 | CHAPTER V. Locke Amsden, The schoolmaster |  |
5. CHAPTER V.
That fear with pity mingled in each mind.”'
Crabbe.
It was near the middle of the dark and dreary season
which characterizes our northern clime. Old Winter had
taken his January nap. And having protracted longer than
usual his cold, sweaty slumbers, he had now, as if to make
amends for his remissness, aroused himself with a rage and
fury which seemed to show his determination to expel the
last vestige of his antagonistic element, heat, that had thus
invaded and for a while disarmed him, for ever from his dominions.
The whole season, indeed, to drop the metaphorical
for plain language, had been one of uncommon mildness.
A warm and broken December had been succeeded by a still
warmer and more thawy January. And so little had people
been made aware of the presence of winter thus far, that
their doors were often left open, and small fires only were
either used or required. But the cold weather now set in
with intense severity, and compelled all to keep tightly closed
doors and roaring fires.
The school-house, which we have been for some time
making the scene of action, had been built the preceding fall;
and the interior, consequently, had been freshly plastered;
while the wood-work of the doors and windows, already tight
before from its newness, had been swollen by the recent
thawy weather; so that the whole room, by this, and the
finishing operation of the frost in closing up the remaining
admission of any fresh air from without. From this, however,
no evil consequences, owing to the mildness of the
season, and the attendant circumstances we have mentioned,
had resulted to the school. But scarcely a week had elapsed,
after the change of weather just described, before the scholars,
though apparently much enjoying the contrasted comforts
of their tight, stove-heated room, while the cold, savage
blasts could be heard raging and howling without, became
very visibly affected. A livid paleness overspread their features;
while their every appearance and movement indicated
great and increasing langour and feebleness. The general
health of the school, in short, including that of the master,
seemed to be rapidly failing. These indications were soon
followed by several instances of so great illness as to confine
its victims to their homes, and even to their beds. Among
the latter was the case of the only son and child of a poor,
but pious and intelligent widow, by the name of Marvin,
which excited in the bosom of Locke feelings of the deepest
sorrow for the misfortune of the boy, and sympathy in the
affliction of his doating parent. And it was not without
reason that both teacher and parent were touched with peculiar
grief on the occasion; for the boy, who was about ten
years old, was not only kind and amiable in disposition, but
a very excellent scholar. And now, almost for the first time,
having the advantages of good instruction, and his ambition
and natural love of learning having been kindled into enthusiasm
by the various incitements held out to him by his
instructor, with whom he had become a secret favorite, he
pursued his studies with an ardor and assiduity which knew
no relaxation. And having made surprising progress in
grammar, during the few weeks the school had kept, he had
recently solicited and obtained leave to commence arithmetic,
to which he was giving his whole heart and soul, when he
of sickness.
These cases of sickness, and especially the more serious
one of the good and studious little Henry, the boy we have
particularized, produced much sensation in the neighborhood.
And the cause, not only of these instances of absolute illness,
but of the altered and sickly appearance of the whole school,
which now excited observation and uneasiness, began to be
generally discussed. As no epidemic was prevailing in the
country, and as all other schools in the vicinity, as far as
could be heard from, were even unusually healthy, it was
soon concluded that the present unhealthiness must be occasioned
by something wrong about the school-house, or in the
manner of conducting the school. And as nothing amiss
could possibly be perceived in the school-house, which all
pronounced warm and comfortable, it was settled that the
fault, of course, must be looked for in the master. Some
averred that the latter, by undue severity, or by some other
means, had broken down the spirit of his scholars, which had
caused them to become melancholy, drooping, and sickly.
Others said that he had made the scholars study so hard,
that it had caused their health to give way under the tasks
which they were induced, through fear, or some mysterious
influence he had obtained over their minds, to perform. And
there were yet others who carried still farther the idea thrown
out by those last named, and contended that the master must
have resorted to some unlawful art or power, which he had
exercised upon his pupils, not only to subjugate them, but
somehow to give them an unnatural thirst for their studies,
and as unnatural a power of mastering them. In proof of
this, one man cited the instance of his son, who, having become
half-crazed on his arithmetic, and having worked all
one evening on a sum which he could not do, went to bed,
leaving his slate upon the table, but rose some time in the
to bed, wholly unconscious of what he had done, and slept
till morning, when he found, to his surprise, the whole process,
in his own figures, upon the slate.[1] This incident, however
little it might have had to do, in the minds of others, in proving
the position it was cited to sustain, seemed to go far with
these people in confirming the strange notion they were beginning
to conceive, that the master had brought some unnatural
influence to bear upon his pupils. And when they
compared the wild, thoughtless, and unstudious conduct which
had ever characterized the scholars before, with their present
greatly altered behavior, and the eager diligence with which
many of them, both day and night, pursued their studies,
particularly mathematical studies, they mysteriously shook
their heads, and said “they did n't know about these things;
such a change might have come in a natural way, but they
could n't understand it.” It was agreed on all hands, they
further argued, that the master was deep in figures. Capt.
