STORY-TELLING
My boys like to have me tell them stories, and, if the stories are
true ones, they like them all the better. So I sometimes become
reminiscent when they gather about me and let them lead me along as
if I couldn't help myself when they are so interested. In this way I
become one of them. I like to whittle a nice pine stick while I
talk, for then the talk seems incidental to the whittling and so
takes hold of them all the more. In the midst of the talking a boy
will sometimes slip into my hand a fresh stick, when I have about
exhausted the whittling resources of the other. That's about the
finest encore I have ever received. A boy knows how to pay a
compliment in a delicate way when the mood for compliments is on him,
and if that mood of his is handled with equal delicacy great things
may be accomplished.
Well, the other day as I whittled the inevitable pine stick I let
them lure from me the story of Sant. Now, Sant was my seatmate in
the village school back yonder, and I now know that I loved him
whole-heartedly. I didn't know this at the time, for I took him as a
matter of course, just as I did my right hand. His name was Sanford,
but boys don't call one another by their right names. They soon find
affectionate nicknames. I have quite a collection of these nicknames
myself, but have only a hazy notion of how or where they were
acquired. When some one calls me by one of these names, I can
readily locate him in time and place, for I well know that he must
belong in a certain group or that name would not come to his lips.
These nicknames that we all have are really historical. Well, we
called him Sant, and that name conjures up before me one of the most
wholesome boys I have ever known. He was brimful of fun. A
heartier, more sincere laugh a boy never had, and my affection for
him was as natural as my breathing. He knew I liked him, though I
never told him so. Had I told him, the charm would have been broken.
In those days spelling was one of the high lights of school work, and
we were incited to excellence in this branch of learning by head
tickets, which were a promise of still greater honor, in the form of
a prize, to the winner. The one who stood at the head of the class
at the close of the lesson received a ticket, and the holder of the
greatest number of these tickets at the end of the school year bore
home in triumph the much-coveted prize in the shape of a book as a
visible token of superiority. I wanted that prize, and worked for
it. Tickets were accumulating in my little box with exhilarating
regularity, and I was nobly upholding the family name when I was
stricken with pneumonia, and my victorious career had a rude check.
My nearest competitor was Sam, who almost exulted in my illness
because of the opportunity it afforded him for a rich harvest of head
tickets. In the exuberance of his joy he made some remark to this
effect, which Sant overheard. Up to this time Sant had taken no
interest in the contests in spelling, but Sam's remark galvanized him
into vigorous life, and spelling became his overmastering passion.
Indeed, he became the wonder of the school, and in consequence poor
Sam's anticipations were not realized. Day after day Sant caught the
word that Sam missed, and thus added another ticket to his
collection. So it went until I took my place again, and then Sant
lapsed back into his indifference, leaving me to look after Sam
myself. When I tried to face him down with circumstantial evidence
he seemed pained to think that I could ever consider him capable of
such designing. The merry twinkle in his eye was the only confession
he ever made. Small wonder that I loved Sant. If I were writing a
testimonial for myself I should say that it was much to my credit
that I loved a boy like that.
As a boy my risibilities were easily excited, and I'm glad that, even
yet, I have not entirely overcome that weakness. If I couldn't have
a big laugh, now and then, I'd feel that I ought to consult a
physician. My boys and girls and I often laugh together, but never
at one another. Sant had a deal of fun with my propensity to laugh.
When we were conning our geography lesson, he would make puns upon
such names as Chattahoochee and Appalachicola, and I would promptly
explode. Then, enter the teacher. But I drop the mantle of charity
over the next scene, for his school-teaching was altogether personal,
and not pedagogical. He didn't know that puns and laughter were the
reactions on the part of us boys that caused us to know the facts of
the book. But he wanted us to learn those facts in his way, and not
in our own. Poor fellow! _Requiescat in pace_, if he can.
Sant was the first one of our crowd to go to college, and we were all
proud of him, and predicted great things for him. We all knew he was
brilliant and felt certain that the great ones in the college would
soon find it out. And they did; for ever and anon some news would
filter through to us that Sant was battening upon Latin, Greek,
mathematics, science, and history. Of course, we gave all the credit
to our little school, and seemed to forget that the Lord may have had
something to do with it. When we proved by Sant's achievements that
our school was _ne plus ultra_, I noticed that the irascible teacher
joined heartily in the chorus. I intend to get all the glory I can
from the achievements of my pupils, but I do hope that they may not
be my sole dependence at the distribution of glory. Yes, Sant
graduated, and his name was written high upon the scroll. But he
could not deliver his oration, for he was sick, and a friend read it
for him. And when he arose to receive his diploma he had to stand on
crutches. They took him home in a carriage, and within a week he was
dead. The fires of genius had burned brightly for a time and then
went out in darkness, because his father and mother were first
cousins.
At the conclusion of this story, the boys were silent for a long
time, and I knew the story was having its effect. Then there was a
slight movement, and one of them put into my hand another pine stick.
I whittled in silence for a time, and then told them of a woman I
know who is well-known and highly esteemed in more than one State
because of her distinctive achievements. One day I saw her going
along the street leading by the hand a little four-year-old boy. He
was the picture of health, and rollicked along as only such a healthy
little chap can. He was eager to see all the things that were
displayed in the windows, but to me he and the proud mother were the
finest show on the street. She beamed upon him like another Madonna,
and it seemed to me that the Master must have been looking at some
such glorious child as that when he said; "Suffer the little children
to come unto me."
A few weeks later I was riding on the train with that mother, and she
was telling me that the little fellow had been ill, and told how
anxious she had been through several days and nights because the
physicians could not discover the cause of his illness. Then she
told how happy she was that he had about recovered, and how bright he
seemed when she kissed him good-by that morning. I saw her several
times that week and at each meeting she gave me good news of the
little boy at home.
Inside of another month that noble little fellow was dead.
Apparently he was his own healthy, happy little self, and then was
stricken as he had been before. The pastor of the church of which
the parents are members told me of the death scene. It occurred at
about one o'clock in the morning, and the mother was worn and haggard
from anxiety and days of watching. The members of the family, the
physician, and the pastor were standing around the bed, but the
mother was on her knees close beside the little one, who was writhing
in the most awful convulsions. Then the stricken mother looked
straight into heaven and made a personal appeal to God to come and
relieve the little fellow's sufferings. Again and again she prayed:
"Oh, God, do come and take my little boy." And the Angel of Death,
in answer to that prayer, came in and touched the baby, and he was
still.
The mother of that child may or may not know that the grandfather of
that child came into that room that night, though he had been long in
his grave, and murdered her baby--murdered him with tainted blood.
That grandfather had not lived a clean life, and so broke a mother's
heart and forced her in agony to pray for the death of her own child.
When I had finished I walked quietly away, leaving the boys to their
own thoughts, and as I walked I breathed the wish that my boys may
live such clean, wholesome, upright, temperate lives that no child or
grandchild may ever have occasion to reproach them, or point the
finger of scorn at them, and that no mother may ever pray for death
to come to her baby because of a taint in their blood.