University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.
The patriot Dare preaches the doctrine of schoolboys' rights, and
the young Republicans strike for freedom.

The seminary of which I have spoken under the
disparaging name of school, enjoyed the nobler title
of Academy, to which it had the better right, as its
affairs were administered by Trustees, who never
troubled their heads about it, and was intended to
indoctrinate boys in all kinds of learning, from spelling
in two syllables up to the Pons Asinorum and
Hic-hæc-hoc. The only difficulty, as some esteemed
it, was that the task of dispensing these multifarious
subjects of education was made the duty of one single
teacher, there being neither assistant nor usher
in the school: but the duty was, after all, no great
matter in a country where it is every man's business
to be a jack of all trades, and capable of turning
his hand to any thing.

The worthy person to whom was committed this
weighty charge, I have not yet spoken of; nor do I
now think it necessary to say any thing more of
him than that his name was Burley, his nickname
Old Bluff, and that he was a very good sort of person,
who was so occupied in horsing and trouncing
his scholars all day long, that he had little time left
for any thing else, and in particular, none at all for
directing their studies.

This latter circumstance, as we had the true schoolboy
detestation of hard lessons, endeared him very
greatly to our affections; though there was a good
deal of grumbling on account of the trouncing; so
that, to balance matters fairly, as he lost as much
good will by one peculiarity as he gained by the
other, he may be said to have occupied a very doubtful
place in our regards. Unfortunately, however,
he chose to side with the town's people in their opposition
to the warlike pastime just mentioned,
which he professed to consider a very outrageous
irregularity, disreputable to the school and to him,
its master, and calling for the severest measures to
put it down. These measures involved, of course,
a prodigious amount of flogging; of which, though
all had their proportion, a principal share fell to the
commanders in chief of the two armies—that is, to
Dickey Dare and myself. The school had been ever
a Babel: but it was now Pandemonium itself, nothing
being heard from morning till night, but the
thwacks of the birch and ferule, and the yells of
infant innocence. Inexpressible were the terror, the
confusion, the lamentation that prevailed; and broken
spirits and broken hearts, and tingling palms and
smarting backs, were the lot of all.

In this exigency, the genius of General Dare,
whose soul only grew the bigger under oppression,
and whose ambition took a higher flight for
every ignominious elevation upon a schoolmate's
back, devised an expedient, than which nothing
could have been better contrived to obviate every
difficulty, to free us from present pangs, and secure
us from all future tyranny. Taking advantage of
our assembling together, one morning after school—
alas, assembling no longer to fight or play, but to
mourn our sufferings and invoke execrations on the

head of our tyrant—he invited us to follow him into
a neighbouring grave-yard, (a favourite place of
meeting, whenever we had any mischief to concoct;)
where, mounting upon a grave stone—a proper rostrum
for an occasion so solemn—doffing his hat with
the graceful courtesy, and puckering up his visage
with the zeal for the public good, of a veteran stumporator,
he began to harangue us in the following
terms:

“I tell you what, boys and fellers,” he cried, jumping
in medias res with the directness of a Spartan,
“there's no two words about the matter, and the long
and short of it is, Old Bluff is the biggest old tyrant
that ever was, and treats us like slaves and Guinea
niggers; which is a thing quite unbearable and
scandalous; because as how, this is a free land, and
we are free people, as good as any body else; and
it's agin all law and constitution for any body to
treat any body like a slave, except the niggers;
which is because the niggers is slaves, and not free
people. Now I'll tell you what, by Julius Cæsar,
I've been considering about school-keeping and
flogging the boys; and I've just made it out, they
ha'n't no right, no how, to do no such thing in
America; because as how, we have n't no kings
here, but Presidents, which is made by the people,
and is the people's servants, and has n't no right to
hang people, and cut off their heads and flog 'em;
because how, they a'n't kings, but Presidents; and
it's just the same thing with schoolmasters, for all of
their cutting up like kings, for they a'n't kings, but
only Presidents. Now, you see, this is a free land, and
a republic, which is all freedom and equality; and the
people is n't ruled over by nobody, like England,
and Rome, and Greece, and them foreign parts; but
they governs themselves; and when there's any

body to be punished for kicking up, why the people
tells the President, and he gives it to 'em. And
so it's just as clear as coffee, it ought to be the same
thing in a school; for we're the people, and Old
Bluff's only the President; ond Old Bluff has n't no
right to give it to any of us, until we say so; because
as how, we're freemen, by Julius Cæsar! and we
ought to govern ourselves!”

This doctrine, which was worthy a child of the
republic, was highly acceptable to the boys, and
they agreed, nem. con., that Old Bluff had no right
to flog them; but, nevertheless, it was sagaciously
argued, he did flog them; and how were they to help
themselves?

“Why,” said our Demosthenes, with a proud and
resolved look, “just do as our dads did before us;
for if it had n't been for them, we would n't have
had no Presidents over us at all, but kings. For
you must know, we was once slaves, and old king
George, he was king over us; and he carried on as
he liked, and cut off heads, and horsed and flogged
the people, and all that, just like Old Bluff. Well,
you see, the old folks could n't stand that, and they
turned about and they licked him;—father, he was
one of 'em, and he has told me all about it till I'm
tired of it, he makes such long stories about it:
they trounced the old feller: it was what you call
the Revolution. And ever since that, there's been
no more kings to flog us, but only Presidents. And
so here's just my idea: if Old King Bluff won't stop
trouncing, why we'll have a Revolution too, and
we'll turn on him and give it to him—thump him,
the old rascal! thump him like thunder!”

