University of Virginia Library

II.
School Dreams.

IT is a proud thing to go out from under the realm
of a school-mistress, and to be enrolled in a
company of boys who are under the guidance of a
master. It is one of the earliest steps of worldly pride,
which has before it a long and tedious ladder of ascent.
Even the advice of the old mistress, and the nine-penny
book that she thrusts into your hand as a parting gift,
pass for nothing; and her kiss of adieu, if she tenders it
in the sight of your fellows, will call up an angry rush
of blood to the cheek, that for long years, shall drown
all sense of its kindness.

You have looked admiringly many a day upon the
tall fellows who play at the door of Dr. Bidlow's
school: you have looked with reverence, second only

to that felt for the old village church, upon its dark-looking
heavy brick walls. It seemed to be redolent of
learning; and stopping at times, to gaze upon the
gallipots and broken retorts, at the second story
window, you have pondered, in your boyish way,
upon the inscrutable wonders of Science, and the
ineffable dignity of Dr. Bidlow's brick school!

Dr. Bidlow seems to you to belong to a race of
giants; and yet he is a spare, thin man, with a hooked
nose, a large, flat, gold watch-key, a crack in his voice,
a wig, and very dirty wristbands. Still you stand
in awe at the mere sight of him;—an awe that is
very much encouraged by a report made to you by a
small boy,—that “Old Bid” keeps a large ebony ruler
in his desk. You are amazed at the small boy's
audacity: it astonishes you that any one who had ever
smelt the strong fumes of sulphur and ether in the
Doctor's room, and had seen him turn red vinegar
blue, (as they say he does) should call him “Old
Bid!”

You, however, come very little under his control:
you enter upon the proud life, in the small boy's
department,—under the dominion of the English
master. He is a different personage from Dr. Bidlow:
he is a dapper, little man, who twinkles his eye
in a peculiar fashion, and who has a way of marching
about the school-room with his hands crossed behind

him, giving a playful flirt to his coat-tails. He wears a
pen tucked behind his ear: his hair is carefully set up
at the sides, and upon the top, to conceal (as you think
later in life) his diminutive height; and he steps very
springly around behind the benches, glancing now and
then at the books,—cautioning one scholar about his
dogs-ears, and startling another from a doze, by a very
loud and odious snap of his forefinger upon the boy's
head.

At other times, he sticks a hand in the armlet of his
waistcoat: he brandishes in the other a thickish bit of
smooth cherry-wood,—sometimes dressing his hair
withal; and again, giving his head a slight scratch
behind the ear, while he takes occasion at the same
time, for an oblique glance at a fat boy in the corner,
who is reaching down from his seat after a little paper
pellet, that has just been discharged at him from some
unknown quarter. The master steals very cautiously
and quickly to the rear of the stooping boy,—
dreadfully exposed by his unfortunate position,—and
inflicts a stinging blow. A weak-eyed little scholar on
the next bench ventures a modest titter; at which the
assistant makes a significant motion with his ruler—
on the seat, as it were, of an imaginary pair of
pantaloons,—which renders the weak-eyed boy on a
sudden, very insensible to the recent joke.

You, meantime, profess to be very much engrossed

with your grammar—turned up-side down: you think
it must have hurt; and are only sorry that it did not
happen to a tall, dark-faced boy who cheated you in a
swop of jack-knives. You innocently think that he
must be a very bad boy; and fancy—aided by a
suggestion of the old nurse at home, on the same
point,—that he will one day come to the gallows.

There is a platform on one side of the school-room,
where the teacher sits at a little red table, and they
have a tradition among the boys, that a pin properly
bent, was one day put into the chair of the English
master, and that he did not wear his hand in the
armlet of his waistcoat, for two whole days thereafter.
Yet his air of dignity seems proper enough in a man
of such erudition, and such grasp of imagination, as he
must possess. For he can quote poetry,—some of the
big scholars have heard him do it:—he can parse the
whole of Paradise Lost; and he can cipher in Long
Division, and the Rule of Three, as if it was all
Simple Addition; and then—such a hand as he writes,
and such a superb capital B! It is hard to understand
how he does it.

