TOM AT SCHOOL.
In due time Tom found himself at King's Lorton, under the care of the
Rev. Walter Stelling, a big, broad-chested man, not yet thirty, with
fair hair standing erect, large light-gray eyes, and a deep bass voice.
The schoolmaster had made up his mind to bring Tom on very quickly
during the first half-year; but Tom did not greatly enjoy the process,
though he made good progress in a very short time.
The boy was, however, very lonely, and longed for playfellows. In his
secret heart he yearned to have Maggie with him; though, when he was at
home, he always made it out to be a great favour on his part to let
Maggie trot by his side on his pleasure excursions.
And before this dreary half-year was ended Maggie actually came. Mrs.
Stelling had given a general invitation for the little girl to come and
stay with her brother; so when Mr. Tulliver drove over to King's Lorton
late in October, Maggie came too. It was Mr. Tulliver's first visit to
see Tom, for the lad must learn, he had said, not to think too much
about home.
"Well, my lad," the miller said to Tom, when Mr. Stelling had left the
room, and Maggie had begun to kiss Tom freely, "you look rarely.
School agrees with you."
Tom wished he had looked rather ill.
"I don't think I am well, father," said Tom; "I wish you'd ask Mr.
Stelling not to let me do Euclid; it brings on the tooth-ache, I think."
"Euclid, my lad. Why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver.
"Oh, I don't know. It's definitions, and axioms, and triangles, and
things. It's a book I've got to learn in; there's no sense in it."
"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver; "you mustn't say so. You must learn what
your master tells you. He knows what it's right for you to learn."
"I'll help you now, Tom," said Maggie. "I'm come to stay ever so long,
if Mrs. Stelling asks me. I've brought my box and my
pinafores--haven't I, father?"
"_You_ help me, you silly little thing!" said Tom. "I should like to
see _you_ doing one of my lessons! Why, I learn Latin too! Girls
never learn such things; they're too silly."
"I know what Latin is very well," said Maggie confidently. "Latin's a
language. There are Latin words in the dictionary. There's _bonus_, a
gift."
"Now you're just wrong there, Miss Maggie!" said Tom. "You think
you're very wise. But _bonus_ means 'good,' as it happens--_bonus,
bona, bonum_."
"Well, that's no reason why it shouldn't mean 'gift,'" said Maggie
stoutly. "It may mean several things--almost every word does. There's
'lawn'--it means the grass-plot, as well as the stuff handkerchiefs are
made of."
"Well done, little un," said Mr. Tulliver, laughing, while Tom felt
rather disgusted.
Mrs. Stelling did not mention a longer time than a week for Maggie's
stay, but Mr. Stelling said that she must stay a fortnight.
"Now, then, come with me into the study, Maggie," said Tom, as their
father drove away. "What do you shake and toss your head now for, you
silly? It makes you look as if you were crazy."
"Oh, I can't help it," said Maggie. "Don't tease me, Tom. Oh, what
books!" she exclaimed, as she saw the bookcases in the study. "How I
should like to have as many books as that!"
"Why, you couldn't read one of 'em," said Tom triumphantly. "They're
all Latin."
"No, they aren't," said Maggie. "I can read the back of this--_History
of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_."
"Well, what does that mean? You don't know," said Tom, wagging his
head.
"But I could soon find out," said Maggie.
"Why, how?"
"I should look inside, and see what it was about."
"You'd better not, Miss Maggie," said Tom, seeing her hand on the
volume. "Mr. Stelling lets nobody touch his books without leave, and I
shall catch it if you take it out."
"Oh, very well! Let me see all your books, then," said Maggie, turning
to throw her arms round Tom's neck, and rub his cheek with her small
round nose.
Tom, in the gladness of his heart at having dear old Maggie to dispute
with and crow over again, seized her round the waist, and began to jump
with her round the large library table. Away they jumped with more and
more vigour, till at last, reaching Mr. Stelling's reading-stand, they
sent it thundering down with its heavy books to the floor. Tom stood
dizzy and aghast for a few minutes, dreading the appearance of Mr. or
Mrs. Stelling.
"Oh, I say, Maggie," said Tom at last, lifting up the stand, "we must
keep quiet here, you know. If we break anything, Mrs. Stelling'll make
us cry _peccavi_."
"What's that?" said Maggie.
"Oh, it's the Latin for a good scolding," said Tom.
"Is she a cross woman?" said Maggie.
"I believe you!" said Tom, with a nod.
"I think all women are crosser than men," said Maggie. "Aunt Glegg's a
great deal crosser than Uncle Glegg, and mother scolds me more than
father does."
"Well, you'll be a woman some day," said Tom, "so you needn't talk."
"But I shall be a clever woman," said Maggie, with a toss.