Bunker, who was considered the best natural reckoner in
those parts, had confessed that he could n't hold a candle to
him in that respect. They had always heard that strange
things could be done with figures, if a person sought to do
so. Indeed, there was a certain point in figures, they supposed,
beyond which, if a person persisted in going, he was
sure to have help from one who should be nameless, but who
always exacted his pay for his assistance. They hoped this
was not the case with their master; but if it was, and he
was trying to lead his scholars into the same forbidden paths,
it was no wonder that they had such strange, blue looks;
nor was it at all surprising that sickness should come upon
and said “it was high time that something should be done.”
Let it not be inferred, that we would convey the idea, that
the people of the country in which our scene is laid were
generally as superstitious as some of the circumstances here
represented to have taken place might seem to imply. They
certainly were not so. And comparatively few locations, we
presume, could have been found, where such arguments as
we have put into the mouths of some of the good people of
this uncultured district, would have been listened to a moment.
But our observations, made during considerable
travel and intercourse among the common classes of people
in the Middle and Northern States, have apprised us, that
instances of the prevalence of notions similar to those just
mentioned are still to be found, and much oftener, too, than
we had formerly supposed. We have often come across
isolated neighborhoods, even in the heart of intelligent communities,
where, to our surprise, we found all the exploded
notions of witchcraft, sorcery, divination, and the like, still
entertained; and to an extent, indeed, that led us almost to
doubt whether we had not, by some miracle or other, been
carried back a century and a half, and set down among a
clan of the immediate disciples of old Cotton Mather, who
spent so much time and learning in making mystery and
mischief about things which have no existence, except in
imagination. Such a neighborhood, with a few honorable
exceptions, we are constrained to say, was that of the Horn-of-the-Moon.
On the day following that during which the singular surmises
and discussions, to which we have alluded, were started,
two more members of the school were taken down; and the
situation of Henry Marvin had become so alarming, that his
agonized mother, some time in the preceding night, had
despatched a man for a physician of high reputation, residing
thirty miles distant; though she was compelled to pledge her
only cow to defray the expenses of the man, and induce him
to become answerable to the doctor for his pay. All this, as
may be supposed, much increased the alarm in the district,
and quickened into action those who had busied themselves
in getting up an excitement against the master. Meanwhile,
the innocent victim of these absurd imputations remained at
his post, wholly ignorant of the stir that was going on about
him, and thinking only of the misfortune which threatened
his school. On the evening of the day last mentioned, he
dismissed his school early, and with a heavy heart repaired
to the residence of the distressed widow, to visit his sick little
favorite. On reaching the house, he entered the room ordinarily
occupied by the family; when he was introduced, by a
woman in attendance, to Dr. Lincoln, the physician before
named, who, having arrived a short time before, was now
taking some refreshment.
“Our little patient here is a pupil of yours, sir?” inquiringly
said the doctor, who was a small, unostentatious, but a
highly intellectual man.
“He is,” replied Locke; “and I can hardly express how
much anxiety I feel for his situation, which I fear you will
pronounce dangerous.”
“Your apprehensions, I regret to say, are but too well
grounded, sir.”
“What do you consider the true character of his disease?”
“Whatever it may have been at first, it is now a brain
fever, threatening congestion.”
“Are you prepared to assign any particular cause?”
“Of his first attack, I am not. In regard to the form the
disease has now assumed, I may be better prepared, perhaps,
to give an opinion after asking you a few questions. What
are the boy's habits of study and scholarship?”
“He is a bright scholar — uncommonly so — very industrious
and anxious to learn.”
“I suspected so. And you have held up to him what to
others, perhaps, would scarcely be an inducement sufficient
to move them, but what, to his sensitive mind, has incited
him to unwonted exertions?”
“As you say, sir, I may have said that which had the
effect to incite him; although, I am sure, I have used more
exertions with many others.”
“I presume so. It does not require a timber-chain to
draw a miser to a supposed bed of gold. A bare glimpse of
the loved treasure is enough to kindle his whole soul for the
eager grasp. So with the youthful intellect, if bright, and
united with a strong love of learning. And let me caution
you, my dear sir, how you spur on such a mind, in one of
tender years. The body must be permitted to grow, as well
as the mind. Very bright children are said always to die
first, and though the cause generally assigned for this may
be false, there is yet much truth in the saying; the true
cause of the fact being, that the minds of such children, by
the injudiciously applied incitements of parents and teachers,
are often so over-wrought, that disease, at every slight attack
on other parts of the system, is prone to fly to the enfeebled
brain, and, oftener than otherwise, destroy its victim. In
these remarks you will read the opinion to which I incline
respecting the present case.”
“Ay; but are you aware that several others of my school
have been taken ill, and those, too, that would be the last to
whom you would think of imputing injury from undue mental
exertion?”
