IN WHICH I MEET OTHER GREAT MEN
It was a sunny day in late September on which Aunt Deel and Uncle
Peabody took me and my little pine chest with all my treasures in it to
the village where I was to go to school and live with the family of Mr.
Michael Hacket, the schoolmaster. I was proud of the chest, now equipped
with iron hinges and a hasp and staple. Aunt Deel had worked hard to get
me ready, sitting late at her loom to weave cloth for my new suit, which
a traveling tailor had fitted and made for me. I remember that the
breeches were of tow and that they scratched my legs and made me very
uncomfortable, but I did not complain. My uncle used to say that nobody
with tow breeches on him could ride a horse without being thrown--they
pricked so.
The suit which I had grown into--"the Potsdam clothes," we called them
often, but more often "the boughten clothes"--had been grown out of and
left behind in a way of speaking. I had an extra good-looking pair of
cowhide boots, as we all agreed, which John Wells, the cobbler, had made
for me. True, I had my doubts about them, but we could afford no
better.
When the chest was about full, I remember that my aunt brought something
wrapped in a sheet of the _St. Lawrence Republican_ and put it into my
hands.
"There are two dozen cookies an' some dried meat," said she. "Ayes, I
thought mebbe you'd like 'em--if you was hungry some time between meals.
Wait a minute."
She went to her room and Uncle Peabody and I waited before we shut the
hasp with a wooden peg driven into its staple.
Aunt Deel returned promptly with the Indian Book in her hands.
"There," said she, "you might as well have it--ayes!--you're old enough
now. You'll enjoy readin' it sometimes in the evenin', mebbe--ayes!
Please be awful careful of it, Bart, for it was a present from my mother
to me--ayes it was!"
How tenderly she held and looked at the sacred heirloom so carefully
stitched into its cover of faded linen. It was her sole legacy. Tears
came to my eyes as I thought of her generosity--greater, far greater
than that which has brought me gifts of silver and gold--although my
curiosity regarding the Indian Book had abated, largely, for I had taken
many a sly peek at it. Therein I had read how Captain Baynes--my great
grandfather--had been killed by the Indians.
I remember the sad excitement of that ride to the village and all the
words of advice and counsel spoken by my aunt.
"Don't go out after dark," said she. "I'm 'fraid some o' them rowdies'll
pitch on ye."
"If they do I guess they'll be kind o' surprised," said Uncle Peabody.
"I don't want him to fight."
"If it's nec'sary, I believe in fightin' tooth an' nail," my uncle
maintained.
I remember looking in vain for Sally as we passed the Dunkelbergs'. I
remember my growing loneliness as the day wore on and how Aunt Deel
stood silently buttoning my coat with tears rolling down her cheeks
while I leaned back upon the gate in front of the Hacket house, on
Ashery Lane, trying to act like a man and rather ashamed of my poor
success. It reminded me of standing in the half-bushel measure and
trying in vain, as I had more than once, to shoulder the big bag of
corn. Uncle Peabody stood surveying the sky in silence with his back
toward us. He turned and nervously blew out his breath. His lips
trembled a little as he said.
"I dunno but what it's goin' to rain."
I watched them as they walked to the tavern sheds, both looking down at
the ground and going rather unsteadily. Oh, the look of that beloved
pair as they walked away from me!--the look of their leaning heads!
Their silence and the sound of their footsteps are, somehow, a part of
the picture which has hung all these years in my memory.
Suddenly I saw a man go reeling by in the middle of the road. His feet
swung. They did not rise and reach forward and touch the ground
according to the ancient habit of the human foot. They swung sideways
and rose high and each crossed the line of his flight a little, as one
might say, when it came to the ground, for the man's movements reminded
me of the aimless flight of a sporting swallow. He zig-zagged from one
side of the street to the other. He caught my eye just in time and saved
me from breaking down. I watched him until he swung around a corner.
Only once before had I seen a man drunk and walking, although I had seen
certain of our neighbors riding home drunk--so drunk that I thought
their horses were ashamed of them, being always steaming hot and in a
great hurry.
Sally Dunkelberg and her mother came along and said that they were glad
I had come to school. I could not talk to them and seeing my trouble,
they went on, Sally waving her hand to me as they turned the corner
below. I felt ashamed of myself. Suddenly I heard the door open behind
me and the voice of Mr. Hacket:
"Bart," he called, "I've a friend here who has something to say to you.
