MR. SLOCUM AS AN ORATOR.
“Next Wednesday afternoon the boys will all speak pieces,” Mr. Slocum
announced. “You may select any pieces you please. At the celebrated
institution in Maine, from which I graduated, we used to speak pieces
every week. You may be interested to know that your teacher gained a
great reputation by his speaking. ‘Theophilus,’ said the principal to me
one day, I never had a student under my instruction who could equal you
in speaking. There is no one who can do such justice to Daniel Webster,
and other great orators of antiquity. You are a natural orator, and
eloquence comes natural to you.’ This was a high compliment, as you will
agree; but it was deserved. The principal put it to vote whether a prize
should be offered for speaking, but the students voted against it;
‘for,’ they said, ‘Slocum will be sure to get it, and it will do us no
good.’ I hope, boys, you will do your best, so that I may be able to
compliment you.”
The scholars were not a little amused at this illustration of their
teacher’s self-conceit, which was quite in keeping with previous
exhibitions of the same weakness.
“I wish Mr. Slocum would favor us with a specimen of his declamation,”
said John Sandford, at recess.
“He must be a regular steam engine,” said Walter Pratt; “that is,
according to his own account.”
“The principal of the celebrated institution in Maine thought a good
deal of Theophilus,” said Julius.
“What a phenomenon he must have been!” said Tom Allen. “He appears to
have stood first in everything.”
“But he seems to forget easy,” said Frank Bent. “Complex fractions are
too much for him.”
“Well, how about asking him to speak?” resumed John Sandford. “Who goes
in for it?”
“I,” said Julius.
“And I.”
“And I.”
“Who shall go up and ask him?”
“Go yourself, John.”
“All right, boys. I’ll do it, if you say so. But I am afraid I can’t
keep a straight face.”
So John went back into school just before the bell rang, and approached
the teacher’s desk.
“What’s wanted, Sandford?” said Mr. Slocum.
“The boys want to know, Mr. Slocum, if you will be willing to speak a
piece for us on Wednesday. You see, sir, we never heard any good
speaking, and we think it would improve us if we could hear a good
speaker now and then.”
As may be inferred from his habit of boasting, Mr. Slocum was very
accessible to flattery, and listened graciously to this request. John
was perfectly sober, though he was laughing inside, as he afterward
said; and the teacher never dreamed of a plot to expose and ridicule
him.
“You are quite right, Sandford,” said he, graciously; “it would
undoubtedly be very beneficial to you, and I will look over one of my
old pieces, and see if I can remember it. I am glad to see that the boys
are anxious to improve in the important branch of declamation.”
John carried to the boys the news of his success, which was received
with a great deal of interest. Though most of the boys thought it
irksome to commit a piece to memory, and had no ambition to become
orators, all went to work willingly, feeling that they should be repaid
by hearing the “master” speak.
“Speaking” was new business to Julius. During his very brief school
attendance in New York he had not been sufficiently advanced to declaim,
and he felt a little apprehensive about his success. He chose an extract
from one of Webster’s speeches, and carefully committed it, reciting it
at home to Mr. Taylor, from whom he received several suggestions, which
he found of value. The result was that he acquitted himself quite
creditably.
“I wonder whether the master’ll speak first,” said John Sandford, and
there were others who wondered also; but Mr. Slocum had not announced
his intentions on this point. But when the scholars were assembled on
Wednesday afternoon, he said: “I have promised you that I will give you
this afternoon a specimen of my speaking, and I have selected one of the
pieces that I was distinguished for, when I was connected with one of
the most celebrated institutions in the State of Maine. I will wait,
however, until you are all through, as I do not like to discourage you
in your inexperienced efforts. I will wind up the speaking by ascending
the rostrum after your declamation is finished.”
One after another the boys spoke. One boy, of thirteen, rather
inappropriately had selected the well-known little poem, commencing
“You’d scarce expect one of my age
To speak in public on the stage.”