"Oh, I dare say, and a nasty, conceited thing. Everybody'll hate you."
"But _you_ oughtn't to hate me, Tom. It'll be very wicked of you, for
I shall be your sister."
"Yes; but if you're a nasty, disagreeable thing, I shall hate you."
"Oh but, Tom, you won't! I shan't be disagreeable. I shall be very
good to you, and I shall be good to everybody. You won't hate me
really, will you, Tom?"
"Oh, bother, never mind! Come, it's time for me to learn my lessons.
See here what I've got to do," Tom went on, drawing Maggie towards him,
and showing her his theorem, while she pushed her hair behind her ears,
and prepared herself to help him in Euclid.
"It's nonsense!" she said, after a few moments reading, "and very ugly
stuff; nobody need want to make it out."
"Ah, there now, Miss Maggie!" said Tom, drawing the book away and
wagging his head at her; "you see you're not so clever as you thought
you were."
"Oh," said Maggie, pouting, "I dare say I could make it out if I'd
learned what goes before, as you have."
"But that's what you just couldn't, Miss Wisdom," said Tom. "For it's
all the harder when you know what goes before. But get along with you
now; I must go on with this. Here's the Latin Grammar. See what you
can make of that."
Maggie found the Latin Grammar quite soothing, for she delighted in new
words, and quickly found that there was an English Key at the end,
which would make her very wise about Latin at slight expense.
After a short period of silence Tom called out,--
"Now, then, Magsie, give us the Grammar!"
"O Tom, it's such a pretty book!" she said, as she jumped out of the
large armchair to give it him. "I could learn Latin very soon. I
don't think it's at all hard."
"Oh, I know what you've been doing," said Tom; "you've been reading the
English at the end. Any donkey can do that. Here, come and hear if I
can say this. Stand at that end of the table."
[Illustration: "Here, Magsie, come and hear if I can say this."]
Maggie obeyed, and took the open book.
"Where do you begin, Tom?"
"Oh, I begin at '_Appellativa arborum_,' because I say all over again
what I've been learning this week."
Tom sailed along pretty well for three lines, and then he stuck fast.
"There, you needn't laugh at me, Tom, for you didn't remember it at
all, you see."
"Phee-e-e-h! I told you girls couldn't learn Latin."
"Very well, then," said Maggie, pouting. "I can say it as well as you
can. And you don't mind your stops. For you ought to stop twice as
long at a semicolon as you do at a comma, and you make the longest
stops where there ought to be no stops at all."
"Oh, well, don't chatter. Let me go on."
It was a very happy fortnight to Maggie, this visit to Tom. She was
allowed to be in the study while he had his lessons, and in time got
very deep into the examples in the Latin Grammar.
Mr. Stelling liked her prattle immensely, and they were on the best of
terms. She told Tom she should like to go to school to Mr. Stelling,
as he did, and learn just the same things. She knew she could do
Euclid, for she had looked into it again, and she saw what ABC
meant--they were the names of the lines.
"I'm sure you couldn't do it, now," said Tom, "and I'll just ask Mr.
Stelling if you could."
"I don't mind," said she. "I'll ask him myself."
"Mr. Stelling," she said, that same evening when they were in the
drawing-room, "couldn't I do Euclid, and all Tom's lessons, if you were
to teach me instead of him?"
"No, you couldn't," said Tom indignantly. "Girls can't do Euclid--can
they, sir?"
"They can pick up a little of everything, I dare say," said Mr.
Stelling; "but they couldn't go far into anything. They're quick and
shallow."
Tom, delighted with this, wagged his head at Maggie behind Mr.
Stelling's chair. As for Maggie, she had hardly ever been so angry.
She had been so proud to be called "quick" all her little life, and now
it appeared that this quickness showed what a poor creature she was.
It would have been better to be slow, like Tom.
"Ha, ha, Miss Maggie!" said Tom, when they were alone; "you see it's
not such a fine thing to be quick. You'll never go far into anything,
you know."
And Maggie had no spirit for a retort.
But when she was fetched away in the gig by Luke, and the study was
once more quite lonely for Tom, he missed her grievously.
Still, the dreary half-year did come to an end at last. How glad Tom
was to see the last yellow leaves fluttering before the cold wind! The
dark afternoons, and the first December snow, seemed to him far
livelier than the August sunshine; and that he might make himself the
surer about the flight of the days that were carrying him homeward, he
stuck twenty-one sticks deep in a corner of the garden, when he was
three weeks from the holidays, and pulled one up every day with a great
wrench, throwing it to a distance.
But it was worth buying, even at the heavy price of the Latin
Grammar--the happiness of seeing the bright light in the parlour at
home as the gig passed over the snow-covered bridge--the happiness of
passing from the cold air to the warmth, and the kisses, and the smiles
of home.