The "Fall School" in "deestrick" number four had been in session for
more than a month when the Weavers moved into the country and came
within its jurisdiction. Preparations were at once made to increase
its numbers, if not its graces, to a very perceptible extent, from out
of the bosom of the Weaver homestead; for, as the youngest twins were
now "five past," they were held by the inexorable logic of rural
argumentation to be "in their sixth year," and so to come within the
age limit of the school law, and entitled to go to school and draw
public money.
Besides, "Old Man Stebbins owns nigh onter six eighties in the
deestrick, an' pays more school tax nor ary other man in Dundas
township, an' it hain't no more nor fair 'at ef he wants to send the
hull family, he orter be 'lowed ter, coz he hain't sent no one ter
school fur more 'n ten year, only one winter, when Si Hodges done
chores fer him fer his board, an' went ter school," explained old Uncle
Billy Wetzel to a company of objecting neighbors, as they all stood
together by a hitching post in front of the church, waiting for
"meetin' to take up," whittling and discussing local affairs meantime.
So the five young Weavers, headed by "Dodd," became members of the
"fall school in deestrick four, Dundas township," and were marched off
for the day, five times a week, with dinner for the crowd in a wooden
dinner pail, which was the special care of twins number one.
This laxity regarding twins number two would have been rebuked in a
city where there is a superintendent kept on purpose to head off such
midgets as these, who creep in under the legislative gates that guard
the entrance to the road to learning, but no such potentate held sway
in Dundas township, so the little bow-legged pair went to school
unmolested and began, thus early, the heavy task of climbing the hill
of knowledge, starting on their hands and knees.
Is it, or is it not, better so?
Amos Waughops (pronounced Wops, but spelled W-a-u-g-h-o-p-s, such is
the tyranny laid upon us by those who invented the spelling of proper
names, and who have upon their invention the never-expiring patent of
custom), had charge of the school that fall. He had been hired for six
months, beginning the last week in August. School was begun thus early
for the sake of getting an extra week of vacation during the Indian
summer days of November, when the school would close for a while to
give the boys and girls a chance to "help through corn-shucking," and
still get in days enough in the school year to be sure to draw school
money.
Amos had but one reason for being a school teacher, and that was, he
was a cripple. Like the uncouth Richard, he had been sent into the
world but half made up, and a club foot, of immense proportions,
rendered locomotion so great a task that he was compelled, per force,
to choose some occupation by which he could earn a living without the
use of his legs.
He had been endowed by nature with what is commonly known as "a good
flow of language." He learned to talk when very young and his tongue
once started, its periods of rest had been few. From a youth he was
noted for his ability to "argy." He was the hero of the rural debating
society and would argue any side of any question with any man on a
moment's notice. If the question happened to be one of which he had
never heard and concerning which he knew nothing, such a condition did
not embarrass him in the least; he would begin to talk and talk
fluently by the hour, if need be, till his opponent would succumb
through sheer exhaustion.
He had been to school but little, and had not profited much by what
instruction he had received while there. It was an idea early adopted
by him that a "self-made man" was the highest type of the race, and to
him a self-made man was one who worked like the original Creator--made
everything out of nothing and called it all very good.
So it was that, being ignorant, despising both books and teachers, and
yet being able to talk glibly, he came to the conclusion that words
were wisdom, and a rattling tongue identical with a well-stored mind--a
not uncommon error in the genus under the glass just now.
I am sure I shall be pardoned, too, if I still further probe in this
direction, and unfold a little more the nature of the circumstances
that had to do with the evolution of "Dodd" while he went to school to
Amos Waughops, in "deestrick four." As the plot unfolds, and it shall
appear what kind of a pupil-carpenter Amos really was, you may wonder
how it happened that such a blunderer ever got into that workshop, the
school room, and had a chance to try his tools on "Dodd." Wait a
minute, and verily you shall find out about this.
He was the orphan nephew of two farmers in the district, men who had
taken turns in caring for him during his childhood. These men were
school directors and had been elected to their positions for the very
purpose of getting Amos to teach the "fall-and-winter school." This
had further been made possible by the fact that two winters before the
young man had "got religion," and his friends in the church had an eye
on him for the ministry. To work him toward this goal they had
resolved that he, being poor, should teach their school to fill his
purse; and so glorify God through the school fund, and his uncles had
been chosen directors to that end.
