University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

Monday morning came, and William moved sadly to the Academy.
Soon the students of every size began to pour in from every quarter;
and soon the whole school was in commotion. George Cary had got
a thousand lines in Virgil! He was to leave his class, of course; for
such a lesson had never been heard of before, even in Dr. Waddel's
school, where the students seemed to take in Latin and Greek by absorption.
[1] --> As his classmates came in, they compared notes, and not
one of them had got more than three hundred lines. “I didn't get
but two hundred and ten,” said one; “I didn't get but two hundred,”
said another. “Well, I'm at the foot of all,” said a third, “I
didn't get but a hundred and fifty; so I'm double distanced, and
left, of course.”

William heard these reports with overwhelming amazement. The
largest lesson he had ever recited was thirty-five lines, and the largest
he had ever heard of being recited was one hundred. He had
been led to believe that his native village was the very focus of intellectual
illumination and mental vigor, and that he himself was the
centre-beam of the focus. He did not suppose that Latin and Greek
were made for country folks at all, much less for poor folks; and behold,
there stood before him homespun,[2] Gilbo-shod, potato-fed chaps,

even smaller than himself, who had mastered one hundred and fifty
lines in Virgil, acknowledging themselves the fag-end of their class,
and “double distanced!” His mind was immediately made up to
take the selectæ class, mortifying as it was to a gentleman of his calibre
to have it known at home that he had retrograded; but could he
keep up with this class? He had little hope of doing so; but so
shocking was the idea of falling two classes below his home stand,
that he resolved to try it at all events. He had one consolation, at
least, and that was, that none of the school-boys knew of his advancement
before he came hither. Withal, he concluded that there must
be a something about Doctor Waddel's school that made all the boys
who came to it smart, and whatever that something might be, he surely
would catch it in a short time. The Doctor soon made his appearance;
and William signified to him his choice of classes.

The school was summoned to prayer, and at the conclusion of this
service the monitors' bills were handed in, and the dancing room
cleared. The Doctor read over to himself the bills, with an affected
seriousness, while a death-like silence reigned around him; his countenance
meantime assuming all varieties of expressions. It was very
easy for those well acquainted with him, to collect from these indications
the general character of the bills in hand; and the signs this
morning were of things grave, novel, funny and common.

The reading finished, the Doctor began: “Pretty heavy bills!
some things new even to me. Garrett Sandige, go and get the
change to settle off these bills, and see that it is such as has the
genuine ring!” To a correct understanding of the first case on the
docket, it is necessary to premise a little. John Freeman had been
exalted for the first time to the dignity of Monitor on the preceding
week, and he had over-acted his part a little; he was rather too
vigilant and authoritative.

To economise time, while Garrett Sandige was collecting the
change, the Doctor sounded the docket in a humorously emphatic and
pompous style:

Austin B. Overstreet, for being idle repeatedly! What say you,
Austin?”

“I deny it, sir,” said Overstreet.

“Monitor, speak!”

“Doctor Waddel, almost every day in the week he follows me all
about with his Greek grammar in his hand, and goes on in this way:
tupto, tupteis, tuptei, (of all the monitors) tupteton, tupteton, (that I
ever saw in my life) tuptomen, tuptete, (John Freeman takes the

lead) tuptousi, (rather rousy.) I told him I'd spunk him, (report
him) if he didn't quit it, and he wouldn't, so I spunked him.”

During these pleadings the Doctor's face put on all sorts of expressions;
to maintain the dignity of the Monitor's character, it was of
the first importance that he should hear him with the profoundest
respect and gravity; and yet there was something so novel and farcical
in this case, that he could with difficulty suppress open laughter.
He drew his eyebrows to their closest, pressed his lips forcibly to-gether
for a moment, and then passed judgment:

“This is a new case—I confess it perplexes me not a little. It
seems to be a case in which study and idleness are so equally and intimately
blended, that you can't hit idleness without at least grazing
study, nor indulge study without indulging idleness. If, as soon as
Overstreet began to make up his compound, you had informed me,
Mr. Monitor, of his experiment, I could have given you a recipe that
would have precipitated the feculent matter so entirely from the pure,
that we might have dealt with it this morning without danger of disturbing
the pure; but as it is, with no antecedent law to meet such a
case, and under the maxim that it is best to err on the safe side—the
side of mercy—if we err at all, I will let the matter pass for this
time; but if you come up again, Austin, with such a mixture of
Greek and English in the presence of a monitor, I'll teach you the
first future tense of your Greek verb in such a style that you'll never
think of mingling English with it again while you live, unless it be
the true English.”

