 | MORNING, NOON, AND EVENING. Reveries of a bachelor, or, A book of the heart |  |
School Days.
The morning was cloudy and threatened rain;
besides, it was autumn weather, and the winds were
getting harsh, and rustling among the tree-tops that
shaded the house, most dismally. I did not dare to
listen. If indeed, I were to stay by the bright fires of
home, and gather the nuts as they fell, and pile up the
falling leaves, to make great bonfires, with Ben, and
the rest of the boys, I should have liked to listen, and
would have braved the dismal morning with the
cheerfullest of them all. For it would have been a
capital time to light a fire in the little oven we had
built under the wall; it would have been so pleasant
to warm our fingers at it, and to roast the great russets
on the flat stones that made the top.
But this was not in store for me. I had bid the
all packed; I was to go away—to school. The
little oven would go to ruin—I knew it would. I
was to leave my home. I was to bid my mother
good bye, and Lilly, and Isabel, and all the rest;—
and was to go away from them so far, that I should only
know what they were all doing—in letters. It was
sad. And then to have the clouds come over on that
morning, and the winds sigh so dismally;—oh, it
was too bad, I thought!
It comes back to me as I lie here this bright spring
morning, as if it were only yesterday. I remember
that the pigeons skulked under the eaves of the carriage
house, and did not sit, as they used to do in
summer, upon the ridge; and the chickens huddled
together about the stable doors, as if they were
afraid of the cold autumn. And in the garden, the
white hollyhocks stood shivering, and bowed to the
wind, as if their time had come. The yellow muskmelons
showed plain among the frost bitten vines,
and looked cold, and uncomfortable.
—Then they were all so kind, in-doors! The
cook made such nice things for my breakfast, because
little master was going; Lilly would give me
her seat by the fire, and would put her lump of sugar
in my cup; and my mother looked so smiling, and so
tenderly, that I thought I loved her more than I ever
me to take his jacknife, if I wished it,—though he
knew that I had a bran new one in my trunk. The
old nurse slipped a little purse into my hand, tied up
with a green ribbon—with money in it,—and told
me not to show it to Ben or Lilly.
And cousin Isabel, who was there on a visit, would
come to stand by my chair, when my mother was
talking to me; and put her hand in mine, and look
up into my face; but she did not say a word. I
thought it was very odd; and yet it did not seem odd
to me, that I could say nothing to her. I daresay
we felt alike.
At length Ben came running in, and said the
coach had come; and there, sure enough, out of the
window, we saw it—a bright yellow coach, with four
white horses, and band-boxes all over the top, with a
great pile of trunks behind. Ben said it was a grand
coach, and that he should like a ride in it; and the
old nurse came to the door, and said I should have a
capital time; but somehow, I doubted if the nurse
was talking honestly. I believe she gave me an
honest kiss though,—and such a hug!
But it was nothing to my mother's. Tom told me
to be a man, and study like a Trojan; but I was not
thinking about study then. There was a tall-boy in
the coach, and I was ashamed to have him see me
looked back, and saw little Isabel run out into the
middle of the street, to see the coach go off, and the
curls floating behind her, as the wind freshened, I
felt my heart leaping into my throat, and the water
coming into my eyes,—and how just then, I caught
sight of the tall boy glancing at me,—and how I tried
to turn it off, by looking to see if I could button up
my great coat, a great deal lower down than the button
holes went.
But it was of no use; I put my head out of the
coach window, and looked back, as the little figure of
Isabel faded, and then the house, and the trees; and
the tears did come; and I smuggled my handkerchief
outside without turning; so that I could wipe my
eyes, before the tall boy should see me. They say
that these shadows of morning fade, as the sun
brightens into noon-day; but they are very dark
shadows for all that!
Let the father, or the mother think long, before
they send away their boy—before they break the
home-ties that make a web of infinite fineness and
soft silken meshes around his heart, and toss him
aloof into the boy-world, where he must struggle up
amid bickerings and quarrels, into his age of youth!
