ready. You know what I’ll giffyou when I git you home, you leedle ruffen. I shows you how to vite, a’ready.”
And the king disappeared down the street, begging like a spaniel, and vowing that he “wouldn’t do it no more.” But he got a severe whipping, I fear;—it is doubtful if such beatings ever do any good. The next morning Jack appeared at school with a black eye, and Pewee had some scratches, so the master whipped them both for fighting.
CHAPTER VIIHAT-BALL AND BULL-PEN
Pewee did not renew the quarrel with Jack—perhaps from fear of the rawhide that hung in the blacksmith’s shop, or of the master’s ox-goad, or of Bob Holliday’s fists, or perhaps from a hope of conciliating Jack and getting occasional help in his lessons. Jack was still excluded from the favorite game of “bull-pen.” I am not sure that he would have been rejected had he asked for admission, but he did not want to risk another refusal. He planned a less direct way of getting into the game. Asking his mother for a worn-out stocking, and procuring an old boot-top, he ravelled the stocking, winding the yarn into a ball of medium hardness. Then he cut from theboot-top a square of leather large enough for his purpose. This he laid on the kitchen-table, and proceeded to mark off and cut it into the shape of an orange-peel that has been quartered off the orange, leaving the four quarters joined together at the middle. This leather he put to soak over night. The next morning, bright and early, with a big needle and some strong thread he sewed it around his yarn-ball, stretching the wet leather to its utmost, so that when it should contract the ball should be firm and hard, and the leather well moulded to it. Such a ball is far better for all play in which the player is to be hit than those sold in the stores nowadays. I have described the manufacture of the old-fashioned home-made ball, because there are some boys, especially in the towns, who have lost the art of making yarn balls.
When Jack had finished his ball, he letit dry, while he ate his breakfast and did his chores. Then he sallied out and found Bob Holliday, and showed him the result of his work. Bob squeezed it, felt its weight, bounced it against a wall, tossed it high in the air, caught it, and then bounced it on the ground. Having thus “put it through its paces,” he pronounced it an excellent ball,—“a good deal better than Ben Berry’s ball. But what are you going to do with it?” he asked. “Play Anthony-over? The little boys can play that.”
I suppose there are boys in these days who do not know what “Anthony-over” is. How, indeed, can anybody play Anthony-over in a crowded city?
The old one-story village school-houses stood generally in an open green. The boys divided into two parties, the one going on one side, and the other on the opposite side of the school-house. The party that hadthe ball would shout “Anthony!” The others responded, “Over!” To this, answer was made from the first party, “Over she comes!” and the ball was immediately thrown over the school-house. If any of the second party caught it, they rushed, pell-mell, around both ends of the school-house to the other side, and that one of them who held the ball essayed to hit some one of the opposite party before they could exchange sides. If a boy was hit by the ball thus thrown he was counted as captured to the opposite party, and he gave all his efforts to beat his old allies. So the game went on, until all the players of one side were captured by the others. I don’t know what Anthony means in this game, but no doubt the game is hundreds of years old, and was played in English villages before the first colony came to Jamestown.
“I’m not going to play Anthony-over,” said Jack. “I’m going to show King Pewee a new trick.”
“You can’t get up a game of bull-pen on your own hook, and play the four corners and the ring all by yourself.”
“No, I don’t mean that. I’m going to show the boys how to play hat-ball—a game they used to play on the Wildcat.”
“I see your point. You are going to make Pewee ask you to let him in,” said Bob, and the two boys set out for school together, Jack explaining the game to Bob. They found one or two boys already there, and when Jack showed his new ball and proposed a new game, they fell in with it.
The boys stood their hats in a row on the grass. The one with the ball stood over the row of hats, and swung his hand to and fro above them, while the boys stood by him, prepared to run as soon asthe ball should drop into a hat. The boy who held the ball, after one or two false motions,—now toward this hat, and now toward that one,—would drop the ball into Somebody’s hat. Somebody would rush to his hat, seize the ball, and throw it at one of the other boys, who were fleeing in all directions. If he hit Somebody-Else, Somebody-Else might throw from where the ball lay, or from the hats, at the rest, and so on, until some one missed. The one who missed took up his hat and left the play, and the boy who picked up the ball proceeded to drop it into a hat, and the game went on until all but one were put out.
Hat-ball is so simple that any number can play at it, and Jack’s friends found it so full of boisterous fun, that every new-comer wished to set down his hat. And thus, by the time Pewee and Riley arrived, half the larger boys in the school were inthe game, and there were not enough left to make a good game of bull-pen.