“I have so understood, sir. There may have been some
local cause for these, as well as the first attack of the poor
little fellow here. Has any such cause suggested itself to
your mind?”
“No! unless it be the late sudden and great change in the
weather.”
“That will hardly account for the manner in which your
school, almost the whole of it, in some degree, as I understand,
has been affected, in a time of such general health.
There must be other causes, which I feel some curiosity to
ascertain before I return.”
The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of
a woman of the neighborhood, one of that valuable class of
society who retail news, with comments.
“Do you attend the school-meeting to-night, Mr. Amsden?”
she soon asked; for she did not appear very bashful
in claiming her right to a share in the conversation.
“School-meeting, madam!” said Locke, in surprise; I was
not aware that there was to be one.”
“O yes, there is; why, everybody is going, they say. I
supposed you, of course, knew it.”
“This is the first I have heard of it. But what is the
object of the meeting?”
“O, to see what 's to be done about the scholars being in
this sickly and malagantly way, to be sure. Some say the
school won't keep any more, at any rate. But I tell 'em, like
enough the master will clear it up, after all 's said and done.”
“Clear up what, pray, madam? Of what can I possibly
be accused, in connection with this misfortune to my
school?”
“O, do n't ask me now — I let it pass into one ear and out
the other, what I hear; because I never mean to be one of
those who go about telling things to breed mischief and ill-will
among people.” And here the good and scrupulous
lady struck off in a tangent, and asked the doctor, now while
she thought of it, as she said, seeing she had heard a great
many disputes about it, “whether saffron or camomile tea
was, upon the whole, the best for the measles?”
As soon as the doctor, who was a man of much sly but
caustic humor, had gravely delivered himself of a very
learned answer, which, he said, upon the whole, all things
carefully considered, he must conclude in the language of the
great Dr. Pope,
That which is best administered is best.”
running upon the inexplicable news he had just heard from
the woman, again turned to her, and asked if she knew
whether Mr. Bunker had returned from the journey on
which he had been for the last fortnight absent.”
“Why, we do n't certainly know yet,” replied the news-mongress;
“but we kinder 'spect he got home this very afternoon.
Jim Walker, who was to our house about a nour ago,
to borrow a sassage-filler for his wife, said he thought he
saw, from his house, a creter over there, that looked like the
captain's old black hoss, going to water, and rolling in the
snow as if he 'd jest been onharnessed after a journey.”
“Well, I am thankful for that, if he has indeed arrived,”
replied Locke, who felt anxious for the presence of his friend
at the approaching meeting.
“Come, Mr. Amsden,” said the doctor, rising, “you will
of course attend the school-meeting; and I will go with you,
if I can be spared; but we will now walk into the sick room,
if you please. We cannot admit much company,” he continued,
as he saw the gossip turn a longing eye upon the
opening door, as if waiting for an invitation to accompany
them; “but Mr. Amsden is the boy's teacher, whose presence
may be a benefit, by recalling his wandering mind.”
When they entered the sick chamber, a scene of silent but
touching woe presented itself. The grief-stricken mother,
who scarcely heeded their approach, sat bending over the
eyes, upon the face of the little sufferer, as he lay nervously
moving his restless limbs, and rolling his swathed
head, in the deep and troubled slumbers which exhausted
nature seemed to be strongly claiming on the one hand, and
grappling disease fiercely disputing and constantly disturbing
on the other. The doctor took the patient's hand, and attentively
examined his pulse; when some movement, in restoring
the limb to its place, awoke him. As his dim and slowly
wandering eyes fell upon the face of his beloved teacher, a
single glance of intelligence slightly illumined them; and the
semblance of an affectionate smile played faintly, an instant,
over his sunken and livid features, vanishing away like some
struggling sunbeam that has partially burst through a stormy
cloud. The mother saw the glance, with the recognition it
evinced. And the association, as her thoughts flew back to
the happy days of her darling boy's health and friendly intercourse
with his teacher, of which that look had so plainly spoken,
and reverted to what he now was, and probably soon would
be, the association thus called up was too much for her bursting
heart. She groaned aloud from the inmost recesses of
her troubled spirit. Her whole frame became deeply agitated,
and her bosom shook with the convulsive throes of her
agony, as with indistinct, quick, whispered ejaculations,
she seemed eagerly snatching for the hand of mercy from
above, to save her from sinking under the insupportable
weight of her own feelings. Her prayers were so far answered
as to bring her the temporary relief of tears, which
now gushed and fell like rain from their opening fountains of
bitterness.
“I am glad to see that,” observed Lincoln, brushing away
a tear that had started out upon his knitting brows. “It will
relieve you, madam. And now let me persuade you to go
will remain, and take care of your son.”