Come in."
I turned and went into the house.
"Away with sadness--laddie buck!" he exclaimed as he took his violin
from its case while I sat wiping my eyes. "Away with sadness! She often
raps at my door, and while I try not to be rude, I always pretend to be
very busy. Just a light word o' recognition by way o' common politeness!
Then laugh, if ye can an' do it quickly, lad, an' she will pass on."
The last words were spoken in a whisper, with one hand on my breast.
He tuned the strings and played the _Fisher's Hornpipe_. What a romp of
merry music filled the house! I had never heard the like and was soon
smiling at him as he played. His bow and fingers flew in the wild frolic
of the Devil's Dream. It led me out of my sadness into a world all new
to me.
"Now, God bless your soul, boy!" he exclaimed, by and by, as he put down
his instrument. "We shall have a good time together--that we will. Not a
stroke o' work this day! Come, I have a guide here that will take us
down to the land o' the fairies."
Then with his microscope he showed me into the wonder world of
littleness of which I had had no knowledge.
"The microscope is like the art o' the teacher," he said. "I've known a
good teacher to take a brain no bigger than a fly's foot an' make it
visible to the naked eye."
One of the children, of which there were four in the Hacket home, called
us to supper. Mrs. Hacket, a stout woman with a red and kindly face, sat
at one end of the table, and between them were the children--Mary, a
pretty daughter of seventeen years; Maggie, a six-year-old; Ruth, a
delicate girl of seven, and John, a noisy, red-faced boy of five. The
chairs were of plain wood--like the kitchen chairs of to-day. In the
middle of the table was an empty one--painted green. Before he sat down
Mr. Hacket put his hand on the back of this chair and said:
"A merry heart to you, Michael Henry."
I wondered at the meaning of this, but dared not to ask. The oldest
daughter acted as a kind of moderator with the others.
"Mary is the constable of this house, with power to arrest and hale into
court for undue haste or rebellion or impoliteness," Mr. Hacket
explained.
"I believe that Sally Dunkelberg is your friend," he said to me
presently.
"Yes, sir," I answered.
"A fine slip of a girl that and a born scholar. I saw you look at her as
the Persian looks at the rising sun."
I blushed and Mary and her mother and the boy John looked at me and
laughed.
"_Puer pulcherrime!_" Mr. Hacket exclaimed with a kindly smile.
Uncle Peabody would have called it a "stout snag." The schoolmaster had
hauled it out of his brain very deftly and chucked it down before me in
a kind of challenge.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"You shall know in a week, my son," he answered. "I shall put you into
the Latin class Wednesday morning, and God help you to like it as well
as you like Sally."
Again they laughed and again I blushed.
"Hold up yer head, my brave lad," he went on. "Ye've a perfect right to
like Sally if ye've a heart to."
He sang a rollicking ballad of which I remember only the refrain:
_A lad in his teens will never know beans if he hasn't an eye for
the girls_.
It was a merry supper, and when it ended Mr. Hacket rose and took the
green chair from the table, exclaiming:
"Michael Henry, God bless you!"
Then he kissed his wife and said:
"Maggie, you wild rose of Erin! I've been all day in the study. I must
take a walk or I shall get an exalted abdomen. One is badly beaten in
the race o' life when his abdomen gets ahead of his toes. Children, keep
our young friend happy here until I come back, and mind you, don't
forget the good fellow in the green chair."
Mary helped her mother with the dishes, while I sat with a book by the
fireside. Soon Mrs. Hacket and the children came and sat down with me.
"Let's play backgammon," Mary proposed.
"I don't want to," said John.
"Don't forget Michael Henry," she reminded.
"Who is Michael Henry?" I asked.
"Sure, he's the boy that has never been born," said Mrs. Hacket. "He was
to be the biggest and noblest one o' them--kind an' helpful an' cheery
hearted an' beloved o' God above all the others. We try to live up to
him."
He seemed to me a very strange and wonderful creature--this invisible
occupant of the green chair.
I know now what I knew not then that Michael Henry was the spirit of
their home--an ideal of which the empty green chair was a constant
reminder.
We played backgammon and Old Maid and Everlasting until Mr. Hacket
returned.
He sat down and read aloud from the _Letters of an Englishwoman in
America_.
