All were in their seats and the teacher had called a class. Carlt
Homer came in.
"You're ten minutes late," said the teacher.
"I have fifteen cows to milk," the boy answered.
"Where do you live?"
"'Bout a mile from here, on the Beach Plains."
"What time do you begin milking?"
"'Bout seven o'clock."
"I'll go to-morrow morning and help you," said the teacher. "We
must be on time--that's a necessary law of the school."
At a quarter before seven in the morning, Sidney Trove presented
himself at the Homers'. He had come to help with the milking, but
found there were only five cows to milk.
"Too bad your father lost so many cows--all in a day," said he.
"It's a great pity. Did you lose anything?"
"No, sir."
"Have you felt to see?"
The boy put his hand in his pocket.
"Not there--it's an inside pocket, way inside o' you. It's where
you keep your honour and pride."
"Wal," said the boy, his tears starting, "I'm 'fraid I have."
"Enough said--good morning," the teacher answered as he went away.
One morning a few days later the teacher opened his school with
more remarks.
"The other day," said he, "I spoke of a thing it was very necessary
for us to learn. What was it?"
"To obey," said a youngster.
"Obey what?" the teacher inquired.
"Law," somebody ventured.
"Correct; we're studying law--every one of us--the laws of grammar,
of arithmetic, of reading, and so on. We are learning to obey
them. Now I am going to ask you what is the greatest law in the
world?"
There was a moment of silence. Then the teacher wrote these words
in large letters on the blackboard; "Thou shalt not lie."
"There is the law of laws," said the teacher, solemnly. "Better
never have been born than not learn to obey it. If you always tell
the truth, you needn't worry about any other law. Words are like
money--some are genuine, some are counterfeit. If a man had a bag
of counterfeit money and kept passing it, in a little while nobody
would take his money. I knew a man who said he killed four bears
at one shot. There's some that see too much when they're looking
over their own gun-barrels. Don't be one of that kind. Don't ever
kill too many bears at a shot."
After that, in the Linley district, a man who lied was said to be
killing too many bears at a shot.
Good thoughts spread with slow but sure contagion. There were some
who understood the teacher. His words went home and far with them,
even to their graves, and how much farther who can say? They went
over the hills, indeed, to other neighbourhoods, and here they are,
still travelling, and going now, it may be, to the remotest corners
of the earth. The big boys talked about this matter of lying and
declared the teacher was right.
"There's Tunk Hosely," said Sam Price. "Nobody'd take his word for
nuthin'."
"'Less he was t' say he was a fool out an' out," another boy
suggested.
"Dunno as I'd b'lieve him then," said Sam. "Fer I'd begin t' think
he knew suthin'."
A little girl came in, crying, one day.
"What is the trouble?" said the teacher, tenderly, as he leaned
over and put his arm around her.
"My father is sick," said the child, sobbing.
"Very sick?" the teacher inquired.
For a moment she could not answer, but stood shaken with sobs.
"The doctor says he can't live," said she, brokenly.
A solemn stillness fell in the little schoolroom. The teacher
lifted the child and held her close to his broad breast a moment.
"Be brave, little girl," said he, patting her head gently.
"Doctors don't always know. He may be better to-morrow."
He took the child to her seat, and sat beside her and whispered a
moment, his mouth close to her ear. And what he said, none knew,
save the girl herself, who ceased to cry in a moment but never
ceased to remember it.
A long time he sat, with his arm around her, questioning the
classes. He seemed to have taken his place between her and the
dark shadow.
Joe Beach had been making poor headway in arithmetic.
"I'll come over this evening, and we'll see what's the trouble.
It's all very easy," the teacher said.
He worked three hours with the young man that evening, and filled
him with high ambition after hauling him out of his difficulty.
But of all difficulties the teacher had to deal with, Polly Vaughn
was the greatest. She was nearly perfect in all her studies, but a
little mischievous and very dear to him. "Pretty;" that is one
thing all said of her there in Faraway, and they said also with a
bitter twang that she loved to lie abed and read novels. To Sidney
Trove the word "pretty" was inadequate. As to lying abed and
reading novels, he was free to say that he believed in it.