Before this case was disposed of, Sandige had returned with about
a half dozen hickories beautifully trimmed. The Doctor took one,
drew it through his left hand, found it knotless, gave it an experimental
flourish, liked the ring, and proceeded:

“Garry-Osko-Sapling, for being idle repeatedly!”

Garry stepped into the ring without defence.

The Doctor gave him one cut and paused—“Garry,” said he, very
good humoredly, “that doesn't sound right. My ear don't often deceive
me.” So saying he stooped down and raised up the pants of
the left leg, pulled down the stocking, and discovered a tasteful and
most artistic binding of the calf and its appurtenances, with long
narrow strips of old shirt. The Doctor manifested not the least surprise
at this, but very deliberately commenced unwinding. At about
every yard detached, he would pause and look up to the school with
an expression of countenance which seemed to say, “boys needn't try
to fool me.” Having unrolled about four yards and a half of swathing

from this leg, he proceeded to the other, and did the like. During
the whole process the school was a roar of laughter, and few
laughed more heartily than Garry himself. Having returned the
stockings and pants to their places, “let us have fair play, Garry,”
said the Doctor! “Fair play is a jewel. Now stockings are fair,
and pants are fair, thick or thin. If I can't get through them, why,
that's my fault, not yours.” So saying, he let Garry have the remaining
six with a brilliancy that fully compensated for the lost
pleiad.

“Why, Neddy, this is an awful account for one week. Monitor,
are any of these charges upon your own observation but the first?”

“None, sir. They are all by order of the boys whose names are
to them.”

“Explain, James Freer, what is meant by knocking by your nose.”

“He came by me, and struck his fist as hard as he could, as close
to my nose as he could drive it to miss my nose.”

“Did you tell him to quit?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And did he afterwards repeat the blow?”

“No, sir, but he went knocking by the noses of twenty boys in the
same way.”

“How was your case, Thomas Murray?”

“Exactly the same as Jim Freer's, sir.”

“What have you to say to all this, Neddy?”

“Why, Doctor Waddel, I was just playing with them. I quit as
soon as I saw they didn't like it. None of the other boys got mad
at it.”

“And what's your case, Malory Rivers?”—Malory was the smallest
boy in school, save one.

“He come up to me, sah—he came up to me, sah—an' he put his
face mos' touchin' mine, and he opened his mouth and eyes jus' as
wide as he could stretch 'em—putti'n out his arms over me, too, like
he was tryin' to scare me.”

“What do you say to that, Brace?”

“I just did it for a little fun—I wanted to see what he would do—
and I got the worst of it, too, for he butted me on the nose, and I
did n't set him down for it.”

“Did you butt him on the nose, Malory?”

“I give him a little butt.”

“Oh well, the case is easily settled; if you take justice into your
own hands, you must not appeal to me. I regard a little butt full pay
for a big look.”

“And what have you to say, James Collier, against the defendant?
`Plagning with a dead cat' is a new offence. Explain!”

“He took a long forked stick,” said Collier, “and stuck an old
dead cat's neck on it, and swung her up by the head, and swung the
stick on his shoulder, and went all about among the boys like he
did'nt see 'em, stinkin' 'em up. Sometimes he'd meet a boy, and
when he got close up to him, he'd wheel off another way, as if he
just thought of something, and swung the dead cat by 'em almost
touch'n 'em. I, and Andrew Govan, and Jim Tinsley, and Sam
McGraw, and Alfred Hobby, were talking, and I saw Brace coming
with his cat, and I hollo'd to him and said: `Now, Brace, I've seen
you scatter two or three parcels of boys with that cat; and if you
come here with it, I'll spunk you. He pretended he did'nt hear
what I said, and kept coming up, asking me all the time what I said;
and he knew what I said well enough. All the other boys run, but
I wouldn't run; and he comes to me, and says: `Jimmey, I've
been hunting all over the school to find somebody to help me bury
this poor cat: but they are the hard-heartedest set of boys that I
ever saw; wont you help me, Jimmey?' So without saying anything
to him, I went off and spunked him; and just as I started off
he turned round as quick as he could, and whirled his cat almost
all round me. And I don't b'lieve there's another boy in the world
that could have stood that cat as long as he did, just to have his fun
out of the other boys.”

