I
When John MacDermott was seventeen years of age and entering into his
fourth year of monitorship, his Uncle William said to him, "John, boy,
you're getting on to be a man now, and it's high time you began to
think of what you're going to do with yourself when you are one!"
"You're mebbe right," said John.
"The next year'll be your last one at the monitoring, won't it?" Uncle
William continued.
John nodded his head.
"Well, if I were you I'd make a plan of some sort during the next year
or two, for it would never do for you to come to the years of
discretion, and have to take to the teachering because you couldn't
think of anything else to do. I can see well your heart's not in that
trade."
"It is not, indeed!" John said vigorously. "It's a terrible tiring job,
teaching children, and some of them are that stupid you feel provoked
enough to slap the hands off them! I'm nearly afraid of myself
sometimes with the stupid ones, for fear I'd lose my temper with them
and hurt them hard. Mr. Cairnduff says no one should be a teacher that
has a bad temper, and dear knows, Uncle William, I've a fearful temper!
He's a quare wise man, Mr. Cairnduff: he doesn't let any of his
monitors use the cane, for he says it's an awful temptation to be
cruel, especially if you're young and impatient the way I am!"
"Is that so now?" said Uncle William.
"Oh, it is, right enough. I know well there's times when a child's
provoked me, that I want to be cruel to it ... and I'd hate to be cruel
to any child. There's a wee girl in my class now.... Lizzie Turley's
her name!..."
"John Turley's child?"
"Yes. God knows she's the stupidest child in the world!"
"Her da's a match, for her, then, for he's the stupidest man I've ever
known. That fellow ought not to have been let have children!..."
"It's not her fault, I know," John continued, "but you forget that when
you're provoked. I've tried hard to teach that child ... vowed to
myself I'd teach her ... to add up, but I'm afraid she's beaten me. She
can subtract well enough ... that's the queer part about her ... but
she cannot add up. You'll mebbe not believe me. Uncle William, but that
child can't put two and one together and be sure of getting the right
answer. At first she couldn't add two and one together at all. She'd
put down twelve for the answer as likely as not. But I worked hard with
her, and I got her to add up to two and six make eight ... and there
she stuck. I couldn't get her past that: she couldn't add two and seven
together and get nine for the answer. But if you asked her to subtract
two from nine, she'd say "seven" all right! That's a queer thing, now!
Isn't it?"
"Aye, it's queer enough!"
"There's been times when I've wanted to hit that wee girl ... hit her
with my shut fists ... and I don't like to feel that way about a child
that's not all there ... or any child! I'm afraid I'm not fit to be a
teacher, Uncle William. You have to be very good and patient... and
it's no use pretending you haven't. Mr. Cairnduff says it's more
important for a teacher to be good than it is for a minister, and he's
right, too. He says a child should never be slapped by the teacher
that's offended with it, but by another teacher that knows nothing
about the bother. He doesn't use the cane much himself, but there's
some teachers likes using it. Miss Gebbie does... she carries a big
bamboo about with her, and gives you a good hard welt across the hand
with it, if you annoy her. I wouldn't like to be in that woman's grip,
I can tell you. Some women are fearful hard, Uncle William!"
"Worse nor men, some of them," Uncle William agreed.
"Mr. Cairnduff told me one time of a teacher he knew that got to like
the cane so much that he used to try and trip the children into making
mistakes so's he could slap them for it. Isn't it fearful, that?"
"Terrible, John!"
"I'd be ashamed to death if I got that way. Oh, I couldn't go on with
the teaching, Uncle William. I wouldn't be near fit for it."
"Well, never mind, John. There's one thing, the extra schooling you've
had has done you no harm, and I daresay it's done you a lot of good.
But you'll have to think of something to do!..."
"Yes, I will!"
"Do you never think of anything? Is there any particular thing you'd
like to do?"
"There's a whole lot of things I've fancied I'd like to be, but after a
wee while I always change my mind. The first time I went to Belfast, I
thought it would be lovely to be a tram-driver 'til I saw a navvy
tearing up the street ... and then I thought a navvy had the best job
in the world. You know, Uncle William, it takes me a long while to find
out what it is I want, but when I do find it out, I take to it queer
and quick. I'll mebbe go footering about the world like a lost thing,
and then all of a sudden I'll know what I want to do ... and I'll just
do it!"
"Hmmm!" said Uncle William.
"It sounds queer and foolish, doesn't it?"
"Oh, I don't know, John. Many's a thing sounds silly, but isn't."
"It's true, anyway. I've noticed things like that about myself.
It's ... it's like a man getting converted. One minute he's a guilty,
hell-deserving sinner, the way John Hutton says he was, footering about
the world, drinking and guzzling and leading a rotten life ... and then
all of a sudden, he's hauled up and made to give his testimony and do
God's will for the rest of his life! I daresay I'll drift from one thing
to another ... and then I'll know, just like a flash of lightning ... and
I'll go and do it!"
"That's a dangerous kind of a doctrine," said Uncle William. "It's
easier to get into the way of drifting nor it is to get out of it
again. And you're a young lad to be thinking strange thoughts like
that!"
"I'm seventeen," John replied. "That's not young!"
"It's not oul' anyway. Anybody'd think to hear you, you had the years
of Methuselah. I suppose, now, you never thought of coming into the
shop?"
"I did think of it one time, but you wouldn't let me!..."
"That was when you wanted to help me. But did you never think of it for
your own sake? You see, John, you're the last of us, and this shop has
been in our family for a long while ... it's a good trade, too, and
you'll have no fear of hardship as long as you look after it, although
the big firms in Belfast are opening branches here. The MacDermotts can
hold their heads up against any big firm in the world, I'm thinking ...
in this place, anyway. Did you never feel you'd like to come into the
shop?"
John glanced about the shop, at the assistants who were serving
customers with tea and groceries....
"No," he said, shaking his head, "I don't think I'd like it!"
Uncle William considered for a few moments. Then he said, "No, I
thought you wouldn't care for it. Your da felt that way too. The shop
wasn't big enough for him. All the same, there has to be shops, and
there has to be people to look after that!"
"Oh, I know that right enough, Uncle William. I'm not saying anything
against them. They're all right for them that likes them!..."
He paused for a while, and his Uncle waited for him to proceed.
"Sometimes," he said at last, "I'm near in the mind to go and be a
soldier!..."
"For dear sake!" said Uncle William impatiently.
"Or a sailor. I went down to the Post Office once and got a bill about
the Navy!..."
"Well, I would think you were demented mad to go and do the like of
that," said Uncle William. "You might as well be a peeler!"