“Our profession,” resumed the doctor, after the widow had
retired, as she did, in silence, on the suggestion just made to
her; “our profession, Mr. Amsden, is one which brings along
with it many pains, but which, at the same time, is not without
its gratifications. A case now, like this, an almost hopelessly
sick child, with a distracted parent hanging over it —
and we are daily pained with witnessing such scenes —
draws hard, hard, I confess, upon my sympathies. But
again, on the other hand, if this boy should recover through
my means, I shall lay up in the bosom of that mother,
whether I deserve it or not, a store of gratitude which will,
perhaps, often find utterance in blessings at the bare mention
of my name! Yes, if he recover,” continued the speaker,
musingly, as he rose at some new appearance he noticed in the
patient, and went to the bedside, “if he recover — and all
that I can do shall be done, and that too with no charge to the
poor woman, even if I knew I had got to beg my next meal.
But it is a fierce and unmanageable disease, and I tremble for
the crisis of this night. Here, step here, Mr. Amsden, and
listen to the confused mutterings of broken thoughts and
images that are whirling in the chaos of that perplexed
and laboring brain.”
Locke immediately complied with the request; and as he
turned his ear towards the rapidly-moving lips of the delirious
boy, he could soon distinguish “six times six are thirty-six
— seven times six are forty-two — eight times six are
forty-eight,” and so on. Sometimes he would follow one
figure in this manner through all its successive multipliers,
in the usual table, and then take up another, follow it awhile,
and suddenly drop it for a third, which in turn, perhaps,
would be relinquished for some attempted process in subtraction
meeting with troubles and perplexities, with which he would
appear to contend awhile, and then return to his old starting
point in the multiplication table, and with freshened impulse
hurry on with “six times six are thirty-six — seven times six
are forty-two,” &c. &c., till something again occurred to turn
his bewildered mind from the course it was mechanically pursuing.
“Poor, poor boy!” exclaimed Locke, as, with a sigh and
starting tear, he turned away from the affecting spectable.
The time having arrived for our hero's departure for the
school-meeting, and the widow now coming in, the doctor apprised
her of his intention of accompanying the former, and,
giving his directions for the next hour, requested her to send
for him should any considerable change occur in the patient,
when they both set off together for the school-house.
On reaching the place of destination, they found, with the
exception of Bunker and one or two others, all the men, together
with several of the older scholars of the district, already
assembled, and on the point of proceeding to business.
As soon as Locke had helped his friend, the doctor, to a seat,
and taken one near by for himself, he cast a leisurely look
round the assembly. It required neither much time nor
closeness of observation to apprise him that there was a
great deal of suppressed, excited feeling prevailing generally
among the company. Nor was he much longer in satisfying
himself, from the words which occasionally reached his ears,
from little knots of eager whisperers around him, and from
the many cold and suspicious glances he encountered, that a
great portion of this feeling was unfavorably directed against
himself, the cause of which he was still unable to conjecture.
“I motion Deacon Gilchrist be Moderator of this meeting,”
said one, bobbing half-way up, and hastily squatting
mouth.
“I am not so sure but they will need a moderator before
they get through,” whispered the doctor to Locke, emphasizing
the word so as to give it a literal signification.
The vote having been taken, and the chairman, a short,
sluggish man, whose wisdom and sanctity lay principally in
his face, being duly installed in his seat, he pronounced the
meeting open, and invited those present “to offer.”
“I motion,” again said the person who had first spoken,
“I motion, Mr. Moderator, that this school come to an eend.
And I 've got my reasons for 't.”
The motion was eagerly seconded by two or three others,
all speaking at once, and demanding the question, in a manner
that plainly showed that a considerable portion of those
present were acting in concert, and with the intention of
having the vote taken before any debate could be had on the
subject. And the chairman, who was evidently a secret favorer
of the project, jumped up to put the question; when
Locke, who had witnessed the movement with the utmost
surprise, rose and demanded the reasons which the mover
asserted he had for his proposed measure.
“I call for the vote — put it to vote!” was the only reply
which Locke received to his reasonable demand.
“Look here now, Mr. Moderator,” cried a tall, rough-looking
young fellow, who rose in a different part of the room
from that occupied by the combined party, “I have neither
chick or child to send to school, to be sure; but I 'm a voter
here, and I must say I think you are for pushing the master
rather hard, to vote him out without giving him your reasons,
so as to allow him a chance to clear it up, if he can. And
as to any blame for the sickness resting on him, I a n't
so sure but what he can; for I can 't say I think much of
this black art business, or of its having any thing to do in
help the master or any body else ever got that way. Now
you may think as you 're a mind to; but I never thought the
old boy was half so much of a critter as he 's cracked up to
be. And I do n't believe he 's any great scratch at cipherin'
himself neither, much less to teach it to others.”