"Do you want to know what sleighing is?" she wrote. "Set your chair out
on the porch on a Christmas day. Put your feet in a pail-full of
powdered ice. Have somebody jingle a bell in one ear and blow into the
other with a bellows and you will have an exact idea of it."
When she told of a lady who had been horned by a large insect known as a
snapdragon, he laughed loudly and closed the book and said:
"They have found a new peril of American life. It is the gory horn of
the snapdragon. Added to our genius for boastfulness and impiety, it is
a crowning defect. Ye would think that our chief aim was the cuspidor.
Showers of expectoration and thunder claps o' profanity and braggart
gales o' Yankee dialect!--that's the moral weather report that she sends
back to England. We have faults enough, God knows, but we have something
else away beneath them an' none o' these writers has discovered it."
The sealed envelope which Mr. Wright had left at our home, a long time
before that day, was in my pocket. At last the hour had come when. I
could open it and read the message of which I had thought much and with
a growing interest.
I rose and said that I should like to go to my room. Mr. Hacket lighted
a candle and took me up-stairs to a little room where my chest had been
deposited. There were, in the room, a bed, a chair, a portrait of
Napoleon Bonaparte and a small table on which were a dictionary, a Bible
and a number of school books.
"These were Mary's books," said Mr. Hacket. "I told yer uncle that ye
could use them an' welcome. There's another book here which ye may study
if ye think it worth the bother. It's a worn an' tiresome book, my lad,
but I pray God ye may find no harm in it. Use it as often as ye will. It
is the book o' my heart. Ye will find in it some kind o' answer to every
query in the endless flight o' them that's coming on, an' may the good
God help us to the truth."
He turned and bade me good night and went away and closed the door.
I sat down and opened the sealed envelope with trembling hands, and
found in it this brief note:
"DEAR PARTNER: I want you to ask the wisest man you know to explain
these words to you. I suggest that you commit them to memory and
think often of their meaning. They are from Job:
"'His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down
with him in the dust.'
"I believe that they are the most impressive in all the literature I
have read.
"Yours truly,
SILAS WRIGHT, JR."
I read the words over and over again, but knew not their meaning. Sadly
and slowly I got ready for bed. I missed the shingles and the familiar
rustle of the popple leaves above my head and the brooding silence of
the hills. The noises of the village challenged my ear after I had put
out my candle. There were many barking dogs. Some horsemen passed, with
a creaking of saddle leather, followed by a wagon. Soon I heard running
feet and eager voices. I rose and looked out of the open window. Men
were hurrying down the street with lanterns.
"He's the son o' Ben Grimshaw," I heard one of them saying. "They caught
him back in the south woods yesterday. The sheriff said that he tried to
run away when he saw 'em coming."
What was the meaning of this? What had Amos Grimshaw been doing? I
trembled as I got back into bed--I can not even now explain why, but
long ago I gave up trying to fathom the depths of the human spirit with
an infinite sea beneath it crossed by subtle tides and currents. We see
only the straws on the surface.
I was up at daylight and Mr. Hacket came to my door while I was
dressing.
"A merry day to you!" he exclaimed. "I'll await you below and introduce
you to the humble herds and flocks of a schoolmaster."
I went with him while he fed his chickens and two small shoats. I milked
the cow for him, and together we drove her back to the pasture. Then we
split some wood and filled the boxes by the fireplace and the kitchen
stove and raked up the leaves in the dooryard and wheeled them away.
"Now you know the duties o' your office," said the schoolmaster as we
went in to breakfast.
We sat down at the table with the family and I drew out my letter from
the Senator and gave it to Mr. Hacket to read.
"The Senator! God prosper him! I hear that he came on the Plattsburg
stage last night," he said as he began the reading--an announcement
which caused me and the children to clap our hands with joy.
Mr. Hacket thoughtfully repeated the words from Job with a most
impressive intonation.
He passed the letter back to me and said:
"All true! I have seen it sinking into the bones o' the young and I have
seen it lying down with the aged in the dust o' their graves. It is a
big book--the one we are now opening. God help us! It has more pages
than all the days o' your life. Just think o' your body, O brave and
tender youth! It is like a sponge. How it takes things in an' holds 'em
an' feeds upon 'em! A part o' every apple ye eat sinks down into yer
blood an' bones. Ye can't get it out. It's the same way with the books
ye read an' the thoughts ye enjoy. They go down into yer bones an' ye
can't get 'em out. That's why I like to think o' Michael Henry. His food
is good thoughts and his wine is laughter. I had a long visit with M.H.
last night when ye were all abed. His face was a chunk o' laughter. Oh,
what a limb he is! I wish I could tell ye all the good things he said."
