 | CHAPTER II. Dukesborough tales |  |
2. CHAPTER II.
“Books!” There is nothing terrible in this simple word. On the
contrary, it is a most harmless word. It suggests quiet and contemplation;
and though it be true that books do often produce agitations in
the minds of men and in the state of society, sometimes even effecting
great revolutions therein, yet the simple enunciation of the word, even
in an elevated tone, could never be adequate, it would seem, to the production
of any considerable excitement. As little would it seem, in
looking upon it from any point of view in which one could place oneself,
to be capable of allaying excitement however considerable. I never
could tell exactly why it was, that, as often as I have read of the custom
in England of reading the Riot Act upon occasions of popular tumult,
and begun to muse upon the strangeness of such a proceeding and its
apparent inadequacy for the purposes on hand, my mind has recurred
to the incidents about to be narrated. For there was one point of view,
result by the utterance of the first word in this chapter twice a day for
five days in the week. It was the word of command with which Mr.
Israel Meadows was wont to announce to the pupils of the Goosepond
schoolhouse the opening of the school morning and afternoon.
The Goosepond was situated a few miles from Dukesborough, on
the edge of an old field, with original oak and hickory woods on three
sides, and on the other a dense pine thicket. Through this thicket
there ran a path which led to the school from a neighboring planter's
residence where Mr. Meadows boarded. The schoolhouse, a rude hut
built of logs, was about one hundred and twenty yards from this thicket
at the point where the path emerged from it.
One cold, frosty morning near the close of November, many, very
many years ago, about twenty-five boys and girls were assembled as
usual at the Goosepond waiting for the master. Some were studying
their lessons, and some were playing; the boys at ball, the girls at
jumping the rope. But all of them (with one exception), those studying
and those playing, the former though the most eagerly, were watching
the mouth of the path at which the master was expected. Those
studying showed great anxiety. The players seemed to think the game
worth the candle: though the rope jumpers jumped with their faces
toward the thicket, and whenever a boy threw his ball, he first gave
a look in the same direction. The students walked to and fro in
front of the door, all studying aloud, bobbing up and down, exhibiting
the intensest anxiety to transfer into their heads the secrets of knowledge
that were in the books. There was one boy in particular, whose
eagerness for the acquisition of learning seemed to amount to a most
violent passion. He was a raw-boned lad of about fifteen years, with
very light coarse hair and a freckled face, sufficiently tall for his years.
His figure was a little bent from being used to very hard work. But
he had beautiful eyes, very blue, and habitually sad. He wore a roundabout
and pants of home-made walnut-dyed stuff of wool and cotton,
a seal-skin cap, and red brogan-shoes without socks. He had come up
the last. This was not unusual: for he resided three miles and a half
from the schoolhouse, and walked the way forth and back every day.
He came up shivering and studying, performing both of these apparently
inconsistent operations with great violence.
“Halloo, Brinkly!” shouted half a dozen boys, “got in in time this
morning, eh? Good. You are safe for to-day on that score, old fellow.”
“Why, Brinkly, my boy, you are entirelee too soon. He won't be here
for a quarter of a hour yit. Come and help us out with the bull-pen.
Now only jist look at him. Got that eternal jography, and actilly studyin'
when he is nigh and in and about friz. Put the book down, Brinkly
Glisson, and go and warm yourself a bit, and come and take Bill Jones'
place. It's his day to make the fire. Come along, we've got the
Quses.”
These words were addressed to him by the `one exception' before
alluded to, a large, well grown, square-shouldered boy, eighteen years
old, named Allen Thigpen. Allen was universally envied in the school,
partly because he had once upon a time been to Augusta, and knew,
or was supposed to know, all the wonders of that great city, and partly
because he could go to Dukesborough whenever he pleased, and above
all, because he was not afraid of Mr. Israel Meadows. But it was the
boast of Allen Thigpen that he had yit to see the man that he was
afraid of.