The sensibilities of the good deacon received a very visible
shock from this strange and irreverent speech, as it was
deemed; and his zealous supporter, whom we have mentioned
as taking the lead in motions thus far made, was so much
outraged in his feelings, either by the sentiments of the
speaker, or the opposition they implied to his plans, that he
rose, and said he thought the young man ought to be rebuked
for such loose discourse, in a meeting like this, where folks
had so much reason to be solemn. “I wonder if he believes,”
continued the zealot, warming up, “what the scripture says
about the power of sorcerers' getting unlawful help to do what
other folks could n't do? And I should like to ask him
where he thinks the help come from, when young John Mugridge,
that the master had got along so unnatural fast in figures,
did a hard sum in his sleep. I want to know, too,
what he thinks about widow Marvin's boy being taken sick —
in mercy, perhaps — the very next week after the master put
him to eiphering. And then I wish he 'd tell us what makes
the whole school look so blue and ghastly, if there a n't any
thing wrong in the master's doings. And I call on the master
himself to say whether he can deny that he understands
the black art.”
Locke could hardly bring himself to reply to this ridiculous
charge, or even to answer the particular question that
he had been thus publicly called on to answer. He did so,
however, by briefly stating that he knew of no such art.
He had heard, indeed, that the faculty of foretelling events,
fortunes, and the like, was supposed to be attainable by figures.
a mere boy, indulging a sort of vague expectation that he
should come across this art, if he went far enough. But the
further he advanced, the more did he see the impossibility of
acquiring any such faculty by the use of figures, which, more
peculiarly than any other science, discarded all suppositions,
and had to do only with certain demonstrable facts. And
now, having studied or examined, as he believed, nearly all
of that science that had been published, he was fully prepared
to say that the belief in the faculty in question was
wholly a delusion.
“I do n't blame him for denying it,” said the superstitious
spokesman before named. “I think I should, if I was
wicked enough to tamper with sich forbidden things. But
I should like to hear Deacon Gilchrist the Moderator's
views on this subject.”
The Moderator, after sundry hems and haws, by way of
getting his apparatus of speech in motion, assumed a look of
wise solemnity, and observed,—
“It appears to me, my beloved friends, that there's an
awful responsibility on us. Duty is duty. I do think so. I
do n't know, nor want to, much about the hidden things of
figures, except they are thought to be the instruments that
Satan works by sometimes. We know there were sorcerers
and workers in hidden mysteries, in the days of the apostles;
and the scripter says they shall be multiplied in the
latter days, which now is. I once read a book by a great
and deep divine — I've eeny most forgot his name, but I
think it was Woollen Marther, or some sich oncommon crissen
name — who had seen, with his own eyes, a great deal of the
awful doings of Satan. And he speaks of the strange looks
of those that were buffeted by the adversary, and the divers
maladies and sore evils that befell those who were led by
his emissaries into unlawful ways. And I do think, my
I do think we have seen a token of displeasure, that seems
to say to us, in a loud voice — yea, the voice of many thunders
— Come out, and be separate from him that bringeth the
evil upon you.”
This speech was triumphantly echoed by several of the
deacon's supporters, as an unanswerable argument for the
measure they were so intent on carrying. There were others,
however, who were so obtuse as not to perceive the force of
the argument, or the justice of its application. Among these
were the intended victim of this combination, and his newly-found
friend, the tall fellow, whose speech had so scandalized
his opponents; both of whom made a reply to the oracular
speech of our modern Solomon — the one by denying both
premises and conclusions, and the other by drolly asking pardon
of the old boy, the deacon, or any of their friends, if he
had underrated or offended them in his former speech, and
by contending that the master had cleared himself, to his
mind, of the charge of ciphering his scholars into fevers, and
their parents into fidgets. These replies led to a good deal
of scattering debate, in which nearly all, by speech, word
thrown in, or other manifestation, participated; and by
which it became apparent that there were strictly three parties
in the assembly: first, the deacon's trained followers,
who, numbering about one third of the district, were for
breaking up the school, for reasons before given; second,
another portion, of about the same number, who had been
induced to come into the plan of the former, through their
secret fears that some contagious disease was about to break
out in the school, which their children would be more likely
to take, if the school continued; and last, the other third,
who believed the master in no way chargeable for the
condition of the school, which they wished might be still
continued.
The deacon's party, perceiving, by this time, that they
could safely count on strength enough to carry their measure,
clamored more loudly than ever for a decision of the
question. Locke gave himself up as lost, and a few minutes
more would, indeed, have been decisive of his doom, but for
the unexpected arrival of a new personage. This was Bunker,
who having reached home only a few hours before, had
not heard what was in train till the evening was considerably
advanced; when, accidentally learning something of the
facts, he came post haste to the scene of action. This arrival
very visibly disconcerted the deacon's party, and produced
a dead pause in their proceedings, during which the former
marched boldly up to Locke, and gave him one of those
hearty and cordial shakes of the hand, which send assurance
to the desponding heart, and are more gratefully felt, on
some emergencies, than a thousand expressed pledges of
friendship, on others. After being introduced to Dr. Lincoln,
Bunker, taking a conspicuous stand before the company,
immediately demanded the object of the meeting, and,
by a series of sharp and rapid questions, addressed first to
one, then another, soon succeeded in drawing out the whole
truth, with all that had transpired.