"We get very indignant about slavery in the south," he used to say;
"but how about slavery on the northern farms? I know people who
rise at cock-crow and strain their sinews in heavy toil the
livelong day, and spend the Sabbath trembling in the lonely shadow
of the Valley of Death. I know a man who whipped his boy till he
bled because he ran away to go fishing. It's all slavery, pure and
simple."
"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return
unto the ground," said Ezra Tower.
"If God said it, he made slaves of us all," said young Trove.
"When I look around here and see people wasted to the bone with
sweat and toil, too weary often to eat the bread they have earned,
when I see their children dying of consumption from excess of
labour and pork fat, I forget the slaves of man and think only of
these wretched slaves of God."
But Polly was not of them the teacher pitied. She was a bit
discontented; but surely she was cheerful and well fed. God gave
her beauty, and the widow saw it, and put her own strength between
the curse and the child. Folly had her task every day, but Polly
had her way, also, in too many things, and became a bit selfish, as
might have been expected. But there was something very sweet and
fine about Polly. They were plain clothes she wore, but nobody
save herself and mother gave them any thought. Who, seeing her
big, laughing eyes, her finely modelled face, with cheeks pink and
dimpled, her shapely, white teeth, her mass of dark hair, crowning
a form tall and straight as an arrow, could see anything but the
merry-hearted Polly?
"Miss Vaughn, you will please remain a few moments after school,"
said the teacher one day near four o'clock. Twice she had been
caught whispering that day, with the young girl who sat behind her.
Trove had looked down, stroking his little mustache thoughtfully,
and made no remark. The girl had gone to work, then, her cheeks
red with embarrassment.
"I wish you'd do me a favour, Miss Polly," said the teacher, when
they were alone.
She blushed deeply, and sat looking down as she fussed with her
handkerchief. She was a bit frightened by the serious air of that
big young man.
"It isn't much," he went on. "I'd like you to help me teach a
little. To-morrow morning I shall make a map on the blackboard,
and while I am doing it I'd like you to conduct the school. When
you have finished with the primer class I'll be ready to take hold
again."
She had a puzzled look.
"I thought you were going to punish me," she answered, smiling.
"For what?" he inquired.
"Whispering," said she.
"Oh, yes! But you have read Walter Scott, and you know ladies are
to be honoured, not punished. I shouldn't know how to do such a
thing. When you've become a teacher you'll see I'm right about
whispering. May I walk home with you?"
Polly had then a very serious look. She turned away, biting her
lip, in a brief struggle for self-mastery.
"If you care to," she whispered.
They walked away in silence.
"Do you dance?" she inquired presently.
"No, save attendance on your pleasure," said he. "Will you teach
me?"
"Is there anything I can teach you?" She looked up at him playfully.
"Wisdom," said he, quickly, "and how to preserve blueberries, and
make biscuit like those you gave us when I came to tea. As to
dancing, well--I fear 'I am not shaped for sportive tricks.'"
"If you'll stay this evening," said she, "we'll have some more of
my blueberries and biscuit, and then, if you care to, we'll try
dancing."
"You'll give me a lesson?" he asked eagerly.
"If you'd care to have me."
"Agreed; but first let us have the blueberries and biscuit," said
he, heartily, as they entered the door. "Hello, Mrs. Vaughn, I
came over to help you eat supper. I have it all planned. Paul is
to set the table, I'm to peel the potatoes and fry the pork, Polly
is to make the biscuit and gravy and put the kettle on. You are to
sit by and look pleasant."
"I insist on making the tea," said Mrs. Vaughn, with amusement.
"Shall we let her make the tea?" he asked, looking thoughtfully at
Polly.
"Perhaps we'd better," said she, laughing.
"All right; we'll let her make the tea--we don't have to drink it."
"You," said the widow, "are like Governor Wright, who said to Mrs.
Perkins, 'Madam, I will praise your tea, but hang me if I'll drink
it.'"