At noon, the new game drew the attention of the boys again, and Riley and Pewee tried in vain to coax them away.
“Oh, I say, come on, fellows!” Riley would say. “Come—let’s play something worth playing.”
But the boys stayed by the new game and the new ball. Neither Riley, nor Pewee, nor Ben Berry liked to ask to be let into the game, after what had passed. Not one of them had spoken to Jack since the battle between him and Pewee, and they didn’t care to play with Jack’s ball in a game of his starting.
Once the other boys had broken away from Pewee’s domination, they were pleased to feel themselves free. As for Pewee and his friends, they climbed up on a fence, and sat like three crows, watching the playof the others. After a while they got down in disgust, and went off, not knowing just what to do. When once they were out of sight, Jack winked at Bob, who said:
“I say, boys, we can play hat-ball at recess when there isn’t time for bull-pen. Let’s have a game of bull-pen now, before school takes up.”
It was done in a minute. Bob Holliday and Tom Taylor “chose up sides,” the bases were all ready, and by the time Pewee and his aides-de-camp had walked disconsolately to the pond and back, the boys were engaged in a good game of bull-pen.
Perhaps I ought to say something about the principles of a game so little known over the country at large. I have never seen it played anywhere but in a narrow bit of country on the Ohio River, and yet there is no merrier game played with a ball.
The ball must not be too hard. Thereshould be four or more corners. The space inside is called the pen, and the party winning the last game always has the corners. The ball is tossed from one corner to another, and when it has gone around once, any boy on a corner may, immediately after catching the ball thrown to him from any of the four corners, throw it at any one in the pen. He must throw while “the ball is hot,”—that is, instantly on catching it. If he fails to hit anybody on the other side, he goes out. If he hits, his side leave the corners and run as they please, for the boy who has been hit may throw from where the ball fell, or from any corner, at any one of the side holding the corners. If one of them is hit, he has the same privilege; but now the men in the pen are allowed to scatter, also. Whoever misses is “out,” and the play is resumed from the corners until all of one side is out. Whenbut two are left on the corners the ball is smuggled,—that is, one hides the ball in his bosom, and the other pretends that he has it also. The boys in the ring do not know which has it, and the two “run the corners,” throwing from any corner. If but one is left on the corners, he is allowed, also, to run from corner to corner.
It happened that Jack’s side lost on the toss-up for corners, and he got into the ring, where his play showed better than it would have done on the corners. As Jack was the greenhorn and the last chosen on his side, the players on the corners expected to make light work of him; but he was an adroit dodger, and he put out three of the boys on the corners by his unexpected way of evading a ball. Everybody who has ever played this fine old game knows that expertness in dodging is worth quite as much as skill in throwing. Peweewas a famous hand with a ball, Riley could dodge well, Ben Berry had a happy knack of dropping flat upon the ground and letting a ball pass over him, Bob Holliday could run well in a counter charge; but nothing could be more effective than Jack Dudley’s quiet way of stepping forward or backward, bending his lithe body or spreading his legs to let the ball pass, according to the course which it took from the player’s hand.
King Pewee and company came back in time to see Jack dodge three balls thrown point-blank at him from a distance of fifteen feet. It was like witchcraft—he seemed to be charmed. Every dodge was greeted with a shout, and when once he luckily caught the ball thrown at him, and thus put out the thrower, there was no end of admiration of his playing. It was now evident to all that Jack could no longer beexcluded from the game, and that, next to Pewee himself, he was already the best player on the ground.
At recess that afternoon Pewee set his hat down in the hat-ball row, and as Jack did not object, Riley and Ben Berry did the same. The next day Pewee chose Jack first in bull-pen, and the game was well played.
CHAPTER VIIITHE DEFENDER
If Jack had not about this time undertaken the defence of the little boy in the Fourth Reader, whose name was large enough to cover the principal points in the history of the New World, he might have had peace, for Jack was no longer one of the newest scholars, his courage was respected by Pewee, and he kept poor Riley in continual fear of his ridicule—making him smart every day. But, just when he might have had a little peace and happiness, he became the defender of Christopher Columbus George Washington Marquis de la Fayette Risdale—little “Andsoforth,” as Riley and the other boys had nicknamed him.