“O ye miserable thinkers!” he exclaimed, as soon as he
had satisfied himself of the true situation of affairs, “what,
in the name of common sense, could have put ye up to such
nonsense and folly as this? Three decent efforts for a correct
idea should have told you that the master would not be
caught teaching, for nothing, so valuable a secret as the
black art, if that art is all you suppose it to be. Why, by
foretelling the rise in the markets, or the lucky number of
the ticket that is to draw the highest prize in the next lottery,
he can make an independent fortune in six months, if
he will keep his secret to himself; but if he goes and imparts
this faculty to others, they will get away all his chances
Do you believe he would do such a foolish thing? No! not
a soul of you. There is thought number one for you.
“Again — what could make you think that the teaching of
this art ever did, or could, bring ill-health, either upon the
teacher or the taught? This was never a fact. Is there
any thing said in the Bible about the magicians, witches, or
diviners, or their followers, being taken sickly for their practices?
Did Simon Magus make anybody sick? Did the
sorceress, or black-art girl, that St. Paul converted, carry
disease in her train? No; for she had brought her master
a good deal of money by telling folk's fortunes; when, if she
had brought sickness and judgments upon them, they would
have given him more money to have kept her away. Nor
was there any such misfortunes connected with the witchcraft
in the old Bay State. Doctor Mather, even in his book,
do n't say so; for I have heard it read. The bewitched, according
to his story, only acted and appeared a little wild
and devilish. But, if his book had said this, it would amount
to nothing; for I do n't believe, if the old Nick himself should
turn book-maker to-day, and sit down, with his old yellow,
brimstone-tempered steel pen, and do his best, for a month,
he could get more of the real essence of falsehood between
the two lids of a book, than can be found in the book I've
mentioned. And if ever that learned doctor — for he was
accounted pious — gets within the walls of the New Jerusalem,
he will find, I fear, when he comes to see what suffering,
death, and crime, were brought about through his influence
and example, as well as he might mean — that heaven will
be rather an uneasy place for him. But, supposing the judgments
of sickness, and so on, did attend such doings, what then?
How would it stand in the present case? Why, the master, by
the very art that was to produce the misfortune, would know
that the misfortune would follow his attempt to teach it.
bring sickness and trouble on his school, that must break it
up, cost him the loss of all his wages, and, what is more, send
him off with a character that would for ever prevent his getting
another school? Would he be such a stupid fool as to
do this? Never! and you all now see and know it. There
is thought number two for you.
“Once more. In what I have said, I have taken you wholly
on your own ground; so that you should not say I could
meet you only on my own dunghill. I will now make you
come on to my ground, and see if you can stand fire any
better there. And this is my ground: — I say that this
black art, as you understand it, the faculty of foretelling
events, together with sorcery, magic, or witchery, and every
other art that lays claim to any such faculty by the aid of
figures, or any thing else, is all moonshine, imposition, and
falsehood. And I do n't want to set before you but one single
idea to make you know and feel the truth of my assertion.
Now follow me. Did you ever know or hear of a rich
fortune-teller, black-art-worker, or conjuror? Speak out, if
you ever did. A single one that was rich, I say. You do n't
speak? No; for you can't say you ever did hear of such
an one. You all well know that they are a set of poor, beggarly
rascals from beginning to end. Well now, what prevents
them, as I said of our master here, if they have this
faculty of looking or figuring into futurity, from seeing and
seizing upon every lottery ticket that is to draw a good prize;
from buying every article in the markets that is about to rise
greatly in price? What prevents them from doing this, and
making their fortunes at a blow? Tell me, you, or you, or
you. This is thought number three for you.
“Now my number first pinned an argument upon you —
even allowing you your own false premises — with nothing
but a wooden pin, that you could not break. My number
nail, that, with or without the pin, not one of you could twist
or move. And my number third puts a double ten clincher
upon the whole, that all of you together can never start.
Now stand forth and gainsay it, ye persecutors of the best
teacher we ever had in the district, or for ever hold your
peace! No one speaks; and I pronounce the master guiltless,
and acquitted of your foolish charge.
“But although the master is no way blameable, yet that
an unusual number of the scholars are sick, and nearly all
drooping, if I am rightly informed, I am not going to deny.
And there is some cause for it, which we must try to discover,
that we may stop the evil. If it is not the starting point of
some epidemic disease that is about to spread over the country,
why, then it must be owing to something wrong about the
school-house. By taking up the possibilities, one after another,
I probably could think it out myself within twenty-four
hours. But here is a man,” continued the speaker, turning
towards the doctor, “who has been in the way of thinking
of such things half of his life. Let us have his opinion.
Dr. Lincoln, will you favor us with your views on the subject
of inquiry?”