"I'm going to teach the primer class in the morning," said Polly,
as she filled the tea-kettle.
"Look out, young man," said Mrs. Vaughn, turning to the teacher.
"In a short time she'll be thinking she can teach you."
"I get my first lesson to-night," said the young man. "She's to
teach me dancing."
"And you've no fear for your soul?"
"I've more fear for my body," said he, glancing down upon his long
figure. "I've never lifted my feet save for the purpose of
transportation. I'd like to learn how to dance because Deacon
Tower thinks it wicked and I've learned that happiness and sin mean
the same thing in his vocabulary."
"I fear you're a downward and backsliding youth," said the widow.
"You know what Ezra Tower said of Ebenezer Fisher, that he was 'one
o' them mush-heads that didn't believe in hell'? Are you one o'
that kind?" Proclaimers of liberal thought were at work there in
the north.
"Since I met Deacon Tower I'm sure it's useful and necessary. He's
got to have some place for his enemies. If it were not for hell,
the deacon would be miserable here and, maybe, happy hereafter."
"It's a great hope and comfort to him," said the widow, smiling.
"Well, God save us all!" said Trove, who had now a liking for both
the phrase and philosophy of Darrel. They had taken chairs at the
table.
"Tom," said he, "we'll pause a moment, while you give us the fourth
rule of syntax."
"Correct," said he, heartily, as the last word was spoken. "Now
let us be happy."
"Paul," said the teacher, as he finished eating, "what is the
greatest of all laws?"
"Thou shalt not lie," said the boy, promptly.
"Correct," said Trove; "and in the full knowledge of the law, I
declare that no better blueberries and biscuit ever passed my lips."
Supper over, Polly disappeared, and young Mr. Trove helped with the
dishes. Soon Polly came back, glowing in her best gown and
slippers.
"Why, of all things! What a foolish child!" said her mother. For
answer Polly waltzed up and down the room, singing gayly.
She stopped before the glass and began to fuss with her ribbons.
The teacher went to her side.
"May I have the honour, Miss Vaughn," Said he, bowing politely.
"Is that the way to do?"
"You might say, 'Will you be my pardner,'" said she, mimicking the
broad dialect of the region.
"I'll sacrifice my dignity, but not my language," said he. "Let us
dance and be merry, for to-morrow we teach."
"If you'll watch my feet, you'll see how I do it," said she; and
lifting her skirt above her dainty ankles, glided across the floor
on tiptoe, as lightly as a fawn at play. But Sidney Trove was not
a graceful creature. The muscles on his lithe form, developed in
the school of work or in feats of strength at which he had met no
equal, were untrained in all graceful trickery. He loved dancing
and music and everything that increased the beauty and delight of
life, but they filled him with a deep regret of his ignorance.
"Hard work," said he, breathing heavily, "and I don't believe I'm
having as much fun as you are."
The small company of spectators had been laughing with amusement.
"Reminds me of a story," said the teacher. "'What are all the
animals crying about?' said one elephant to another. 'Why, don't
you know?--it's about the reindeer,' said the other elephant; 'he's
dead. Never saw anything so sad in my life. He skipped so, and
made a noise like that, and then he died.' The elephant jumped up
and down, trying the light skip of the reindeer and gave a great
roar for the bleat of the dying animal, 'What,' said the first
elephant, 'did he skip so, and cry that way?' And he tried it.
'No, not that way but this way,' said the other; and he went
through it again. By this time every animal in the show had begun
to roar with laughter. 'What on earth are you doing?' said the
rhinoceros. 'It's the way the reindeer died,' said one of the
elephants.
"'Never saw anything so funny,' said the rhinoceros; 'if the poor
thing died that way, it's a pity he couldn't repeat the act.'
"'This is terrible,' said the zebra, straining at his halter. 'The
reindeer is dead, and the elephants have gone crazy.'"
"Sidney Trove," said the teacher, as he was walking away that
evening, "you'll have to look out for yourself. You're a teacher
and you ought to be a man--you must be a man or I'll have nothing
more to do with you."