The strange, pinched little body of theboy, his eccentric ways, his quickness in learning, and his infantile simplicity had all conspired to win the affection of Jack, so that he would have protected him even without the solicitation of Susan Lanham. But since Susan had been Jack’s own first and fast friend, he felt in honor bound to run all risks in the care of her strange little cousin.
I think that Columbus’s child-like ways might have protected him even from Riley and his set, if it had not been that he was related to Susan Lanham, and under her protection. It was the only chance for Riley to revenge himself on Susan. She was more than a match for him in wit, and she was not a proper subject for Pewee’s fists. So with that heartlessness which belongs to the school-boy bully, he resolved to torment the helpless fellow in revenge for Susan’s sarcasms.
One morning, smarting under some recent taunt of Susan’s, Riley caught little Columbus almost alone in the school-room. Here was a boy who certainly would not be likely to strike back again. His bamboo legs, his spindling arms, his pale face, his contracted chest, all gave the coward a perfect assurance of safety. So, with a rude pretence at play, laughing all the time, he caught the lad by the throat, and in spite of his weird dignity and pleading gentleness, shoved him back against the wall behind the master’s empty chair. Holding him here a minute in suspense, he began slapping him, first on this side of the face and then on that. The pale cheeks burned red with pain and fright, but Columbus did not cry out, though the constantly increasing sharpness of the blows, and the sense of weakness, degradation, and terror, stung him severely. Riley thought it funny. Like a cat playing with a condemnedmouse, the cruel fellow actually enjoyed finding one person weak enough to be afraid of him.
Columbus twisted about in a vain endeavor to escape from Riley’s clutches, getting only a sharper cuff for his pains. Ben Berry, arriving presently, enjoyed the sport, while some of the smaller boys and girls, coming in, looked on the scene of torture in helpless pity. And ever, as more and more of the scholars gathered, Columbus felt more and more mortified; the tears were in his great sad eyes, but he made no sound of crying or complaint.
Jack Dudley came in at last, and marched straight up to Riley, who let go his hold and backed off. “You mean, cowardly, pitiful villain!” broke out Jack, advancing on him.
“I didn’t do anything to you,” whined Riley, backing into a corner.
“No, but I mean to do something toyou. If there’s an inch of man in you, come right on and fight with me. You daren’t do it.”
“I don’t want any quarrel with you.”
“No, you quarrel with babies.”
Here all the boys and girls jeered.
“You’re too hard on a fellow, Jack,” whined the scared Riley, slipping out of the corner and continuing to back down the school-room, while Jack kept slowly following him.
“You’re a great deal bigger than I am,” said Jack. “Why don’t you try to corner me? Oh, I could just beat the breath out of you, you great, big, good-for-nothing——”
Here Riley pulled the west door open, and Jack, at the same moment, struck him. Riley half dropped, half fell, through the door-way, scared so badly that he went sprawling on the ground.
The boys shouted “coward” and “baby” after him as he sneaked off, but Jack went back to comfort Columbus and to get control of his temper. For it is not wise, as Jack soon reflected, even in a good cause to lose your self-control.
“It was good of you to interfere,” said Susan, when she had come in and learned all about it.
“I should have been a brute if I hadn’t,” said Jack, pleased none the less with her praise. “But it doesn’t take any courage to back Riley out of a school-house. One could get more fight out of a yearling calf. I suppose I’ve got to take a beating from Pewee, though.”
“Go and see him about it, before Riley talks to him,” suggested Susan. And Jack saw the prudence of this course. As he left the school-house at a rapid pace, Ben Berry told Riley, who was skulking behind a fence, that Jack was afraid of Pewee.
“Pewee,” said Jack, when he met him starting to school, after having done his “chores,” including the milking of his cow,—“Pewee, I want to say something to you.”
Jack’s tone and manner flattered Pewee. One thing that keeps a rowdy a rowdy is the thought that better people despise him. Pewee felt in his heart that Jack had a contempt for him, and this it was that made him hate Jack in turn. But now that the latter sought him in a friendly way, he felt himself lifted up into a dignity hitherto unknown to him. “What is it?”
“You are a kind of king among the boys,” said Jack. Pewee grew an inch taller.
“They are all afraid of you. Now, why don’t you make us fellows behave? You ought to protect the little boys from fellows that impose on them. Then you’d be aking worth the having. All the boys and girls would like you.”
“I s’pose may be that’s so,” said the king.
“There’s poor little Columbus Risdale——”
“I don’t like him,” said Pewee.