The doctor, who had attentively listened to the whole debate,
much of which he had appeared to enjoy with the
highest zest, now rose, and observed that he had already
made up his mind to offer his opinion on the matter in question,
before called on; and he would now proceed to do
so. He had some secret suspicion of the cause of the general
unhealthiness of the school, on first learning the fact;
and having come to the meeting, mainly with the view of
satisfying himself in relation to the matter, his attention,
during the time he had been here, had been particularly
directed to the subject; and he was now prepared to say,
that what was before a mere suspicion with him was now a
was the want of ventilation; and, from what he
had suffered himself since in the room, although the door had
been frequently opened, he was only surprised that the condition
of the scholars was not infinitely worse than he understood
it was. Though not wishing it to strengthen his own
convictions, yet, as it might better convince others, he
would proceed to set the matter in a stronger light before
them.
The doctor, then, while every ear and eye were regarding
his words and movements with intense interest, called on
Locke to ascertain the number of cubic feet contained in the
empty space of the room. A carpenter present, who happened
to have a bundle of his tools with him, having called
into the meeting while on his way home from some finished
job, produced a rule, and took the different dimensions of the
apartment with great exactness; when Locke, from the data
thus furnished, quickly ascertained and told off the number
of cubic feet, as required. This number, owing to the ill-advised
construction of the school-room, in which the floor rose
from one side at so great at angle as to take up about one
sixth part of what would have been the space with a level
floor, amounted only, with proper deductions for stove, seats,
&c., to sixteen hundred cubic feet.
“Now let me observe,” said the doctor, “that, from the
latest and most accurate experiments of chemists and medical
men, it has been ascertained that one person, by respiration
from the lungs alone, destroys all the oxygen, or vital
principle, in thirteen cubic feet of space per hour. How
many scholars have you, Mr. Amsden?”
“Sixty, upon the average, perhaps more, say sixty-four.”
“Ascertain, then, how many cubic feet of vital air these
all will destroy in one hour.”
“Both Locke and Bunker, the latter of whom now began
answer — eight hundred and thirty-two feet.
“How long do you generally keep them in without intermission,
in which the doors would necessarily remain open a
moment while they were passing out?”
“Generally an hour and a half, sometimes two.”
“Then, gentlemen,” said the doctor, “the true, but greatly
misconceived, cause of your trouble and just alarm is now
plainly before you. You see, by our calculation, that, in less
than two hours, all the air that can sustain life a moment
would be, in this new and almost bottle-tight room, if not renovated
by opening the doors or windows, entirely consumed.
And, taking into the account the quantity of this vital principle
inhaled by the pores of so many persons, and the probably
greater portion destroyed by the fire and reflecting
surface of the stove and pipe, I presume one hour is sufficient
to render the air extremely unlrealthy; an hour and a
half, absolutely poisonous; and two hours, so fatally so as
to cause your children to drop dead on the floor.”
“Thunder!” exclaimed Bunker, “can this be so? I long
since knew that we were put upon our allowance, when in close
rooms, for the right kind of breathing air; but I never supposed
there was so much death in the pot as that comes to.
But that fact which you build upon — the amount of vital
air a person destroys an hour — I am afraid, doctor, you got
it only out of the books, which I am rather shy in trusting
for what I call gospel.”
“Both from books and my own imperfect experiments,”
replied Lincoln, “and I am satisfied that the proportion is
not rated too highly. But I have not quite done all that
I proposed in this case. We have now been in the room, I
perceive by my watch, but three quarters of an hour, while
there are not probably over thirty persons present. And
yet, even in this time, and with this number, I will ask you
of the air here?”
“I do — and I — and I too,” responded several; while
others, as the case was thus now brought home to their own
senses, which plainly spoke in the affirmative, sprang forward
in alarm to throw open the doors.
“Not yet — not yet,” said the doctor, interposing. “We
can live awhile longer; and I wish in some degree to satisfy
you, and particularly Captain Bunker here, whose thorough
mode of coming at results I much admire, that what I have
said is not altogether incapable of proof, even with the means
at hand. Cannot our carpenter here, with a few minutes'
work, so alter the casings, that the upper sashes of these
windows can be lowered some few inches?”
Locke — who felt both pained and chagrined, that his inattention
to this matter, in which he so well knew all the principles
involved, should have so nearly led to disastrous
consequences, and whose active mind, having seen through
the whole subject at a glance, the moment the doctor put him
on the track, had long since been engaged in devising a ready
remedy for the discovered evil — here interposed, and suggested
that an opening made in the centre of the ceiling,
would best effect the object in view.
“If it can be done?” inquiringly said the doctor.
“Be done!” said Bunker, “yes, it can. Here, carpenter,
up in this chair with your tools, and make a hole through
there, in no time. This business is just beginning to get
through my hair.”