“What do you say to all this, Neddy?”

“Doctor Waddel, twenty boys will tell you I did ask them to go
with me to bury the cat. I don't think Jim Collier had a right to
order me away from the other boys he was talking to. If he didn't
like the cat and my company, why didn't he go off as the other boys
did? They all thought the cat smelt bad, but it didn't. It didn't
smell one bit.” Here the Doctor opened his eyes, and showed signs
of light which materially changed the aspect of the case. It immediately
flashed upon his mind, that the weather had been very cold
for a week, and that, perchance, the cat was not offensive.

“James,” continued he, “did you smell the cat?”

“I didn't stay long enough to smell it.”

“But you say he whirled it round you as you went off; did you
smell it then?”

“I think I would have smelt it if I hadn't held my breath.”

“Doctor Waddel,” said Brace, “he couldn't have smelt it to save
his life. Call every boy he says I went to with it, and not one of
them will say that he smelt it.”

A number of witnesses were called, and not one testified that
he smelt the cat. Most of them had kept out of smell of it; some
held their noses; and others, by whom it had been whipt, remembered
nothing about it.

“The case is certainly wonderfully changed,” said the Doctor.
“Had a single witness testified positively that he smelt the cat, I
would not have held you altogether guiltless, Brace; not that I deny
your right to shoulder as many dead cats as you please, and to carry
them where you please, provided you do not push yourself, with
your charge, into the company of others, and to their annoyance.
But you have no right to constrain a student to leave his company,
or his place, or to endure a stench. As to your pretending to want
help to bury the cat, I understand all that perfectly; you wanted no
such thing.”

“What have you to say, Gilbert Hay, against Brace?”

“He threw a lightwood knot on my foot, on purpose, and hurt it
so that I haven't got over it yet.”

“Why did you do that, Brace?”

“I declare, Dr. Waddel, I didn't mean to drop it on his foot.”

“Yes you did, sir—”

“Address me, Gilbert—not him,” said the Doctor.

“Well, Doctor Waddel, he kept carrying his lightwood knot
about among the boys, and as soon as he'd come near one, he'd pretend
to let it slip off his shoulder, and pretend to be trying to catch
it; and halloo, `take care of your toes—I can't hold it,' and let it
fall right by the boy's foot, just to make him jump. He did two or
three boys so, 'fore he came to me, and when he came to me, he let
it fall on my foot, sure enough.”

“Is all this so, Neddy?”

“Yes, sir; but he shows himself I didn't go to do it.”

“No, sir, `you didn't go to do it,' but you went to do what you
knew was very apt to do it. So if James Freer, or Thomas Murray,
had happened to lean suddenly forward, or been accidently pushed
forward just as you were striking by their noses, he would have got
a very severe blow; and you wouldn't have went to do that, either.
You have no right to sport with the feelings of others, for your fun.
So I'll give you a little for your nose-fun, and two or three littles for
your foot-fun, and the usual price of idleness unrepeated.”

Ned had a pair of breeches which he called his Monday morning
breeches. They were very full in the legs—trousers, in fact. In
their natural position, they hung tangent to the calves of his legs, or

nearly so; but, by catching them near the hips, and pulling them
backward, and a little upward, they pressed tight upon the shins,
and swung entirely clear of the calves, by at least an inch. Ned
had acquired such skill in directing the play of these trowsers, that
he had brought his calves through several penal Mondays almost, or
entirely, intact. He knew the velocity of the switch, and he gave
his twitch just at the instant of its reaching the leg; and at the
crack, hands off! the pants were back to their place.

Ned stept into the ring, and received the first cut with his usual
success. It was a clear flash. The Doctor, without pausing, went
through the motions of the second, but arrested it in its descent, and
saw, with a smile, the pants fly back to receive it. “I thought,”
said he, “that lick made a false report. How was that done, Neddy?
You keep your hands a little too much akimbo for the occasion.
Hands off, and fair play, Neddy! Big breeches are perfectly
fair; but no pulling!” The remaining nine told (as an officer said
of a park of artillery in battle,) “with beautiful effect!”

David Murray, for throwing a chew of tobacco in James Nephew's
eye!

David, commonly called Long David, was the tallest, and, for his
height, the slimmest student in the school. He stood full six feet in
his stocking.