“You mean you don’t like Susan. Sheisa little sharp with her tongue. But you wouldn’t fight with a baby—it isn’t like you.”
“No, sir-ee,” said Pewee.
“You’d rather take a big boy than a little one. Now, you ought to make Riley let Lummy alone.”
“I’ll do that,” said Pewee. “Riley’s about a million times bigger than Lum.”
“I went to the school-house this morning,” continued Jack, “and I found Riley choking and beating him. And I thought I’d just speak to you, and see if you can’t make him stop it.”
“I’ll do that,” said Pewee, walking along with great dignity.
When Ben Berry and Riley saw Pewee coming in company with Jack, they were amazed and hung their heads, afraid to say anything even to each other. Jack and Pewee walked straight up to the fence-corner in which they stood.
“I thought I’d see what King Pewee would say about your fighting with babies, Riley,” said Jack.
“I want you fellows to understand,” said Pewee, “that I’m not going to have that little Lum Risdale hurt. If you want to fight, why don’t you fight somebody your own size? I don’t fight babies myself,” and here Pewee drew his head up, “and I don’t stand by any boy that does.”
Poor Riley felt the last support drop from under him. Pewee had deserted him, and he was now an orphan, unprotected in an unfriendly world!
Jack knew that the truce with so vain a fellow as Pewee could not last long, but it served its purpose for the time. And when, after school, Susan Lanham took pains to go and thank Pewee for standing up for Columbus, Pewee felt himself every inch a king, and for the time he was—if not a “reformed prize-fighter,” such as one hears of sometimes, at least an improved boy. The trouble with vain people like Pewee is, that they have no stability. They bend the way the wind blows, and for the most part the wind blows from the wrong quarter.
CHAPTER IXPIGEON POT-PIE
Happy boys and girls that go to school nowadays! You have to study harder than the generations before you, it is true; you miss the jolly spelling-schools, and the good old games that were not half so scientific as base-ball, lawn tennis, or lacrosse, but that had ten times more fun and frolic in them; but all this is made up to you by the fact that you escape the tyrannical old master. Whatever the faults the teachers of this day may have, they do not generally lacerate the backs of their pupils, as did some of their fore-runners.
At the time of which I write, thirty years ago, a better race of school-masters was crowding out the old, but many of thelatter class, with their terrible switches and cruel beatings, kept their ground until they died off one by one, and relieved the world of their odious ways.
Mr. Ball wouldn’t die to please anybody. He was a bachelor, and had no liking for children, but taught school five or six months in winter to avoid having to work on a farm in the summer. He had taught in Greenbank every winter for a quarter of a century, and having never learned to win anybody’s affection, had been obliged to teach those who disliked him. This atmosphere of mutual dislike will sour the sweetest temper, and Mr. Ball’s temper had not been strained honey to begin with. Year by year he grew more and more severe—he whipped for poor lessons, he whipped for speaking in school, he took down his switch for not speaking loud enough in class, he whipped for cominglate to school, he whipped because a scholar made a noise with his feet, and he whipped because he himself had eaten something unwholesome for his breakfast. The brutality of a master produces like qualities in scholars. The boys drew caricatures on the blackboard, put living cats or dead ones into Mr. Ball’s desk, and tried to drive him wild by their many devices.
He would walk up and down the school-room seeking a victim, and he had as much pleasure in beating a girl or a little boy as in punishing an overgrown fellow.
And yet I cannot say that Mr. Ball was impartial. There were some pupils that escaped. Susan Lanham was not punished, because her father, Dr. Lanham, was a very influential man in the town; and the faults of Henry Weathervane and his sister were always overlooked after their father became a school trustee.
Many efforts had been made to put a new master into the school. But Mr. Ball’s brother-in-law was one of the principal merchants in the place, and the old man had had the school so long that it seemed like robbery to deprive him of it. It had come, in some sort, to belong to him. People hated to see him moved. He would die some day, they said, and nobody could deny that, though it often seemed to the boys and girls that he would never die; he was more likely to dry up and blow away. And it was a long time to wait for that.
And yet I think Greenbank might have had to wait for something like that if there hadn’t come a great flight of pigeons just at this time. For whenever Susan Lanham suggested to her father that he should try to get Mr. Ball removed and a new teacher appointed, Dr. Lanham smiled and said“he hated to move against the old man; he’s been there so long, you know, and he probably wouldn’t live long, anyhow. Something ought to be done, perhaps, but he couldn’t meddle with him.” For older people forgot the beatings they had endured, and remembered the old man only as one of the venerable landmarks of their childhood.
