IN WHICH THERE IS TROUBLE IN THE PARKVILLE LIBERAL INSTITUTE.
I wish to say in the beginning, and once for all, that I did not set
myself up as a saint, or even as a model boy. I made no pretensions,
but I did try to be good and true. I felt that I had no one in this
world to rely upon for my future; everything depended upon myself
alone, and I realized the responsibility of building up my own
character. I do not mean to assert that I had all these ideas and
purposes clearly defined in my own mind; only that I had a simple
abstract desire to be good, and to do good, without knowing precisely
in what the being and the doing consisted. My notions, many of them, I
am now aware, were crude and undefined.
I have observed that I was a favorite among the boys of the
Institute, a kind of leader and oracle among them, though I was not
fully conscious of the fact at the time. While I now think I owe the
greater portion of the esteem and regard in which I was held by my
companions to my desire to be good and true, I must acknowledge that
other circumstances had their influence upon them. I was the owner of
the best boat on Lake Adieno, and to the boys this was a matter of no
small consequence. There were half a dozen row-boats belonging to the
academy, but nothing that carried a sail.
I always had money. I had only to ask my uncle for any sum I wanted,
and it was given me, without a question as to its intended use. I
mention the fact to his discredit, and it would have been a luxury to
me to have had him manifest interest enough in my welfare to refuse my
request.
I was naturally enterprising and fearless, and was therefore foremost
in all feats of daring, in all trials of skill in athletic games.
Indeed, to sum up the estimate which was made of me by my associates
in school and the people of Parkville, I was "a smart boy." Perhaps
my vanity was tickled once or twice by hearing this appellation
applied to me; but I am sure I was not spoiled by the favor with which
I was regarded.
Though I was not an unhappy boy, there was an aching void in my heart
which I could not fill, a longing for such a home as hundreds of my
young friends enjoyed; and I would gladly have exchanged the freedom
from restraint for which others envied me for the poorest home in the
town, where I could have been welcomed by a fond mother, where I could
have had a kind father to feel an interest in me.
During the spring, summer, and autumn months, when the wind and
weather would permit, I went to school in my sail-boat. My course lay
along the shore, and if I was becalmed and likely to be tardy, I had
only to moor my craft, and take to the road. At the noon intermission,
therefore, my boat was available for use, and I always had a party.
On the day that I was called up charged with fighting, the Splash--for
that was the suggestive name I had chosen for my trim little
craft--was lying at the boat pier on the lake in front of the
Institute building. The forenoon session of the school had just
closed, and I had gone to the boat to eat my dinner, which I always
carried in the stern locker.
Before I had finished, Bill Poodles came down with an Arithmetic in
his hand. It was the dinner hour of the boarding students, and I
wondered that Bill was not in the refectory. Our class had a difficult
lesson in arithmetic that day, which I had worked out in the solitude
of my chamber at the cottage the preceding evening. The students had
been prohibited, under the most severe penalty, from assisting each
other; and it appeared that Bill had vainly applied to half a dozen of
his classmates for help: none of them dared to afford it.
Bill Poodles was a disagreeable fellow, arrogant and "airy" as he was
lazy and stupid. I doubt whether he ever learned a difficult task
alone. The arithmetic lesson was a review of the principles which the
class had gone over, and consisted of a dozen examples, printed on a
slip of paper, to test the knowledge of the students; and it was
intimated that those who failed would be sent down into a lower class.
Bill dreaded anything like a degradation. He was proud, if he was
lazy. He knew that I had performed the examples, and while his
fellow-boarders were at dinner, he had stolen the opportunity to
appeal to me for the assistance he so much needed.
Though Bill was a disagreeable fellow, and though, in common with a
majority of the students, I disliked him, I would willingly have
assisted him if the prohibition to do so had not been so emphatic. Mr.
Parasyte was so particular in the present instance, that the following
declaration had been printed on the examination paper, and each boy
was required to sign it:--
_"I declare upon my honor, that I have had no assistance whatever in
solving these examples, and that I have given none to others."_
Bill begged me to assist him. I reasoned with him, and told him he had
better fail in the review than forfeit his honor by subscribing to a
falsehood. He made light of my scruples; and then I told him I had
already signed my own paper, and would not falsify my statement.
"Humph!" exclaimed he, with a sneer. "You hadn't given any one
assistance when you signed, but you can do it now, and it will be no
lie."