Sometimes, lifting the lid of your desk, where you
pretend to be very busy with your papers, you steal the
reading of some brief passage of Lazy Lawrence, or of
the Hungarian Brothers, and muse about it for hours
afterward, to the great detriment of your ciphering;

or, deeply lost in the story of the Scottish Chiefs, you
fall to comparing such villains as Menteith with the
stout boys who tease you; and you only wish they
could come within reach of the fierce Kirkpatrick's
claymore.

But you are frighted out of this stolen reading by a
circumstance that stirs your young blood very strangely.
The master is looking very sourly on a certain morning,
and has caught sight of the little weak-eyed boy over
beyond you, reading Roderick Random. He sends
out for a long birch rod, and having trimmed off the
leaves carefully,—with a glance or two in your direction,
—he marches up behind the bench of the poor
culprit,—who turns deathly pale,—grapples him by the
collar, drags him out over the desks, his limbs dangling
in a shocking way against the sharp angles, and having
him fairly in the middle of the room, clinches his rod
with a new, and, as it seems to you, a very sportive
grip.

You shudder fearfully.

“Please don't whip me,” says the boy whimpering.

“Aha!” says the smirking pedagogue, bringing
down the stick with a quick, sharp cut,—“you don't
like it, eh?”

The poor fellow screams, and struggles to escape;
but the blows come faster and thicker. The blood
tingles in your finger ends with indignation.

“Please don't strike me again,” says the boy sobbing
and taking breath, as he writhes about the legs of the
master;—“I won't read another time.”

“Ah, you won't, sir—won't you? I don't mean you
shall, sir,” and the blows fall thick and fast,—until
the poor fellow crawls back, utterly crest-fallen and
heart-sick, to sob over his books.

You grow into a sudden boldness: you wish you
were only large enough to beat the master: you know
such treatment would make you miserable: you
shudder at the thought of it: you do not believe he
would dare: you know the other boy has got no
father. This seems to throw a new light upon the
matter, but it only intensifies your indignation. You
are sure that no father would suffer it; or if you
thought so, it would sadly weaken your love for him.
You pray Heaven that it may never be brought to such
proof.

—Let a boy once distrust the love or the tenderness
of his parents, and the last resort of his yearning
affections—so far as the world goes—is utterly gone.
He is in the sure road to a bitter fate. His heart will
take on a hard iron covering, that will flash out plenty
of fire in his after contact with the world, but it will
never—never melt!

There are some tall trees that overshadow an angle
of the school-house; and the larger scholars play some

very surprising gymnastic tricks upon their lower limbs:
one boy for instance, will hang for an incredible length
of time by his feet, with his head down; and when you
tell Charlie of it at night, with such additions as your
boyish imagination can contrive, the old nurse is
shocked, and states very gravely that it is dangerous;
and that the blood all runs to the head, and sometimes
bursts out of the eyes and mouth. You look at that
particular boy with astonishment afterward; and expect
to see him some day burst into bleeding from the nose
and ears, and flood the school-room benches.

In time, however, you get to performing some
modest experiments yourself upon the very lowest
limbs,—taking care to avoid the observation of the
larger boys, who else might laugh at you: you
especially avoid the notice of one stout fellow in pea-green
breeches, who is a sort of `bully' among the
small boys, and who delights in kicking your marbles
about, very accidentally. He has a fashion too of
twisting his handkerchief into what he calls a `snapper,'
with a knot at the end, and cracking at you with it,
very much to the irritation of your spirits, and of your
legs.

Sometimes, when he has brought you to an angry
burst of tears, he will very graciously force upon you
the handkerchief, and insist upon your cracking him in
return; which, as you know nothing about his effective

method of making the knot bite, is a very harmless
proposal on his part.