There are boys indeed with little fineness in the texture
of their hearts, and with little delicacy of soul,
from home; and with whom, a return revives
all those grosser affections which alone existed before;—just
as there are plants which will bear all
exposure without the wilting of a leaf, and will return
to the hot-house life, as strong, and as hopeful as
ever. But there are others, to whom the severance
from the prattle of sisters, the indulgent fondness of
a mother, and the unseen influences of the home
altar, gives a shock that lasts forever; it is wrenching
with cruel hand, what will bear but little roughness;
and the sobs with which the adieux are said,
are sobs that may come back in the after years,
strong, and steady, and terrible.
God have mercy on the boy who learns to sob
early! Condemn it as sentiment, if you will; talk
as you will of the fearlessness, and strength of the
boy's heart,—yet there belong to many, tenderly
strung chords of affection which give forth low, and
gentle music, that consoles, and ripens the ear for all
the harmonies of life. These chords a little rude,
and unnatural tension will break, and break forever.
Watch your boy then, if so be he will bear the
strain; try his nature, if it be rude or delicate;
and if delicate, in God's name, do not, as you value
your peace and his, breed a harsh youth spirit in him,
the delicacy, and richness of his finer affections!
—I see now, looking into the past, the troops of
boys who were scattered in the great play-ground, as
the coach drove up at night. The school was in a
tall, stately building, with a high cupola on the top,
where I thought I would like to go up. The school-master,
they told me at home, was kind; he said he
hoped I would be a good boy, and patted me on the
head; but he did not pat me as my mother used to
do. Then there was a woman, whom they called the
Matron; who had a great many ribbons in her cap,
and who shook my hand,—but so stiffly, that I didn't
dare to look up in her face.
One boy took me down to see the school room,
which was in the basement, and the walls were all
mouldy, I remember; and when we passed a certain
door, he said,—there was the dungeon;—how I felt!
I hated that boy; but I believe he is dead now.
Then the matron took me up to my room,—a little
corner room, with two beds, and two windows, and a
red table, and closet; and my chum was about my
size, and wore a queer roundabout jacket with big
bell buttons; and he called the schoolmaster—`Old
Crikey'—and kept me awake half the night, telling
me how he whipped the scholars, and how they played
uncommon boy.
For a day or two, the lessons were easy, and it
was sport to play with so many `fellows.' But soon I
began to feel lonely at night after I had gone to bed.
I used to wish I could have my mother come, and
kiss me; after school too, I wished I could step in,
and tell Isabel how bravely I had got my lessons.
When I told my chum this, he laughed at me, and
said that was no place for `homesick, white-livered
chaps.' I wondered if my chum had any mother.
We had spending money once a week, with which
we used to go down to the village store, and club our
funds together, to make great pitchers of lemonade.
Some boys would have money besides; though it was
against the rules; and one, I recollect, showed us a
five dollar bill in his wallet—and we all thought he
must be very rich.
We marched in procession to the village church
on Sundays. There were two long benches in the
galleries, reaching down the side of the meeting-house;
and on these we sat. At the first, I was
among the smallest boys, and took a place close to
the wall, against the pulpit; but afterward, as I grew
bigger, I was promoted to the lower end of the first
bench. This I never liked;—because it was close
by one of the ushers, and because it brought me next
eat fennel, and sung with the choir. But there was
a little black-eyed girl, who sat over behind the choir,
that I thought handsome; I used to look at her very
often; but was careful she should never catch my
eye.
There was another down below, in a corner pew,
who was pretty; and who wore a hat in the winter
trimmed with fur. Half the boys in the school said
they would marry her some day or other. One's
name was Jane, and that of the other, Sophia; which
we thought pretty names, and cut them on the ice,
in skating time. But I didn't think either of them
so pretty as Isabel.
Once a teacher whipped me: I bore it bravely in the
school: but afterward, at night, when my chum was
asleep, I sobbed bitterly, as I thought of Isabel, and
Ben, and my mother, and how much they loved me;
and laying my face in my hands, I sobbed myself to
sleep. In the morning I was calm enough:—it was
another of the heart ties broken, though I did not
know it then. It lessened the old attachment to
home, because that home could neither protect me,
nor soothe me with its sympathies. Memory indeed
freshened and grew strong; but strong in bitterness,
and in regrets. The boy whose love you cannot feed
by daily nourishment, will find pride, self-indulgence,
for the soul that is in him. If he cannot shoot his
branches into the sunshine, he will become acclimated
to the shadow, and indifferent to such stray gleams of
sunshine, as his fortune may vouchsafe.