I was indignant at the proposition, it was so mean and base; and I
expressed myself squarely in regard to it. I had finished my dinner,
and, closing the locker, stepped out of the boat upon the pier. Bill
followed me, begging and pleading till I was disgusted with him. I
told him then that I would not do what he asked if he teased me for a
month. He was angry, and used insulting language. I turned on my heel
to leave him. He interpreted this movement on my part as an act of
cowardice, and, coming up behind me, struck me a heavy blow on the
back of the head with his fist. He was on the point of following it up
with another, when, though he was eighteen years old, and half a foot
taller than I was, I hit him fairly in the eye, and knocked him over
backwards, off the pier, and into the lake.
A madder fellow than Bill Poodles never floundered in shallow water.
The lake where he fell was not more than two or three feet deep, and
doubtless its soft bosom saved him from severe injury. He picked
himself up, and, dripping from his bath, rushed to the shore. He was
insane with passion. Seizing a large stone, he hurled it at me. I
moved towards him, with the intention of checking his demonstration,
when his valor was swallowed up in discretion, and he rushed towards
the school building.
For this offence I was brought to the bar of Mr. Parasyte's uneven
justice. Poodles had told his own story after changing his drabbled
garments. It was unfortunate that there were no witnesses of the
affray, for the principal would sooner have doubted the evidence of
his own senses than the word of Bill Poodles, simply because it was
not politic for him to do so. My accuser declared that he had spoken
civilly and properly to me, and that I had insulted him. He had walked
up to me, and placed his hand upon my shoulder, simply to attract my
attention, when I had struck him a severe blow in the face, which had
knocked him over backwards into the lake.
In answer to this charge, I told the truth exactly as it was. Bill
acknowledged that he had asked me some questions about the review
lesson, which I had declined to answer. He was sorry he had offended
so far, but was not angry at my refusal. He had determined to
sacrifice his dinner, and his play during the intermission, to enable
him to perform the examples. I persisted in the statement I had
already made, and refused to modify it in any manner. It was the
simple truth.
"Ernest Thornton," said Mr. Parasyte, solemnly, "hitherto I have
regarded you with favor. I have looked upon you as a worthy and
deserving boy, and I confess my surprise and grief at the event of
to-day. Not content with the dastardly assault committed upon William
Poodles,--whose devotion to his duty and his studies has been
manifested by the sacrifice of his dinner,--you utter the most
barefaced falsehood which it was ever my misfortune to hear a boy
tell."
"I have told the truth, sir!" I exclaimed, my cheek burning with
indignation.
"Silence, sir! Such conduct and such a boy cannot be tolerated at the
Parkville Liberal Institute. But in consideration of your former good
conduct, I purpose to give you an opportunity to redeem your
character."
"My character don't need any redeeming," I declared, stoutly.
"I see you are in a very unhappy frame of mind, and I fear you are
incorrigible. But I must do my duty, and I proceed to pronounce your
sentence, which is, that you be expelled from the Parkville Liberal
Institute."
"Bill Poodles is the biggest liar in the school!" shouted a daring
little fellow among my friends, who were astounded at the result of
the examination, and at the sentence.
"That's so!" said another.
"Yes!" "Yes!" "Yes!" shouted a dozen more. "Throw him over! Bill
Poodles is the liar!"
Mr. Parasyte was appalled at this demonstration--a demonstration which
never could have occurred without the provocation of the grossest
injustice. The boys were well disciplined, and the order of the
Institute was generally unexceptionable. Such a flurry had never
before been known, and it was evident that the students intended to
take the law into their own hands. They acted upon the impulse of the
moment, and I judged that at least one half of them were engaged in
the demonstration.
Poodles was a boy of no principle; he was notorious as a liar; and the
boys regarded it as an outrage upon themselves and upon me that he
should be believed, while my story appeared to have no weight
whatever.
Mr. Parasyte trembled, not alone with rage, but with fear. The
startling event then transpiring threatened the peace, if not the very
existence, of the Parkville Liberal Institute. I folded my arms,--for
I felt my dignity,--and endeavored to be calm, though my bosom heaved
and bounded with emotion.
"Boys--young gentlemen, I--" the principal began.
"Throw him over! Put him out!" yelled the students, excited beyond
measure.
"Young gentlemen!" shouted Mr. Parasyte.
"Three cheers for Ernest Thornton!" hoarsely screamed Bob Hale, my
intimate friend and longtime "crony."
They were given with an enthusiasm which bordered on infatuation.
"Will you hear me, students?" cried Mr. Parasyte.
"No!" "No!" "No!" "Throw him over!" "Put him out!"
The scene was almost as unpleasant to me as to the principal, proud as
I was of the devotion of my friends. I did not wish to be vindicated
in such a way, and I was anxious to put a stop to such disorderly
proceedings. I raised my hand in an appealing gesture.
"Fellow-students," said I; and the school-room was quiet.