Hush! Don't say a word! The thing is done, time and again, all over
the country!
The matter had been set up for the year before, but the examiner of
teachers had vetoed the plan by refusing a certificate to teach to the
young man who talked so much and knew so little. This official had
asked the candidate, when he came for examination, to add together 2/3,
3/4, 5/6, and 7/8, whereupon he wrote: "Since you cannot reduce these
fractions to a common denominator, I adopt the method of multiplying
the numerators together for a new numerator, and the denominators
together for a new denominator=210/576! This, reduced to the greatest
common divisor, or, add numerators and denominators=17/21!"
Please do not think that I am jesting, for I have copied this quotation
verbatim from a set of examination papers that lie before me as I
write, papers that were written before the very face and eyes of an
examiner in this great State of Illinois, by a bona fide candidate for
a certificate, on the 16th day of December, in the year of grace, 1875;
the man who wrote them being over thirty years of age and having taught
school for more than half a decade! This is a truthful tale, if
nothing else.
So Amos did not teach the first year that his friends and relations
wanted him to. His friends and relations, however, had their own way
about it after all, for they met and resolved that it should be "Amos
or nobody," and they got the latter. That is, they asked the examiner
to send them a teacher if he would not let them have the one they
wanted.
The examiner asked them what they would pay for a good teacher and they
replied, "Twenty dollars a month!" The poor man sent them the best he
had for that money, but it was of so poor a quality that it could ill
stand the strain put upon it by the wrangling and angered patrons of
"deestrick four," and it broke down before the school had run a month.
This year they had tried the same thing again, and the examiner, in
sheer despair, gave them their way, as perhaps the lesser of two evils.
If any one thinks this an unnatural picture, please address, stamp
enclosed, any one of the one hundred and two county superintendents of
schools in Illinois, and if you don't get what you want to know, then
try Iowa, or Ohio, or Pennsylvania, or even the old Bay State. The
quality is largely distributed, and specimens can be picked up in
almost any locality where it is made possible by the system that
permits such a condition.
This was the teacher to whom "Dodd" came on an October morning, just
preceding his ninth birthday. Amos had heard much of Elder Weaver and
had boasted not a little of how he would "out argy" him the first
"lick" he got at him, and he gazed on these small scions of so notable
a stock with a feeling that the contest had already begun. He put the
children into their seats somewhat gruffly when they appeared, as if
resolved to paralyze his antagonist from the first.
"Dodd" had learned to read by this time, in spite of the hindrance
imposed by Miss Stone in the chart class. Indeed, the only redeeming
feature in his career as a pupil up to date, was his natural love for
reading. The child had a fondness for this art, a genius for it, if
you will, which triumphed over all obstacles, and asserted itself in
spite of all attempts to cripple it, or to bring it down to the level
of his more limited attainments, or to raise these lesser powers to a
line with his special gift.
And in this respect, too, "Dodd" was like other children, or other
children are like "Dodd." Most of these individualities have special
things that they can do ever so much better than they can do some other
things. Why not put them at the things that they can do best, and help
them on in this direction, instead of striving to press them down from
the line of their special genius, and up from the line of their
mediocrity, so as to have them on one common level, as some would fain
have all the world?
As said, "Dodd" had a special genius for reading. When he began to go
to school to Amos this fact appeared at once, and it speedily became a
casus belli between the two, for Amos was a blockhead with a reading
book, and the boy put him terribly to shame before all the school.
He could talk, but he could not read.
"Dodd" had come to school with a sixth reader. It was a world too wide
for his small attainments, with its quotations from Greek and Latin
orators, Webster, Clay, Hastings, et al., but it was the only reader of
the series used in Amos's school that grandma Stebbins could find in
the carefully saved pile of old school books that were housed in the
garret, the residuum of former school generations. So, with a sixth
reader, the boy went to school.
This is the common way of supplying children with school books in the
rural districts. He brought, also, an arithmetic and a speller, but as
his knowledge of the first branch only reached to that part of it which
lies on the hither side of the multiplication table, and as "Webster"
is the chief speller used by children in country schools, and he could
not go estray in that point, these facts need not be emphasized.
