CZAR BRENCH
The loss of Master Joel Pierson as our teacher at the district school
the following winter, was the greatest disappointment of the year. We
had anticipated all along that he was coming back, and I think he had
intended to do so; but an offer of seventy-five dollars a month--more
than double what our small district could pay--to teach a village school
in an adjoining county, robbed us of his invaluable services; for
Pierson was at that time working his way through college and could not
afford to lose so good an opportunity to add to his resources during the
winter vacation.
We did not learn this till the week before school was to begin; and when
his letter to Addison reached us, explaining why he could not come,
there were heart-felt lamentations at the old Squire's and at the
Edwards farm.
I really think that the old Squire would have made up the difference in
wages to Master Pierson from his own purse; but the offer to go to the
larger school had already been accepted.
As several of the older boys of our own district school had become
somewhat unruly--including Newman Darnley, Alf Batchelder and, I grieve
to say, our cousin Halstead--the impression prevailed that the school
needed a "straightener." Looking about therefore at such short notice,
the school agent was led to hire a master, widely noted as a
disciplinarian, named Nathaniel Brench, who for years had borne the
nickname of "Czar" Brench, owing to his autocratic and cruel methods of
school government.
I remember vividly that morning in November, the first day of school,
when Czar Brench walked into the old schoolhouse, glanced smilingly
round, and laid his package of books and his ruler, a heavy one, on the
master's desk; then, coming forward to the box stove in the middle of
the floor, he warmed his hands at the stovepipe. Such a big man! Six
feet three in his socks, bony, broad-shouldered, with long arms and big
hands.
He wore a rather high-crowned, buff-colored felt hat. Light buff,
indeed, seemed to be his chosen color, for he wore a buff coat, buff
vest and buff trousers. Moreover, his hair, his bushy eyebrows and his
short, thin moustache were sandy.
Beaming on us with his smiling blue eyes, he rubbed his hands gently as
he warmed them.
"I hope we are going to have a pleasant term of school together," he
said, in a tone as soft as silk. "And it will not be my fault if we
don't have a real quiet, nice time."
We learned later that it was his custom always to begin school with a
beautiful speech of honeyed words--the calm before the storm.
"Of course we have to have order in the schoolroom," he said
apologetically. "I confess that I like to have the room orderly, and
that I do not like to hear whispering in study hours. When the scholars
go out and come in at recess time, too, it sort of disturbs me to have
crowding and noise. I never wish to be hard or unreasonable with my
scholars--I never am, if I can avoid it. But these little things, as you
all know, have to be mentioned sometimes, if we are going to have a
really pleasant and profitable term.
"There is another thing that always make me feel nervous in school
hours, and that is buzzing with the lips while you are getting your
lessons, I don't like to speak about it, and there may be no need for
it, but lips buzzing in study hours always make me feel queer. It's just
as easy to get your lessons with your eyes as with your lips, and for
the sake of my feelings I hope you will try to do so.
"Speaking of lessons," he went on, "I don't believe in giving long ones.
I always liked short, easy lessons myself, and I suppose you do."
In point of fact he gave the longest, hardest lessons of any teacher we
ever had! We had to put in three or four hours of hard study every
evening in order to keep up; and if we failed--
By this time some of the larger boys--Newman Darnley, Ben Murch, Absum
Glinds and Melzar Tibbetts--were smiling broadly and winking at one
another. The new master, they thought, was "dead easy."
Later in the morning, when the bell rang for the boys to come in from
their recess, Newman and many of the others pushed in at the doorway,
pell-mell, as usual. Before they were fairly inside the room the new
master, calm and smiling, stood before them. One of his long arms shot
out; he collared Newman and, with a trip of the foot, flung him on the
floor. Ben Murch, coming next, landed on top of Newman. Alfred
Batchelder, Ephraim Darnley, Absum Glinds, Melzar Tibbetts and my
cousin, Halstead, followed Ben, till with incredible suddenness nine of
the boys, all almost men-grown, were piled in a squirming heap on the
floor!
Filled with awe, we smaller boys stole in to our seats, casting
frightened glances at the teacher, who stood beaming genially at the
heap of boys on the floor.
"Lie still, lie still," he said, as some of the boys at the bottom of
the pile struggled to get out. "Lie still. I suppose you forgot that it
disturbs me to have crowding and loud trampling. Try and remember that
it disturbs me."
Turning away, he said, "The girls may now have their recess."
To this day I remember just how those terrified girls stole out from the
schoolroom. Not until they had come in from their recess and had taken
their seats did Master Brench again turn his attention to the pile of
boys. He walked round it with his face wreathed in smiles.
"Like as not that floor is hard," he remarked. "It has just come into my
mind. I'm afraid you're not wholly comfortable. Rise quietly, brush one
another, and take your seats. It grieves me to think how hard that floor
must be."
There were at that time about sixty-five pupils in our district, ranging
in size and age from little four-year-olds, just learning the alphabet,
to young men and women twenty years of age. It was impossible that so
many young persons could be gathered in a room without some shuffling of
feet and some noise with books and slates. Moreover, boys and girls
unused to study for nine months of the year are not always able at first
to con lessons without unconsciously and audibly moving their lips.
Buzzing lips, however, were among the seven "deadly sins" under the
régime of Czar Brench. Dropping a book or a slate, wriggling about in
your seat, whispering to a seatmate, sitting idly without seeming to
study and not knowing your lesson reasonably well were other grave
offenses.