Hostilities would sometimes threaten between the
school and the village boys; but they usually passed
off, with such loud, and harmless explosions, as
belong to the wars of our small politicians. The
village champions were a hatter's apprentice, and a
thick set fellow who worked in a tannery. We prided
ourselves especially on one stout boy, who wore a
sailor's monkey jacket. I cannot but think how
jaunty that stout boy looked in that jacket; and what
an Ajax cast there was to his countenance! It
certainly did occur to me, to compare him with
William Wallace (Miss Porter's William Wallace)
and I thought how I would have liked to have seen
a tussle between them. Of course, we who were
small boys, limited ourselves to indignant remark, and
thought `we should like to see them do it'; and
prepared clubs from the wood-shed, after a model
suggested by a New York boy, who had seen the
clubs of the Policemen.
There was one scholar,—poor Leslie, who had
friends in some foreign country, and who occasionally
received letters bearing a foreign post-mark:—what
letters;—what extraordinary parents! I wondered
if I should ever receive a letter from `foreign parts?'
I wondered if I should ever write one:—but this was
too much—too absurd! As if I, Paul, wearing a
blue jacket with gilt buttons, and number four boots,
should ever visit those countries spoken of in
the geographies, and by learned travellers! No, no;
this was too extravagant: but I knew what I would
do, if I lived to come of age;—and I vowed that I
would,—I would go to New York!
Number seven was the hospital, and forbidden
ground; we had all of us a sort of horror of number
seven. A boy died there once, and oh, how he
moaned; and what a time there was when the father
came!
A scholar by the name of Tom Belton, who wore
linsey gray, made a dam across a little brook by the
school, and whittled out a saw-mill, that actually
sawed: he had genius. I expected to see him
before now at the head of American mechanics; but
I learn with pain, that he is keeping a grocery store.
At the close of all the terms we had exhibitions,
to which all the towns people came, and among them
the black-eyed Jane, and the pretty Sophia with fur
around her hat. My great triumph was when I had
the part of one of Pizarro's chieftains, the evening
moustache put on with burnt cork, and whiskers very
bushy indeed; and I had the militia coat of an
ensign in the town company, with the skirts pinned
up, and a short sword very dull, and crooked, which
belonged to an old gentleman who was said to have
got it from some privateer, who was said to have taken
it from some great British Admiral, in the old
wars:—and the way I carried that sword upon the
platform, and the way I jerked it out, when it came
to my turn to say,—`battle! battle!—then death to
the armed, and chains for the defenceless!'—was
tremendous!
The morning after, in our dramatic hats—black
felt, with turkey feathers,—we took our place upon
the top of the coach, to leave the school. The head-master,
in green spectacles, came out to shake hands
with us,—a very awful shaking of hands. —Poor
gentleman!—he is in his grave now.
We gave three loud hurrahs `for the old school,'
as the coach started; and upon the top of the hill
that overlooks the village, we gave another round—
and still another for the crabbed old fellow, whose
apples we had so often stolen.—I wonder if old
Bulkeley is living yet?
As we got on under the pine trees, I recalled the
image of the black-eyed Jane, and of the other little
come back after the college days were over,—a man,
with a beaver hat, and a cane, and with a splendid
barouche, and how I would take the best chamber at
the inn, and astonish the old school-master by giving
him a familiar tap on the shoulder; and how I would
be the admiration, and the wonder of the pretty girl,
in the fur-trimmed hat! Alas, how our thoughts
outrun our deeds!
For long—long years, I saw no more of my old
school: and when at length the new view came, great
changes—crashing like tornadoes,—had swept over
my path! I thought no more of startling the
villagers, or astonishing the black-eyed girl. No, no!
I was content to slip quietly through the little town,
with only a tear or two, as I recalled the dead ones,
and mused upon the emptiness of life!
| MORNING, NOON, AND EVENING. Reveries of a bachelor, or, A book of the heart | |