Brinkly paid no attention to Allen's invitation, but came on up
shivering and studying, and studying and shivering. Just as he passed
Allen, he was mumbling — “A-an em-em-pire is a co-untry go-overned
by a-an em-per-or.”
Now ordinarily, the announcement of this proposition would be incapable
of exciting any uncommon amount of risibility. It contains
a simple truth expressed in simple language. Yet so it was that Mr.
Allen burst into a roar of laughter; and as if he understood that the
proposition had been submitted to him for ratification or denial, answered,
“Well, Brinkly, supposin' it is. Who in the dickence said it
weren't? Did you, Sam?”
“Did I do what?” answered Sam Pate in the act of throwing the
ball.
“Did you say that a empire weren't — what Brinkly said it was?”
“I didn't hear what Brinkly said it was, and I don't know nothin'
about it, and I haint said nothin' about it and I don't keer nothin'
about it.” And away went the ball. But Sam had thrown too suddenly
after looking toward the mouth of Mr. Meadows' path, and he
missed his man.
Brinkly scarcely noticed the interruption, but walked to and fro,
and studied and shivered. He bowed to the book; he dug into it.
He grated his teeth, not in anger, but in his fierce desire to get what
was in it. He tried to fasten it in his brain whether or not by slightly
“An yem-pire,” said he fiercely, but not over loudly, “is a ke-untry-ge-uvend
by a ye-emperor.”
“And what is a ye-emperor, Brinkly?” asked Allen.
“Oh Allen, Allen, please go away from me! I almost had it when
you bothered me. You know Mr. Meadows will beat me if I don't
get it, because you know he loves to beat me. Do let me alone. It
it just beginning to come to me now.” And he went on shivering and
studying, and shiveringly announcing among other things that “an
yem-pire was a ke-untry ge-uverned by an ye-emperor,” emphasizing
every one of the polysyllables in its turn: sometimes stating the
proposition very cautiously, and rather interrogatively, as if half inclined
to doubt it; at others, asserting it with a vehemence which
showed that it was at last his settled conviction that it was true, and
that he ought to be satisfied and even thankful.
“Poor fellow,” muttered Allen, stopping from his ball-play, and looking
towards Brinkly as the latter moved on. “That boy don't know
hisself; and what's more, Iserl Meadows don't.” Allen then walked
to where a rosy-cheeked little fellow of eight or nine years was sitting
on a stump with a spelling-book in his lap and a pin in his right hand
with which he dotted every fourth word, after reciting the following:
“Betsy Wiggins; Heneritter Bangs; Mandy Grizzle; Mine!”
(Dot).—“Betsy Wiggins; Heneritter Bangs; Mandy Grizzle;
Mine!” (Dot).
“I-yi, my little Mr. Asa,” said Allen, “and supposin' that Betsy Wiggins
misses her word, or Heneritter Bangs hern, or Mandy Grizzle hern,
then who's goin' to spell them, I want to know? And what'll you give
me?” continued Allen, placing his rough hand with ironical fondness
upon the child's head, “what'll you give me not to tell Mr. Meadows
that you've been gitting your own words?”
“Oh, Allen, please, please don't!”
“What'll you give me, I tell you?”
“Twenty chestnuts!” and the little fellow dived into his pockets and
counted twenty into Allen's hand.
“Got any more?” Allen asked, cracking one with his teeth.
“Oh, Allen, Allen, will you take all? Please don't take all!”
“Out with 'em, you little word-gitter. Out with the last one of 'em.
A boy that gits his own words in that kind o' style aint liable, and
oughtn't to be liable to eat chestnuts.”
Asa disgorged to the last. Allen ate one or two, looking quizzically
into his face, and then handed the rest back to him.
“Take your chestnuts, Asa Boatright, and eat 'em, that is if you've
got the stomach to eat 'em. If I ever live to git to be as afeard of a
human as you and Abel Kitchens and Brinkly Glisson are afeard of
Iserl Meadows, drat my hide if I don't believe I would commit sooicide
on myself — yes, on myself, by cuttin' my own throat!”