Thump him! thump Old Bluff! The idea was at
first too great for our conceptions, and made us look
aghast. But the spirit of the young patriot, who had

delivered the last words with terrible resolution, was
not to be checked. “Thump him's the idea, my
fellers!” he resumed; “and we can do it just as easy
as the old folks thumped King George; because as
how, he's but one man, and we're sixty-four: (sixty-four's
the number, for I was counting you over, all
the morning;) by Julius Cæsar! we're enough to eat
him up! All we want is the pluck: and if we've
only got that, what's one feller of a man among us?”

In short, the young hero made it apparent to the
meanest of our capacities and the weakest of our
hearts, that nothing could be easier than for sixty-four
boys, of whom at least a dozen were full sixteen
years old, and two or three, like himself, nearly a
year older, to bring our tyrant to a reckoning for all
his manifold oppressions and acts of cruelty; and
having debated the matter over again twice or thrice,
to determine upon a plan of proceedings, it was at
last unanimously resolved to begin a revolution forthwith,
for the purpose of dethroning the despot, or
reducing him to the level of a mere president of the
school, and establishing our rights upon a firm republican
basis, to endure for ever.

This resolution, which the democratic reader cannot
but approve, we had an opportunity to put into
practice the very next morning, when our tyrant,
unconscious of the mine about to burst under his feet,
proceeded to begin the business of the school in his
usual way; that is, by calling up for punishment an
unlucky little culprit, whom he judged most worthy
of his favour at that moment. Upon this, the patriotic
Dare, who had offered himself for this trying
duty, rose behind his desk, and catching up a pewter
inkstand of some two pounds in weight, addressed
the astonished autocrat as follows:

“I tell you what, Old Bluff!—that is, Mr. Burley!

—we have a sort of resolved, all of us, that this here
eternal horsing and thumping is not the sort of thing
we can stand any longer; because as how, this is a
free country, where the people is all free republican
people, and we boys is as free people as any body
else, and will fight for our rights like our fathers
before us. And so don't touch that boy; for we
won't stand such doings no longer; we won't, by
Julius Cæsar!”

This address, and the menacing attitude which all
the boys, thus encouraged by their patriot leader,
immediately assumed, each grasping at some weapon
or other, a slate or book, or whatever he could pick
up, seemed to have actually petrified the pedagogue,
who turned pale, and sat down, staring around him
as if in a dream; of which the lad whom he had
called up, took advantage to sneak away to his bench;
while the insurgents, not doubting that their tyrant
was actually—to use their own elegant word—cowed
by their display of resolution, began to resume their
seats, uttering murmurs of felicitation and triumph.
The sound awoke the master from his trance; he
sprang up, and grasping his birch, called out in a
most furious voice—“You Dickey Dare-devil, what's
that you?—Come here, you villain, and I'll trounce
you!”

“I won't be trounced,” said Dickey Dare, “except
by a vote of the boys; for I goes on the popular
principle, and —” But Dickey had not time
to finish his sentence; for Burley immediately rushed
forward to seize him, which Dickey was fain to
avoid by leaping over his desk to the floor; where,
being closely followed, he let fly his inkstand, by
which he did great damage to the head of one his
schoolmates, without, however, hurting the master,
and then dropping like a log on the floor, whereby

the autocrat, whose legs he dexterously seized upon,
was suddenly overturned, with a shock that left him
for a moment quite breathless. “Now, fellers!—
them that ain't cowards, fall on!” cried the hero to
his fellow conspirators; who, having been somewhat
horrified by the sudden rally of the enemy, now
recovered courage, and rushed upon him pell-mell;
so that when he recovered from the shock of his
fall, not Gulliver himself, waking from his first nap
in Lilliput, was more multitudinously overrun by
the bodies, or more hopelessly secured in the toils of
his pygmy foes.

“Bang away,” roared General Dare, the patriot;
“down goes all tyrants! Freedom and equality for
ever! All them that's got sore bones, pay him up
old scores.”

Horrible were the din and confusion that now
prevailed; and horrible also, for a moment, were
the struggles of the downfallen monarch; who, however,
being somewhat troubled with an asthma,
became after a time completely exhausted and incapable
of further resistance; upon which Master
Dare demanded handkerchiefs to bind him securely;
which being effected, this incomparable putter-down
of tyrants snatched up a birchen twig, and dispensed,
with uncommon coolness, a dozen thwacks upon
the victim's shoulders. Nor did he rest here, but
passing the rod from hand to hand, compelled every
member of the new born republic to administer, in
like manner, the same number of blows; which
were, in general, laid on with exceeding good will.
This being accomplished, he called for three cheers;
after which we all took to our heels, leaving the deposed
ruler to his meditations.

The result of this exploit exceeded our most
sanguine expectations. We had our misgivings,

when it was over, as to its effects upon the good
people of the town, especially upon our parents and
guardians; who, we feared, might espouse the enemy's
interests, and exact a terrible retribution.
But, as our good fortune would have it, Burley was
by no means a favourite of the people, his manners
being stiff and disagreeable, and his severity in
school occasionally made the subject of remark and
disapproval; and his misadventure, which was indeed
surprising and ridiculous enough, excited much
more mirth than commiseration. The disgrace of
the thing, added to this want of sympathy, and the
impossibility of obtaining any satisfaction or reparation,
for he was ashamed to carry his complaints
before a magistrate, drove the poor fellow half mad;
so that he packed up his effects, and in two days
decamped from the town, without any one knowing
whither he had gone.