Because of the length of the lessons, there were frequently failures in
class; the punishment for that was to stand facing the school, and study
the lesson diligently, feverishly, until you knew it. There were few
afternoons that term when three or four pupils were not out there, madly
studying to avoid remaining after school. For no one knew what would
happen if you were left there alone with Czar Brench!
He seemed to care for little except order and strict discipline. He used
to take off his boots and, putting on an old pair of carpet slippers,
walk softly up and down the room, leisurely swinging his ruler. First
and last that winter he feruled nearly all of us boys and several of the
girls. "Little love pats to assist memory," he used to say, as he
brought his ruler down on the palms of our hands.
Feruling with the ruler was for ordinary, miscellaneous offenses; but
Czar Brench had more picturesque punishments for the six or seven
"deadly sins." If you dropped a book, he would instantly cry, "Pick up
that book and fetch it to me!" Then, when you came forward, he would
say, "Take it in your right hand. Face the school. Hold it out straight,
full stretch, and keep it there till I tell you to lower it."
Oh, how heavy that book soon got to be! And when Czar Brench calmly went
on hearing lessons and apparently forgot you there, the discomfort soon
became torture. Your arm would droop lower and lower, until Czar
Brench's eye would fall on you, and he would say quietly, "Straight out,
there!"
There were many terribly tired arms at our school that winter!
But holding books at arm's length was a far milder penalty than "sitting
on nothing," which was Czar Brench's specially devised punishment for
those who shuffled uneasily on those hard old benches during study
hours.
"Aha, there, my boy!" he would cry. "If you cannot sit still on that
bench, come right out here and sit on nothing."
Setting a stool against the wall, he would order the pupil to sit down
on it with his back pressing against the wall. Then he would remove the
stool, leaving the offender in a sitting posture, with his back to the
wall and his knees flexed. By the time the victim had been there ten
minutes, he wished never to repeat the experience. I know whereof I
speak, for I "sat on nothing" three times that winter.
Czar Brench's most picturesque, not to say bizarre, punishment was for
buzzing lips. Many of us, studying hard to get our lessons, were very
likely to make sounds with our lips, and in the silence of that
schoolroom the least little lisp was sure to reach the master's ear.
"Didn't I hear a buzzer then?" he would ask in his softest tone, raising
his finger to point to the offender. "Ah, yes. It is--it is _you_! Come
out here. Those lips need a lesson."
The lesson consisted in your standing, facing the school, with your
mouth propped open. The props were of wood, and were one or two inches
long, for small or large "buzzers."
I remember one day when six boys--and I believe one girl--stood facing
the school with their mouths propped open at full stretch, each gripping
a book and trying to study! Inveterate "buzzers"--those who had been
called out two or three times--had not only to face the school with
props in their mouths but to mount and stand on top of the master's
desk.
If Czar Brench had not been so big and strong, the older boys would no
doubt have rebelled and perhaps carried him out of the schoolhouse,
which was the early New England method of getting rid of an unpopular
schoolmaster. None of the boys, however, dared raise a finger against
him, and he ruled his little kingdom as an absolute monarch. At last,
however, towards the close of the term, some one dared to defy him--and
it was not one of the big boys, but our youthful neighbor Catherine
Edwards.
That afternoon Czar Brench had put a prop in Rufus Darnley, Jr.'s mouth.
Rufus was only twelve years old and by no means one of the bright boys
of the school. He stuttered in speech, and, being dull, had to study
very hard to get his lessons. Every day or two he forgot his lips and
"buzzed." I think he had stood on the master's desk four or five times
that term.
It was a high desk; and that afternoon Rufus, trying to study up there,
with his mouth propped open, lost his balance and fell to the floor in
front of the desk. In falling, the prop was knocked out of his mouth.
At the crash Czar Brench, who had been hearing the grammar class with
his back to Rufus, turned. I think he thought that Rufus had jumped
down; for, fearing the teacher's wrath, the frightened boy scrambled to
his feet and, with a cry, started to run out of school.
With one long stride the master had him by the arm. "I don't quite know
what I shall do to you," he said, as he brought the boy back.
He shook Rufus until the little fellow's teeth chattered and his eyes
rolled; and while he shook him, he seemed to be reflecting what new
punishment he could devise for this rebellious attempt.
To the utter amazement of us all, Catherine, who was sitting directly in
front of them, suddenly spoke out.
"Mr. Brench," she cried, "you are a hard, cruel man!"
The master was so astounded that he let go of Rufus and stared down at
her. "Stand up!" he commanded, no longer in his soft tone, but in a
terrible voice.
Catherine stood up promptly, unflinching; her eyes, blazing with
indignation, looked squarely into his.
"Let me see your hand," he said.
Instead of one hand, Catherine instantly thrust out both, under his very
nose.
"Ferule me!" she cried. "Ferule both my hands, Mr. Brench! Ferule me all
you want to! I don't care how hard you strike! But you are a bad, cruel
man, and I hate you!"
Still holding the ruler, Czar Brench gazed at her for some moments in
silence; he seemed almost dazed.
"You are the first scholar that ever spoke to me like that," he said at
last. A singular expression had come into his face; he was having a new
experience. For another full minute he stared down at the girl, but he
apparently had no longer any thought of feruling her.
"Take your seat," he said to her at last; and, after sending the still
trembling Rufus to his seat, he dismissed the grammar class.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened afterwards. There were but three
weeks more of school, and the term ended about as usual.
The school agent and certain of the parents in the district who believed
in the importance of rigid discipline wished to have Czar Brench teach
there another winter; but for some reason he declined to return. At the
old Squire's we thought that it was, perhaps, because he had failed to
conquer Catherine.