But you have still stronger reason to remember that
boy. There are trees, as I said, near the school; and
you get the reputation after a time of a good climber.
One day you are well in the tops of the trees, and being
dared by the boys below, you venture higher—higher
than any boy has ever gone before. You feel very
proudly; but just then catch sight of the sneering face
of your old enemy of the snapper; and he dares you to
go upon a limb that he points out.

The rest say,—for you hear them plainly—“it won't
bear him.” And Frank, a great friend of yours, shouts
loudly to you,—not to try.

“Pho,” says your tormentor,—“the little coward!”

If you could whip him, you would go down the tree
and do it willingly: as it is, you cannot let him
triumph: so you advance cautiously out upon the
limb: it bends and sways fearfully with your weight:
presently it cracks: you try to return, but it is too late:
you feel yourself going:—your mind flashes home—
over your life—your hope—your fate, like lightning:
then comes a sense of dizziness,—a succession of quick
blows, and a dull, heavy crash!

You are conscious of nothing again, until you find
yourself in the great hall of the school, covered with

blood, the old Doctor standing over you with a phial,
and Frank kneeling by you, and holding your shattered
arm, which has been broken by the fall.

After this, come those long, weary days of confinement,
when you lie still, through all the hours of noon,
looking out upon the cheerful sunshine, only through
the windows of your little room. Yet it seems a grand
thing to have the whole household attendant upon you.
The doors are opened and shut softly, and they all step
noiselessly about your chamber; and when you groan
with pain, you are sure of meeting sad, sympathizing
looks. Your mother will step gently to your side and
lay her cool, white hand upon your forehead; and little
Nelly will gaze at you from the foot of your bed with
a sad earnestness, and with tears of pity in her soft
hazel eyes. And afterward, as your pain passes away,
she will bring you her prettiest books, and fresh
flowers, and whatever she knows you will love.

But it is dreadful, when you wake at night, from
your feverish slumber, and see nothing but the spectral
shadows that the sick-lamp upon the hearth throws
aslant the walls; and hear nothing but the heavy
breathing of the old nurse in the easy chair, and
the ticking of the clock upon the mantel! Then,
silence and the night crowd upon your soul drearily.
But your thought is active. It shapes at your bed-side
the loved figure of your mother, or it calls up the

whole company of Dr. Bidlow's boys; and weeks
of study or of play, group like magic on your
quickened vision:—then, a twinge of pain will call
again the dreariness, and your head tosses upon the
pillow, and your eye searches the gloom vainly for
pleasant faces; and your fears brood on that drearier,
coming night of Death—far longer, and far more
cheerless than this.

But even here, the memory of some little prayer
you have been taught, which promises a Morning after
the Night, comes to your throbbing brain; and its
murmur on your fevered lips, as you breathe it, soothes
like a caress of angels, and wooes you to smiles and
sleep.

As the days pass, you grow stronger; and Frank
comes in to tell you of the school, and that your old
tormentor has been expelled: and you grow into
a strong friendship with Frank, and you think of
yourselves as a new Damon and Pythias—and that you
will some day live together in a fine house, with plenty
of horses, and plenty of chestnut trees. Alas, the boy
counts little on those later and bitter fates of life, which
sever his early friendships, like wisps of straw!

At other times, with your eye upon the sleek, trim
figure of the Doctor, and upon his huge bunch of
watch seals, you think you will some day be a Doctor;
and that with a wife and children, and a respectable

gig, and gold watch, with seals to match, you would
needs be a very happy fellow.

And with such fancies drifting on your thought, you
count for the hundredth time the figures upon the
curtains of your bed,—you trace out the flower wreaths
upon the paper-hangings of your room;—your eyes
rest idly on the cat playing with the fringe of the
curtain;—you see your mother sitting with her
needle-work beside the fire;—you watch the sunbeams
as they drift along the carpet, from morning until
noon; and from noon till night, you watch them playing
on the leaves, and dropping spangles on the lawn; and
as you watch—you dream.