And so, by favor of Henry Weathervane’s father, whose children he did not punish, and by favor of other people’s neglect and forgetfulness, the Greenbank children might have had to face and fear the old ogre down to this day, or until he dried up and blew away, if it hadn’t been, as I said, that there came a great flight of pigeons.
A flight of pigeons is not uncommon in the Ohio River country. Audubon, the great naturalist, saw them in his day, andin old colonial times such flights took place in the settlements on the sea-board, and sometimes the starving colonists were able to knock down pigeons with sticks. The mathematician is not yet born who can count the number of pigeons in one of these sky-darkening flocks, which are often many miles in length, and which follow one another for a whole day. The birds, for the most part, fly at a considerable height from the earth, but when they are crossing a wide valley, like that of the Ohio River, they drop down to a lower level, and so reach the hills quite close to the ground, and within easy gunshot.
When the pigeon flight comes on Saturday, it is very convenient for those boys that have guns. If these pigeons had only come on Saturday instead of on Monday, Mr. Ball might have taught the Greenbank school until to-day,—that is to say,if he hadn’t died or quite dried up and blown off meanwhile.
For when Riley and Ben Berry saw this flight of pigeons begin on Monday morning, they remembered that the geography lesson was a hard one, and so they played “hooky,” and, taking their guns with them, hid in the bushes at the top of the hill. Then, as the birds struck the hill, and beat their way up over the brow of it, the boys, lying in ambush, had only to fire into the flock without taking aim, and the birds would drop all around them. The discharge of the guns made Bob Holliday so hungry for pigeon pot-pie, that he, too, ran away from school, at recess, and took his place among the pigeon-slayers in the paw-paw patch on the hill top.
Tuesday morning, Mr. Ball came in with darkened brows, and three extra switches. Riley, Berry, and Holliday were called upas soon as school began. They had pigeon pot-pie for dinner, but they also had sore backs for three days, and Bob laughingly said that he knew just how a pigeon felt when it was basted.
The day after the whipping and the pigeon pot-pie, when the sun shone warm at noon, the fire was allowed to go down in the stove. All were at play in the sunshine, excepting Columbus Risdale, who sat solitary, like a disconsolate screech-owl, in one corner of the room. Riley and Ben Berry, still smarting from yesterday, entered, and without observing Lummy’s presence, proceeded to put some gunpowder in the stove, taking pains to surround it with cool ashes, so that it should not explode until the stirring of the fire, as the chill of the afternoon should come on. When they had finished this dangerous transaction, they discovered the presenceof Columbus in his corner, looking at them with large-eyed wonder and alarm.
“If you ever tell a living soul about that, we’ll kill you,” said Ben Berry.
Riley also threatened the scared little rabbit, and both felt safe from detection.
An hour after school had resumed its session. Columbus, who had sat shivering with terror all the time, wrote on his slate:
“Will Riley and Ben B. put something in the stove. Said they would kill me if I told on them.”
This he passed to Jack, who sat next to him. Jack rubbed it out as soon as he had read it, and wrote:
“Don’t tell anybody.”
Jack could not guess what they had put in. It might be coffee-nuts, which would explode harmlessly; it might be something that would give a bad smell in burning, such as chicken-feathers. If he had thoughtthat it was gunpowder, he would have plucked up courage enough to give the master some warning, though he might have got only a whipping for his pains. While Jack was debating what he should do, the master called the Fourth-Reader class. At the close of the lesson he noticed that Columbus was shivering, though indeed it was more from terror than from cold.
“Go to the stove and stir up the fire, and get warm,” he said, sternly.
“I’d—I’d rather not,” said Lum, shaking with fright at the idea.
“Umph!” said Mr. Ball, looking hard at the lad, with half a mind to make him go. Then he changed his purpose and went to the stove himself, raked forward the coals, and made up the fire. Just as he was shutting the stove-door, the explosion came—the ashes flew out all overthe master, the stove was thrown down from the bricks on which its four legs rested, the long pipe fell in many pieces on the floor, and the children set up a general howl in all parts of the room.
As soon as Mr. Ball had shaken off the ashes from his coat, he said: “Be quiet—there’s no more danger. Columbus Risdale, come here.”
“He did not do it,” spoke up Susan Lanham.
