[Sidenote: Painting Face]
Roland was an unkempt, dirty, red-headed little fellow in the sixth
grade of a small town school. He came from an unlettered, hard-working,
shiftless family in the country and, like Topsy, had just growed up. He
was bright enough, but his reasoning power and sense of right and wrong
were undeveloped because he had never been taught rightly. He had been
whipped when naughty without fully understanding that what he had done
was wrong.
One day, in the new school, he daubed his nose, cheeks and chin with ink
when Miss Downer, the teacher, was not looking, and convulsed with
laughter everyone who looked at him.
It was almost recess time, and Miss Downer quietly bade him wash his
face. When the rest were dismissed she said, “Roland, I want to speak to
you a minute.”
“Going to get a licking!” whispered the boy behind him, and Roland
grinned scornfully, for whippings really did not matter much to him any
more, though Miss Downer was new and untried and she looked as though
she might be pretty strong.
When the rest had gone Miss Downer sat down in front of Roland and spoke
to him kindly, “Roland, why do you do such things in school?”
Roland shifted uneasily and said, “Dunno.”
“Have you your language lesson?” at which he shook his head.
“Didn’t you think that besides foolishly wasting your own time you were
wasting the other children’s time by making them laugh at you?”
This was an entirely new thought to him and he looked at her in
incomprehension.
“You come to school to learn, don’t you, Roland? And the more you can
learn the better off you will be. Some day when you get to be a man
you’ll be glad you know more than somebody else, and sorry that you
don’t know as much as some other person. Why, you were just telling me
yesterday that your father didn’t have a chance to go to school beyond
the fourth grade! And here you are wasting this precious, precious time
of yours!”
Roland looked intently at a dirty finger-nail and Miss Downer could not
tell whether she had made an impression on him or not. She gave him a
story from a supplementary reader, telling of Lincoln’s struggles to get
an education, to read during the rest of recess.
A week later Roland became really interested in the history lesson. This
teacher’s questions weren’t the kind you could answer, parrot-like, by
memorizing the words of the textbook. You had to stop and think about
it. He asked, “I’d like to know about this yere Civil War, anyway. Some
says they fit about slavery and the book says because they seceded, and
I’d like to know which is right.”
Miss Downer devoted the rest of the class period to satisfying Roland’s
query, and counted the time well spent because she had laid the first
stone in the foundation of Roland’s education—she had aroused
intellectual curiosity, satisfied it, and given him food for more
questions.
Every time he misbehaved after that she kept him in and talked to him
seriously. Not once did she threaten or scold. And at other times she
tried to draw him out by being interested in him and his affairs—the
baby brother at home, a new dog he had, and what “my paw” said and did.
At length Roland began to realize that this teacher was not a vindictive
creature, wreaking her spite upon him for harmlessly amusing himself and
other people, but one who was interested in him, Roland Smith, and
really cared what he did and thought. And, though she had queer ways of
looking at things, he really hated to disappoint her and she could make
him feel most awfully uncomfortable and ashamed of himself.
[Sidenote: Paper Wads]
Miss Downer’s final test came when Roland was discovered throwing paper
wads at a boy across the room. Miss Downer felt very much inclined to
thrash him soundly, for this was a case of wanton naughtiness. But she
did not.
Instead she merely talked to him as she had talked before, bringing in a
little more of the personal element.
“Roland, what if your brother kicked you every time you were almost
asleep at night, or joggled your elbow every time you started to take a
mouthful at the table, or pulled the chair out from under you when you
started to sit down? It would be funny at first, wouldn’t it, but how
long do you suppose you and your brother could keep on playing together
as good friends if he kept it up?”
Roland shook his head, mystified.
“That’s just what you’re doing to me. You told me you wanted to learn
and get on in the world, and the rest of these children do, too—they
don’t want to be stupid when they’re grown up. But we can’t learn very
fast with some one hindering us all the time, and I was counting on your
help.”
Miss Downer spoke very kindly and earnestly, and looked directly at
Roland.
“I wasn’t goin’ to throw them paper wads, honest I wasn’t, Miss Downer.
But before I knowed it, they was thrown,” and Roland did look truly
sorry.
Miss Downer’s impulse was to punish him, not to forgive him again, but
if he really were sorry and trying to do better, a whipping would spoil
all the good work she had accomplished so far.
“Are you sorry, Roland?” her voice was low and serious.
There was a long pause, during which Roland fingered a scrap of paper
nervously, not looking up. Then his lip began to quiver and he nodded
violently, breaking into sobs.
“I—I d-didn’t mean to and I won’t do it no more, honest.” Roland, whose
boast was that “nary whipping” had ever made him cry, was penitent
because he had disappointed her who had been kind to him.