“Yes,” replied Asa Boatright, “you can talk so because you are a
big boy, and you know he is afraid of you. If you was as little as me,
you would be as afraid as me. If I ever get a man —” The little
fellow, however, checked himself, took his pin again, and mumbling,
“Betsy Wiggins; Heneritter Bangs; Mandy Grizzle; Mine!” — resumed
his interesting and ingenious occupation of dotting every fourth
word.
Brinkly had overheard Allen's taunt. Closing his book after a moment's
pause, he walked straight to him and said:
“Allen Thigpen, I am no more afraid of him than you are; nor than I
am of you. Do you think that's what makes me stand what I do? If
you do, you are much mistaken. Allen, I'm trying all the time to keep
down on mother's account. I've told her of some of his treatment, but
not all; and she gets to crying, and says this is my only chance for an
education, and it does seem like it would break her heart if I was to lose
it, that I have been trying to get the lessons, and to keep from fighting
him when he beats me. And I believe I would get 'em if I had a chance.
But the fact is, I can't read well enough to study the jography, and my
'pinion is he put me in it too soon just to get the extra price for jography.
And I can't get it, and I haven't learnt anything since I have
been put in it,— and I am not going to stand it much longer;— and,
Allen Thigpen, I'm not going to pay you chestnuts nor nothing else
not to tell him I said so neither.”
“Hooraw!” shouted Allen. “Give me your hand, Brinkly.” Then
continuing in a lower tone, he said, “By jingo! I thought it was in you.
I seen you many a time, when, says I to myself, it wouldn't take much to
make Brinkly Glisson fight you, old fellow, or leastways try it. You've
stood enough already, Brinkly Glisson, and too much too. My blood
has biled many a time when he' been a beatin' you. I tell you, don't
you stand it no longer. Ef he beats you again, pitch into him. Try
to ride him from the ingoin'. He can maul you, I expect, but — look at
this,” and Allen raised his fist about the size of a mallet.
Brinkly looked at the big fist and brawny arm, and smiled dismally.
“Books!” shouted a shrill voice, and Mr. Israel Meadows emerged
from the thicket with a handful of hickory switches. In an instant,
there was a rushing of boys and girls into the house — all except Allen,
who took his time. Asa Boatright was the last of the others to get in.
He had changed his position from the stump, and was walking, book
in hand, apparently all absorbed in its contents, though his eye was on
the schoolmaster, whose notice he was endeavoring to attract. He
bowed, and digged, and dived, until, just as the master drew near, he
weariedly looked up, and seeing him unexpectedly, gave one more
profound dive into the book and darted into the schoolhouse.
It was a rule at the Goosepond, that the scholars should all be at
their seats when Mr. Meadows arrived. His wont was to shout `Books'
from the mouth of the path, then to walk with great rapidity to the
house. Woe to the boy or girl who was ever too late, unless it happened
to be Allen Thigpen. He had been heard to say, “Ding any
sich rule, and he wasn't goin' to break his neck for Iserl Meadows nor
nobody else.” If he got in behind the master, which often happened,
that gentlemen was kind enough not to notice it,— an illustration of
an exception to the good discipline of country schoolmasters which
was quite common in the times in which Mr. Meadows lived and flourished.
On this occasion, when Mr. Meadows saw Allen, calculating
that the gait at which himself was walking would take him into the
house first, he halted a little, and stooped, and, having untied one of
his shoe strings, tied it again. While this operation was going on,
Allen went in. Mr. Meadows, rising immediately, struck into a brisk
walk, almost a run, as if to apologise for his delay, and then entered
into the scene of his daily triumphs.
But before we begin the day's work, let us inquire who this Mr.
Meadows was, and whence he came.
| CHAPTER II. Dukesborough tales | |