"There comes Colonel Hand," said Mrs. Hacket as she looked out of the
window. "The poor lonely Whig! He has nothing to do these days but sit
around the tavern."
"Ye might as well pity a goose for going bare-footed," the schoolmaster
remarked.
In the midst of our laughter Colonel Hand rapped at the door and Mr.
Hacket admitted him.
"I tell you the country is going to the dogs," I heard the Colonel
saying as he came into the house.
"You inhuman Hand!" said the schoolmaster. "I should think you would be
tired of trying to crush that old indestructible worm."
Colonel Hand was a surly looking man beyond middle age with large eyes
that showed signs of dissipation. He had a small dark tuft beneath his
lower lip and thin, black, untidy hair.
"What do ye think has happened?" he asked as he looked down upon us with
a majestic movement of his hand.
He stood with a stern face, like an orator, and seemed to enjoy our
suspense.
"What do you think has happened?" he repeated.
"God knows! It may be that Bill Harriman has swapped horses again or
that somebody has been talked to death by old Granny Barnes--which is
it?" asked the schoolmaster.
"It is neither, sir," Colonel Hand answered sternly. "The son o' that
old Buck-tail, Ben Grimshaw, has been arrested and brought to jail for
murder."
"For murder?" asked Mr. and Mrs. Hacket in one breath.
"For bloody murder, sir," the Colonel went on. "It was the shooting of
that man in the town o' Ballybeen a few weeks ago. Things have come to a
pretty pass in this country, I should say. Talk about law and order, we
don't know what it means here and why should we? The party in power is
avowedly opposed to it--yes, sir. It has fattened upon bribery and
corruption. Do you think that the son o' Ben Grimshaw will receive his
punishment even if he is proved guilty? Not at all. He will be
protected--you mark my words."
He bowed and left us. When the door had closed behind him Mr. Hacket
said:
"Another victim horned by the Snapdragon! If a man were to be slain by a
bear back in the woods Colonel Hand would look for guilt in the
Democratic party. He will have a busy day and people will receive him as
the ghost of Creusa received the embraces of Æneas--unheeding. Michael
Henry, whatever the truth may be regarding the poor boy in jail, we are
in no way responsible. Away with sadness! What is that?"
Mr. Hacket inclined his ear and then added: "Michael Henry says that he
may be innocent and that we had better go and see if we can help him.
Now I hadn't thought o' that. Had you, Mary?"
"No," the girl answered.
"We mustn't be letting Mike get ahead of us always," said her father.
The news brought by the Colonel had shocked me and my thoughts had been
very busy since his announcement. I had thought of the book which I had
seen Amos reading in the haymow. Had its contents sunk into his
bones?--for I couldn't help thinking of all that Mr. Hacket had just
said about books and thoughts. My brain had gone back over the events of
that tragic moment--the fall, the swift dream, the look of the robber in
the dim light, the hurling of the stone. The man who fled was about the
size of Amos, but I had never thought of the latter as the guilty man.
"You saw the crime, I believe," said Mr. Hacket as he turned to me.
I told them all that I knew of it.
"Upon my word, I like you, my brave lad," said the schoolmaster. "I
heard of all this and decided that you would be a help to Michael Henry
and a creditable student. Come, let us go and pay our compliments to the
Senator. He rises betimes. If he stayed at the tavern he will be out and
up at his house by now."
The schoolmaster and I went over to Mr. Wright's house--a white, frame
building which had often been pointed out to me.
Mrs. Wright, a fine-looking lady who met us at the door, said that the
Senator had gone over to the mill with his wheelbarrow.
Mr. Hacket asked for the time and she answered:
"It wants one minute of seven."
I quote her words to show how early the day began with us back in those
times.
"We've plenty of time and we'll wait for him," said the schoolmaster.
"I see him!" said little John as he and Ruth ran to the gate and down
the rough plank walk to meet him.
We saw him coming a little way down the street in his shirt-sleeves with
his barrow in front of him. He stopped and lifted little John in his
arms, and after a moment put him down and embraced Ruth.
"Well, I see ye still love the tender embrace o' the wheelbarrow," said
Mr. Hacket as we approached the Senator.
"My embrace is the tenderer of the two," the latter laughed with a look
at his hands.