“Be quiet, Susan. You know all about this,” continued the master to poor little Columbus, who was so frightened as hardly to be able to stand. After looking at Columbus a moment, the master took down a great beech switch. “Now, I shall whip you until you tell me who did it. You were afraid to go to the stove. You knew there was powder there. Who put it there? That’s the question. Answer, quick, or I shall make you.”
The little skin-and-bones trembled between two terrors, and Jack, seeing his perplexity, got up and stood by him.
“He didn’t do it, Mr. Ball. I know who did it. If Columbus should tell you, he would be beaten for telling. The boy who did it is just mean enough to let Lummy get the whipping. Please let him off.”
“Youknow, do you? I shall whip you both. You knew there was gunpowder in the fire, and you gave no warning. I shall whip you both—the severest whipping you ever had, too.”
And the master put up the switch he had taken down, as not effective enough, and proceeded to take another.
“If we had known it was gunpowder,” said Jack, beginning to tremble, “you would have been warned. But we didn’t. We only knew that something had been put in.”
“If you’ll tell all about it, I’ll let you off easier; if you don’t, I shall give you all the whipping I know how to give.” And by way of giving impressiveness to his threat he took a turn about the room, while there was an awful stillness among the terrified scholars.
I do not know what was in Bob Holliday’s head, but about this time he managed to open the western door while the master’s back was turned. Bob’s desk was near the door.
Poor little Columbus was ready to die, and Jack was afraid that, if the master should beat him as he threatened to do, the child would die outright. Luckily, at the second cruel blow, the master broke his switch and turned to get another. Seeing the door open, Jack whispered to Columbus:
“Run home as fast as you can go.”
The little fellow needed no second bidding.He tottered on his trembling legs to the door, and was out before Mr. Ball had detected the motion. When the master saw his prey disappearing out of the door, he ran after him, but it happened curiously enough, in the excitement, that Bob Holliday, who sat behind the door, rose up, as if to look out, and stumbled against the door, thus pushing it shut, so that by the time Mr. Ball got his stiff legs outside the door, the frightened child was under such headway that, fearing to have the whole school in rebellion, the teacher gave over the pursuit, and came back prepared to wreak his vengeance on Jack.
While Mr. Ball was outside the door, Bob Holliday called to Jack, in a loud whisper, that he had better run, too, or the old master would “skin him alive.” But Jack had been trained to submit to authority, and to run away now would lose him his winter’s schooling, on whichhe had set great store. He made up his mind to face the punishment as best he could, fleeing only as a last resort if the beating should be unendurable.
“Now,” said the master to Jack, “will you tell me who put that gunpowder in the stove? If you don’t, I’ll take it out of your skin.”
Jack could not bear to tell, especially under a threat. I think that boys are not wholly right in their notion that it is dishonorable to inform on a school-mate, especially in the case of so bad an offence as that of which Will and Ben were guilty. But, on the other hand, the last thing a master ought to seek is to turn boys into habitual spies and informers on one another. In the present instance, Jack ought, perhaps, to have told, for the offence was criminal; but it is hard for a high-spirited lad to yield to a brutal threat.
Jack caught sight of Susan Lanham telegraphing from behind the master, by spelling with her fingers:
“Tell or run.”
But he could not make up his mind to do either, though Bob Holliday had again mysteriously opened the western door.
The master summoned all his strength and struck him half a dozen blows, that made poor Jack writhe. Then he walked up and down the room awhile, to give the victim time to consider whether he would tell or not.
“Run,” spelled out Susan on her fingers.
“The school-house is on fire!” called out Bob Holliday. Some of the coals that had spilled from the capsized stove were burning the floor—not dangerously, but Bob wished to make a diversion. He rushed for a pail of water in the corner, and all the rest, aching with suppressedexcitement, crowded around the fallen stove, so that it was hard for the master to tell whether there was any fire or not. Bob whispered to Jack to “cut sticks,” but Jack only went to his seat.
“Lay hold, boys, and let’s put up the stove,” said Bob, taking the matter quite out of the master’s hands. Of course, the stove-pipe would not fit without a great deal of trouble. Did ever stove-pipe go together without trouble? Somehow, all the joints that Bob joined together flew asunder over and over again, though he seemed to work most zealously to get the stove set up. After half an hour of this confusion, the pipe was fixed, and the master, having had time, like the stove, to cool off, and seeing Jack bent over his book, concluded to let the matter drop. But there are some matters that, once taken up, are hard to drop.