JACK AND HIS MOTHER
Jack went home that night very sore on his back and in his feelings. He
felt humiliated to be beaten like a dog, and even a dog feels degraded
in being beaten. He told his mother about it--the tall, dignified,
sweet-faced mother, patient in trouble and full of a goodness that did
not talk much about goodness. She always took it for granted that _her_
boy would not do anything mean, and thus made a healthy atmosphere for a
brave boy to grow in. Jack told her of his whipping, with some heat,
while he sat at supper. She did not say much then, but after Jack's
evening chores were all finished, she sat down by the candle where he
was trying to get out some sums, and questioned him carefully.
"Why didn't you tell who did it?" she asked.
"Because it makes a boy mean to tell, and all the boys would have
thought me a sneak."
"It is a little hard to face a general opinion like that," she said.
"But," said Jack, "if I had told, the master would have whipped Columbus
all the same, and the boys would probably have pounded him, too. I ought
to have told beforehand," said Jack, after a pause. "But I thought it
was only some coffee-nuts that they had put in. The mean fellows, to let
Columbus take a whipping for them! But the way Mr. Ball beats us is
enough to make a boy mean and cowardly."
After a long silence, the mother said: "I think we shall have to give it
up, Jack."
"What, mother?"
"The schooling for this winter. I don't want you to go where boys are
beaten in that way. In the morning, go and get your books and see what
you can do at home."
Then, after a long pause, in which neither liked to speak, Mrs. Dudley
said:
"I want you to be an educated man. You learn quickly; you have a taste
for books, and you will be happier if you get knowledge. If I could
collect the money that Gray owes your father's estate, or even a part of
it, I should be able to keep you in school one winter after this. But
there seems to be no hope for that."
"But Gray is a rich man, isn't he?"
"Yes, he has a good deal of property, but not in his own name. He
persuaded your father, who was a kind-hearted and easy-natured man, to
release a mortgage, promising to give him some other security the next
week. But, meantime, he put his property in such a shape as to cheat all
his creditors. I don't think we shall ever get anything."
"I am going to be an educated man, anyhow."
"But you will have to go to work at something next fall," said the
mother.
"That will make it harder, but I mean to study a little every day. I
wish I could get a chance to spend next winter in school."
"We'll see what can be done."
And long after Jack went to bed that night the mother sat still by the
candle with her sewing, trying to think what she could do to help her
boy to get on with his studies.
Jack woke up after eleven o'clock, and saw her light still burning in
the sitting-room.
"I say, mother," he called out, "don't you sit there worrying about me.
We shall come through this all right."
Some of Jack's hopefulness got into the mother's heart, and she took her
light and went to bed.
Weary, and sore, and disappointed, Jack did not easily get to sleep
himself after his cheerful speech to his mother. He lay awake long,
making boy's plans for his future. He would go and collect money by some
hook or crook from the rascally Gray; he would make a great invention;
he would discover a gold mine; he would find some rich cousin who would
send him through college; he would----, but just then he grew more
wakeful and realized that all his plans had no foundation of
probability.