He recognized me and seized my two hands and shook them as he said:
"Upon my word, here is my friend Bart. I was not looking for you here."
He put his hand on my head, now higher than his shoulder, and said: "I
was not looking for you _here_."
He moved his hand down some inches and added: "I was looking for you
down there. You can't tell where you'll find these youngsters if you
leave them a while."
"We are all forever moving," said the schoolmaster. "No man is ever two
days in the same altitude unless he's a Whig."
"Or a _born_ fool," the Senator laughed with a subtlety which I did not
then appreciate.
He asked about my aunt and uncle and expressed joy at learning that I
was now under Mr. Hacket.
"I shall be here for a number of weeks," he said, "and I shall want to
see you often. Maybe we'll go hunting some Saturday."
We bade him good morning and he went on with his wheelbarrow, which was
loaded, I remember, with stout sacks of meal and flour.
We went to the school at half past eight. What a thrilling place it was
with its seventy-eight children and its three rooms. How noisy they were
as they waited in the school yard for the bell to ring! I stood by the
door-side looking very foolish, I dare say, for I knew not what to do
with myself. My legs encased in the tow breeches felt as if they were on
fire. My timidity was increased by the fact that many were observing me
and that my appearance seemed to inspire sundry, sly remarks. I saw that
most of the village boys wore boughten clothes and fine boots. I looked
down at my own leather and was a tower of shame on a foundation of
greased cowhide. Sally Dunkelberg came in with some other girls and
pretended not to see me. That was the hardest blow I suffered.
Among the handsome, well-dressed boys of the village was Henry
Wills--the boy who had stolen my watermelon. I had never forgiven him
for that or for the killing of my little hen. The bell rang and we
marched into the big room, while a fat girl with crinkly hair played on
a melodeon. Henry and another boy tried to shove me out of line and a
big paper wad struck the side of my head as we were marching in and
after we were seated a cross-eyed, freckled girl in a red dress made a
face at me.
It was, on the whole, the unhappiest day of my life. It reminded me of
Captain Cook's account of his first day with a barbaric tribe on one of
the South Sea islands. During recess I slapped a boy's face for calling
me a rabbit and the two others who came to help him went away full of
fear and astonishment, for I had the strength of a young moose in me
those days. After that they began to make friends with me.
In the noon hour a man came to me in the school yard with a subpoena for
the examination of Amos Grimshaw and explained its meaning. He also said
that Bishop Perkins, the district attorney, would call to see me that
evening.
While I was talking with this man Sally passed me walking with another
girl and said:
"Hello, Bart!"
I observed that Henry Wills joined them and walked down the street at
the side of Sally. I got my first pang of jealousy then.
When school was out that afternoon Mr. Hacket said I could have an hour
to see the sights of the village, so I set out, feeling much depressed.
My self-confidence had vanished. I was homesick and felt terribly alone.
I passed the jail and stopped and looked at its grated windows and
thought of Amos and wondered if he were really a murderer.
I walked toward the house of Mr. Wright and saw him digging potatoes in
the garden and went in. I knew that he was my friend.
"Well, Bart, how do you like school?" he asked.
"Not very well," I answered.
"Of course not! It's new to you now, and you miss your aunt and uncle.
Stick to it. You'll make friends and get interested before long."
"I want to go home," I declared.
"Now let's look at the compass," he suggested. "You're lost for a minute
and, like all lost people, you're heading the wrong way. Don't be misled
by selfishness. Forget what you want to do and think of what we want you
to do. We want you to make a man of yourself. You must do it for the
sake of those dear people who have done so much for you. The needle
points toward the schoolhouse yonder."
He went on with his work, and, as I walked away, I understood that the
needle he referred to was my conscience.
As I neared the schoolmaster's the same drunken man that I had seen
before went zigzagging up the road.
Mr. Hacket stood in his dooryard.
"Who is that?" I asked.
"Nick Tubbs--the village drunkard and sign o' the times," he answered.
"Does chores at the tavern all day and goes home at night filled with
his earnings an' a great sense o' proprietorship. He is the top flower
on the bush."
I went about my chores. There was to be no more wavering in my conduct.
At the supper table Mr. Hacket kept us laughing with songs and jests and
stories. The boy John, having been reproved for rapid eating, hurled his
spoon upon the floor.
"Those in favor of his punishment will please say aye?" said the
schoolmaster.