As he brought a sixth reader, to the sixth reader class he went. This
also is common in schools of this class. It is not supposed to be by
those who talk learnedly before the legislature about "grading the
country schools," and all that, but it is the way things are done in
the country, as any one will find who will take the pains to go into
the country and find out. It is understood by the patrons that it is
the teacher's business to put the pupil to work with the books that he
brings with him, and in putting "Dodd" into the sixth reader Amos only
did as the rest do in this regard, that is all.
This class was made up of four pupils, two boys and two girls, tall,
awkward creatures, who went to the front of the room twice a day and
read in a sing-song tone out of two books which were the joint
possession of the quartette. The girls used always to stand in class
with their arms around each other and their heads leaned together, as
they swayed back and forth and rattled over the words of the page; and
the boys leaned back against the wall, usually standing on one leg and
sticking the other foot up on the wall behind them.
"Dodd" was a pigmy beside these, but he read better than any of them,
and soon convinced Amos that he, "Dodd," must be taken down a peg, or
he, Amos, would find himself looked down upon by his pupils, who would
see him worsted by this stripling.
He strove to nettle the boy in many ways, but "Dodd" bore the slings
and arrows with a good deal of fortitude, and seemed to avoid a clash.
The experience with his grandfather had had a very softening effect
upon him, and he was slow to forget the lesson. He tried to be good,
and did his best for many weeks.
But Amos could ill endure the condition into which affairs were
drifting. Every day the boy improved in his reading, till it got so
that whenever he read all the school stopped to listen. This the
teacher felt would not do, and besides this, he had met the parson, and
"argyed" with him once, and it was the popular verdict that he had not
come out ahead in the encounter. All of which tended to make him bear
down on "Dodd," till finally he resolved that he would have a row with
the boy and that it should be in the reading class.
Do not start at this, beloved. The thing has been done multitudes of
times, not only in the country, but in the city as well, and many a
child has been made to suffer for the sake of satisfying grudges that
existed between teachers and parents.
So Amos was bound to settle with "Dodd." He watched his chance, and
along in early winter he found what he was looking for.
The reading class was on duty, and "Dodd" was leading, as he had for
several months. The lesson for the day was "The Lone Indian," and
related the woes of that poor savage, who, in old age, returned to the
hunting grounds of his young manhood, only to find them gone, and in
their places villages and fenced farms.
"He leaned against a tree," the narrative continued, "Dodd" reading it
in a sympathetic tone, being greatly overcome by the story, "and gazed
upon the landscape that he had once known so well."
He paused suddenly, and a tear or two fell on his book.
"Stop!" exclaimed Amos Waughops, brandishing a long stick which he
always carried in his right hand and waved to and fro as he talked to
the children, as though he were a great general, in the heat of battle,
swinging his sword and urging his men to the charge, "What are you
crying about? Eh? Look up here! Look up, I say! Do you intend to
mind me?"
The boy's eyes were full of tears, but he looked up as he was bidden
and fixed his eyes on Amos. This was worse than ever, and the teacher
was more angry than before.
"See here, I'll ask you a question, if you are so mighty smart. The
book says that the Indian 'leaned against the tree.' Now, what is
meant by that?"
The question was so sudden and so senseless that "Dodd" essayed no
answer. This was Amos's opportunity.
He waved his stick again--the same being one of the narrow slats that
had been torn from one of the double seats in the room, a strip of wood
two inches wide, an inch thick, and nearly four feet long--and swinging
it within an inch of the boy's nose, he shouted again: "The book says
that the Indian leaned against a tree.' What does that mean? Answer
me!" and again he made the passes and swung the slat.
"I don't know," answered "Dodd," just a little frightened.
It was a little, but it was enough. Amos felt that he had Parson
Weaver on the hip and he hastened to make the most of his advantage.
"Do you mean to say that you don't know what it is to lean against a
tree? Why, where was you raised? What kind o' folks hev you got?
Your old man must be mighty smart to raise a boy as big as you be, an'
not learn him what it means to lean ag'in' a tree."
It was a savage thrust and it drew blood from the boy.
"My dad may not be very smart," he retorted, fully forgetting the "lone
Indian," "but he's got gall enough to pound the stuffin' out o' such a
rooster as you be."