“That piece is rather too young for you,” said Mr. Slocum, when he had
taken his seat. “I remember speaking that piece when I was two years
old. I was considered a very forward baby, and my parents were very
proud of me; so they invited some company, and in the course of the
evening they stood me up on a table, and I spoke the piece you have just
listened to. Even now I can remember, though it is so long ago, how the
company applauded, and how the minister came up to me, and, putting his
hand on my head, said: ‘Theophilus, the day will come when your father
will be proud of you. You will live to be a credit to the whole Slocum
family.’ Then he turned to my father, and said: ‘Mr. Slocum, I
congratulate you on the brilliant success of your promising son. He is
indeed a juvenile “progedy”’”--this was Mr. Slocum’s word--“‘and the
world will yet hear of him.’ Such was my first introduction to the world
as an orator, and I have always enjoyed speaking from that time. I hope
that some of my pupils will also become distinguished in the same way.”
“I wish he’d speak that piece now,” whispered Julius to his next
neighbor.
“Isn’t he a conceited jackass?” was the reply.
“He must have been a beautiful baby,” said Julius, comically.
“A regular phenomenon in petticoats.”
“What are you laughing at?” demanded Mr. Slocum, sternly.
“Julius said he wished you would speak that piece you spoke when you
were two years old.”
“It wouldn’t be appropriate,” said the teacher, seriously. “I like best
now to declaim the sonorous sentences of Daniel Webster and Patrick
Henry. If I should ever enter public life, as my friends have tried at
times to persuade me, I think I should adopt their style. Frank Bent, it
is your turn to speak.”
At last the scholars had all spoken, and in expectant silence Mr.
Slocum’s “piece” was awaited by the boys.
“Boys,” he said, arising with dignity, and advancing to the platform, “I
should like to speak a piece from Webster; but I have forgotten those I
once knew, and I will favor you with one of a lighter character, called
‘The Seminole’s Reply.’”
Mr. Slocum took his place on the rostrum, as he liked to call it, made a
low bow to the boys, struck an attitude, and began to declaim at the top
of his voice. The first two stanzas are quoted here, in order to show
more clearly the character of Mr. Slocum’s declamation:
“Blaze, with your serried columns!
I will not bend the knee!
The shackles ne’er again shall bind
The arm which now is free.
I’ve mailed it with the thunder,
When the tempest muttered low,
And when it falls, ye well may dread
The lightning of its blow!
“I’ve seared ye in the city,
I’ve scalped ye on the plain;
Go, count your chosen, where they fell
Beneath my leaden rain!
I scorn your proffered treaty!
The paleface I defy!
Revenge is stamped upon my spear,
And blood my battle cry!”
No fault could be found with Mr. Slocum on the score of animation. He
exerted his voice to the utmost, stamped with his foot, and when he
came to “the arm which now is free,” he shook his first at the boys in a
most savage way. But his most effective gesture occurred in the second
line of the second verse, where, in illustrating the act of scalping, he
gathered with one hand his luxuriant red hair, and with the other made a
pass at it with an imaginary tomahawk.
The boys cheered vociferously, which encouraged Mr. Slocum to further
exertions. Nothing could exceed the impressive dignity with which he
delivered the concluding half of the fourth stanza:
“But I stand as should the warrior,
With his rifle and his spear;
The scalp of vengeance still is red
And warns ye, Come not here!”
The gravity of the boys, however, was endangered by a too appropriate
gesture. When Mr. Slocum wished to designate the scalp of vengeance as
still red, he pointed to his own hair, which, as has been said, was of a
decided red tint.
The two concluding lines of the poem, as many of my readers, to whom it
is familiar, will doubtless remember, are these:
“But I’ll swim the sea of slaughter,
Till I sink beneath its wave.”
This Mr. Slocum illustrated by going through the motions of swimming
with his hands, much to the delight of the boys.
When the orator had concluded his effort, and with a low bow resumed his
seat, the boys applauded uproariously. Mr. Slocum’s vanity was
flattered, and he arose to acknowledge the compliment.
“Boys,” he said, “I am glad to find that you appreciate my efforts to
instruct you. Don’t be discouraged because you cannot yet speak as well
as I do. Keep on in your efforts. Let your motto ever be Excelsior! and
the time will perhaps come when you will receive the applause of
listening multitudes. The school is now dismissed.”
“Wasn’t it rich, Julius?” asked John Sandford, when they were walking
home. “I never wanted to laugh so much in all my life. But the best of
it was about the red scalp.”
“You’re envious, John. That’s the reason you ridicule Mr. Slocum’s
speaking. I’m afraid you’ll never be as great an orator as he is.”
“I hope not,” said John.