I remember that we had a divided house on that important question.
The schoolmaster said: "Michael Henry wishes him to be forgiven on
promise of better conduct, but for the next offense he shall ride the
badger."
This meant lying for a painful moment across his father's knee.
The promise was given and our merry-making resumed. The district
attorney, whom I had met before, came to see me after supper and asked
more questions and advised me to talk with no one about the shooting
without his consent. Soon he went away, and after I had learned my
lessons Mr. Hacket said:
"Let us walk up to the jail and spend a few minutes with Amos."
We hurried to the jail. The sheriff, a stout-built, stern-faced man,
admitted us.
"Can we see the Grimshaw boy?" Mr. Hacket inquired.
"I guess so," he answered as he lazily rose from his chair and took
down a bunch of large keys which had been hanging on the wall. "His
father has just left."
He spoke in a low, solemn tone which impressed me deeply as he put a
lighted candle in the hand of the schoolmaster. He led us through a door
into a narrow corridor. He thrust a big key into the lock of a heavy
iron grating and threw it open and bade us step in. We entered an
ill-smelling, stone-floored room with a number of cells against its rear
wall. He locked the door behind us. I saw a face and figure in the dim
candle-light, behind the grated door of one of these cells. How lonely
and dejected and helpless was the expression of that figure! The sheriff
went to the door and unlocked it.
"Hello, Grimshaw," he said sternly. "Step out here."
It all went to my heart--the manners of the sheriff so like the cold
iron of his keys and doors--the dim candle-light, the pale, frightened
youth who walked toward us. We shook his hand and he said that he was
glad to see us. I saw the scar under his left ear and reaching out upon
his cheek which my stone had made and knew that he bore the mark of
Cain.
He asked if he could see me alone and the sheriff shook his head and
said sternly:
"Against the rules."
"Amos, I've a boy o' my own an' I feel for ye," said the schoolmaster.
"I'm going to come here, now and then, to cheer ye up and bring ye some
books to read. If there's any word of advice I can give ye--let me know.
Have ye a lawyer?"
"There's one coming to-morrow."
"Don't say a word about the case, boy, to any one but your lawyer--mind
that."
We left him and went to our home and beds. I to spend half the night
thinking of my discovery, since which, for some reason, I had no doubt
of the guilt of Amos, but I spoke not of it to any one and the secret
worried me.
Next morning on my way to school I passed a scene more strange and
memorable than any in my long experience. I saw the shabby figure of old
Benjamin Grimshaw walking in the side path. His hands were in his
pockets, his eyes bent upon the ground, his lips moving as if he were in
deep thought. Roving Kate, the ragged, silent woman who, for the fortune
of Amos, had drawn a gibbet, the shadow of which was now upon him,
walked slowly behind the money-lender pointing at him with her bony
forefinger. Her stern eyes watched him as the cat watches when its prey
is near it. She did not notice me. Silently, her feet wrapped in rags,
she walked behind the man, always pointing at him. When he stopped she
stopped. When he resumed his slow progress she followed. It thrilled
me, partly because I had begun to believe in the weird, mysterious power
of the Silent Woman. I had twenty minutes to spare and so I turned into
the main street, behind and close by them. I saw him stop and buy some
crackers and an apple and a piece of cheese. Meanwhile she stood
pointing at him. He saw, but gave no heed to her. He walked along the
street in front of the stores, she following as before. How patiently
she followed!
"Why does she follow him that way?" I asked the storekeeper when they
were gone.
"Oh, I dunno, boy!" he answered. "She's crazy an' I guess she dunno what
she's doin'."
The explanation did not satisfy me. I knew, or thought I knew, better
than he the meaning of that look in her eyes. I had seen it before.
I started for the big schoolhouse and a number of boys joined me with
pleasant words.
"I saw you lookin' at ol' Kate," one of them said to me. "Don't ye ever
make fun o' her. She's got the evil eye an' if she puts it on ye, why
ye'll git drownded er fall off a high place er somethin'."
The boys were of one accord about that.
Sally ran past us with that low-lived Wills boy, who carried her books
for her. His father had gone into the grocery business and Henry wore
boughten clothes. I couldn't tell Sally how mean he was. I was angry
and decided not to speak to her until she spoke to me. I got along
better in school, although there was some tittering when I recited,
probably because I had a broader dialect and bigger boots than the boys
of the village.