There was a sensation in the little school room, a dead pause, so still
that the little clock on the desk seemed to rattle like a factory, as
it hit off the anxious seconds of the strife it was forced to witness.
This speech of "Dodd's" was almost too many for Amos. It smote him in
his weakest part, and for a moment he was daunted, but he rallied, and
with a few wild brandishes of the slat he felt that he was himself
again, and once more led on to the fray.
"See here, young man, you mustn't talk to me like that! Don't you give
me none of your Methodist lip" (Amos was not a Methodist, and, though a
candidate for the ministry, he cordially hated all outside his own
denomination), "or I'll make you wish you'd never saw deestrick four.
Now tell me what it means to 'lean ag'in' a tree,'" and he glared at
the boy and waved the slat again.
"Why, it means to lean up against it," returned "Dodd," who was bound
to do his best. "That's what I think it means; what do you think it
means?"
The tables were turned, and Amos almost caught his breath at the
dilemma.
"What do I think it means?" he retorted; "what do I think it means?
Why, it means--it means--it means what it says; that he leaned ag'in'
the tree, that is, that he assumed a recumbent posture ag'in' the tree!"
It was a bold stroke, but Amos felt that it had brought him safely
over. "Recumbent posture" was not a vile phrase, and he patted himself
on the back, though he puffed a little at the exertion it cost him to
hoist the words out of himself.
But it was "Dodd's" turn next. Quick as thought he retorted:
"Well, that ain't half so easy as what the book says."
The school giggled. Amos lost all control, and, starting toward
"Dodd," he shouted:
"I'll whip you, you little devil, if it's the last thing I ever do."
But "Dodd" was too quick for him. He shot down the room like an arrow,
and out at the open door, and was off like a deer. With his club foot,
Amos Waughops was no match for the boy with his nimble legs, and,
flushed and beaten, the gabbler hobbled back to his desk. He looked
toward the twins, all four of them, as if to wreak his vengeance on
them, but he somehow felt that they were foemen unworthy of his steel,
and forebore.
As for "Dodd," it was his last day of school with Amos Waughops. Even
the persuasion of his grandfather, for whom he had the greatest
reverence, was insufficient to get him into the school house again that
winter. He learned to do many things on the farm, and helped in
out-of-door work in all the coldest days, suffering much from cold and
storm, but all this he bore cheerfully rather than meet Amos Waughops
and the slat again.
Under these circumstances his parents did not force him to school, and
who shall say they did wrong by letting him stay at home and work?
Long suffering reader, you may frown at the introduction of this
unfortunate man, Amos Waughops, into the thread of this story, but I
can't help it if you do. I am telling the story of "Dodd" just as it
is, and I can't tell it at all unless I tell it that way. You may not
like Mr. Waughops; you may not like his way of teaching school; you may
say that I am cruel to harp on facts to the extent of intimating that
the mere misfortune of being a cripple is not reason enough for being a
school teacher; but I can't help this either, because it is true, and
we all know it is. We lift up our eyes and behold the educational
field all white for the harvest and even among the few laborers that
are working, we see a large per cent of bungling reapers who trample
under foot more grain than they gather, and whose pockets are full of
the seeds of tares, which they are sowing gratis for next year's crop,
as they stumble about. I am sure I pity a cripple as much as any one
can, but children have rights that even cripples should be made to
respect, and no man or woman has a right in the schoolroom merely from
the fact of physical inability to work at some more muscular calling.
I know there are many most excellent teachers who are bodily maimed,
and whose misfortune seems to enhance their devotion to their
profession and their success therein, but there are a multitude besides
who are in the school room solely because they are the victims of
misfortune, and for them there is little excuse to be made. Amos
Waughops was a factor in the evolution of "Dodd" Weaver, and his like
are found by the quantity in the rural schools of this and other
States. We have had enough of them.
It is all right for us to be kind and charitable to unfortunate people,
but let us be careful whose money and means we are charitable with.
When the State took charge of the schools it removed them from the
realm of charitable institutions, though some people are very unwilling
to acknowledge the fact, and it is a very common thing for the public
funds to be still used indirectly for charitable purposes. They are so
used on fellows like Amos Waughops and his cognates of the other sex.
It is an abomination.