“How was that, David?” said the Doctor.

“He asked me,” said David, “to throw him down a chaw o' tobacco,
and I done it, and it hit him in the eye.”

“Where were you, David? Where did you throw it down from?”

“I wasn't anywhere, sir. Because I am tall, all these little fellows
are constantly running up to me, and askin' me to throw 'em down a
chaw o' tobacco, jus' like I was 'way up in a tree.”

“Well, David,” said the Doctor, chuckling in spite of himself,
“if a boy asks you to throw him down `a chaw o' tobacco,' I don't
think you are responsible for where it falls.”

“What!” the reader may be disposed to ask, “did he ever whip
grown up young men?” Not within our recollection, because we
never knew but one who rendered himself liable to this kind of correction,
and that one left the school in quick time after the commission
of his offence; but tradition said that he had done that thing;
and he used to flourish his hickory with graceful, but terrific vigor of
arm, when a little fretted with matters and things in general, and
thunder forth, “I'll whip you, sirs, from Robert Pettigrew down to

James Scriven, inclusive.” The first was the largest, the last the
smallest student in the school.

A number of other cases, besides those mentioned, were disposed
of; but there was nothing remarkable in them. They were chiefly
cases of idleness in which judgment was confessed; but the sessions
closed with a case of contempt of court, which deserves to be reported,
first, because it is the only case of the kind, we believe, that
ever occurred during the instructorship of Doctor Waddel; and,
secondly, because it shows how he disposed of cases which demanded
immediate notice, but which he could not visit with the usual penalty,
without violating his fixed rule, never to flog in a passion. The
last case on docket was just disposed of, when something that the
Doctor said or did, now forgotten, led Brace to exclaim pretty rudely,
“Doctor Waddel, that's partial!” “What, sir!” thundered the
Doctor from a hurricane countenance. He paused a second—then
dropt the switch he had in his hand, and seizing Ned by all the apparel
that covered his breast, he shook him tremendously. He lifted
him high and sat him down emphatically, but not injuriously. He
now waltzed him round the ring in the quickest possible time. He
then made a path with him, five feet deep, through the boys—brought
him back with a double-jerk—took another turn with him as before,
and dismissed him at the door with a push that sent him off at a “half
hammond.” As soon as the impetus had spent itself, Ned stopt,
looked back, looked up, looked around, like a man in delirum tremens,
and then set off at a tip-toe, at a rather brisk gait, like one creeping
to catch a butterfly, and discoursing, as he went, in a sort of half whisper:
“The man's mad! The ma-a-ns mad! He's made me drunk,
turning me round. If I didn't think he'd kill me, I'll never budge!”

The morning's exercises were exceedingly interesting to Master
Mitten, of course, and he was allowed half a day to muse upon them;
for he was without the text book of his class, and could not be supplied
until Doctor Waddel went home to his dinner. The forenoon
of the day was employed chiefly in taking observations of the costumes,
manners, and conduct of the boys; but part of the time was
spent with young Hay and three of his classmates, with whom he
studied during that day. They construed alternately a sentence
aloud, and if the version of the reader was corrected by some one of
the listeners, it was considered as properly rendered, and adopted by
all. Occasionally, a dispute would arise between them as to the case
of a noun, the mood and tense of a verb, or the application of some
rule of syntax, and the dispute was invariably settled by an appeal

to the grammar, which each one kept always by him in studying his
lessons. Herein, he found one clue to a solution of the mystery
which had astonished him so, at the opening of school—the prodigious
lessons which the boys recited—and before the next day he discovered
another which solved the mystery entirely; it was, that the
very idlest of the boys studied twice as much as any school-boys he
had ever seen. In the afternoon his selectæ was furnished him, and
he set in regularly with his class. He begged to be excused from
reading in his turn, as the author was new to him. He was indulged;
and thus he was virtually carried over his first lesson. One reading
of it, to him, was enough to make him as perfect in it as any in the
class, and consequently he recited it creditably. He had hardly concluded
his first recitation, when the signal for evening prayer was
given; the students were assembled, prayer was held, and they were
dismissed for the night. Thus ended the most terrific day of William's
pupilage. We have been particular in giving its history, not
only for its effect upon Master Mitten, but that the reader might have
a practical exhibition of Doctor Waddel's government. Terrific as
the day was to William, it was the first of a long series of days pregnant
with good luck.