A few moments sufficed to make an aperture about eight
inches square, opening into the attic story above; the square
form being adopted, as best comporting with the simple contrivance
with which it was proposed to cover it — that of a
mere board slide, supported by cleats, in which it would play
back and forth, as the aperture required to be opened for
Scarcely had the workman time to adjust the slide in its
place, before every particle of impure air had apparently
escaped through the opening, to pass off by the crevices in
the roof. All felt and acknowledged the change, with astonishment
and delight. The sensations of languor and oppression,
that had begun to weigh heavily on the feelings and spirits
of the company, had left them almost as unexpectedly and
suddenly as fell the bundle of sins from the back of Bunyan's
Pilgrim.
“Well, gentlemen,” said Doctor Lincoln, as he looked
round, and saw in the speaking countenances of the company,
that all were as well satisfied as they were gratified
at the result; “I believe the mystery is now solved.
At all events, I'll agree to cure, for nothing, all the scholars
that are hereafter made sick from any thing about the school-house,
or in the conduct of their master.”
“Yes, the room is as clear as a horn, by George!” exclaimed
Bunker, “and the thing is done — proved out as
square as a brick, right in our face and eyes; and there's
no getting away from it. But what sticks in my crop is, that
we must have a man — and a book man, too, though he
plainly do n't swallow books whole, without chewing, as most
of 'em do — have a man come thirty miles to think it out for
us! Master, you and I ought to be trounced.”
“Well, Mr. Moderator,” said the deacon's tormenter, the
rustic humorist, we mean, who was the first to take up for
Locke in the debate, and who now seemed greatly to enjoy
the triumph of the latter over the little clique of his chop-fallen
foes — “Well, Mr. Moderator, how is it about the old
boy and his little blue influences, now? Do n't you think
they 've pretty much all cleared out through that hole up
yonder? Ah! I was about right, deacon: if the old chap
had been any great affair, he could n't have crept out through
on't.”
But the deacon, who suddenly recollected a promise he had
made to carry, that night, some thorough-wort to a jaundery
neighbor, was in too much of a hurry to reply to such scoffing
questions; and he, with one or two of his most zealous
supporters, immediately quitted the house, leaving the rest
of the vanquished party, whether superstitionists or alarmists,
to join the master and his increasing number of friends,
acknowledge their error, and reciprocate congratulations on
the unexpectedly happy result of the whole of this singular
affair. We say the whole; for, before the company broke up,
word was brought by one of the larger scholars, who had
gone over to Widow Marvin's during the meeting, and just
returned, that the sick boy there had fallen into a quiet
sleep, attended by gentle perspiration;—symptoms which the
gratified doctor at once pronounced to be a plain indication
that the disease was going off, by what he technically termed
resolution. And the result, in this case at least, went to
prove the doctor's skill in prognostics. The boy, after that
night, was consigned, by his departing physician, to the care
only of his grateful mother, who, within a fortnight, had the
unspeakable happiness of seeing her darling son restored to
health, and his still loved, but now more temperately pursued
studies.
Of the remainder of young Amsden's career in this district,
little more need be added. Compared with the trials,
vexations, and labors of the past, he now found but a path of
flowers. The recent misfortune in his school, and the consequent
infatuated movement to overthrow him, operating as
all overwrought persecutions usually do, instead of injuring
him, were the means of turning the popular current strongly
in his favor, and of giving him a place in the estimation of
nearly all around him, which he otherwise would have failed
of parents, or the misbehavior of their children,—
those two evils which too often require the best part of a
teacher's time and attention to meet and overcome them, — he
had nothing to do but instruct his pupils. And by no means
unprofitably did the latter use the opportunity thus afforded
them. From a rough, wild, unthinking set of creatures,
who could appreciate nothing but animal pleasures or physical
prowess, they became rational beings, ambitious for the
acquisition of knowledge, and capable of intellectual pleasures.
A new standard of taste and merit, in short, had been
imperceptibly raised among them; and the winter that Locke
Amsden kept school became an era in the district, from
which commenced a visible and happy change in the whole
moral and intellectual tone of its society.
Nor were the advantages which attended his exertions in
this place wholly on one side. In teaching others, the master
himself was often taught. Questions were daily put to
him, even by children in their abs, which led him to reflection,
research, and discoveries of truths, which, thorough
scholar as he was, he found, to his surprise, he had before
overlooked, and which otherwise might never have occurred
to him; — discoveries, we repeat, of important truths, in
almost every study of his school, and particularly in those
of orthography, orthoepy, and etymology, those sadly neglected
branches which require a philosopher to teach them
understandingly, but which are yet, oftener than otherwise,
entrusted to the teaching of an ignoramus!
In what is termed a physical education, also, he here received
hints, which led him to the adoption of much more
correct and enlarged views than any he had before entertained.
His attention, indeed, had never been directed to
the subject; and he had therefore continued to look upon
it as did others around him, either as a matter of little importance,
with popular education. But the painful and alarming
occurrences which we have described, as arising from the
want of ventilation in his school-house, taught him a lesson
which could not be disregarded or easily forgotten; caused
him to give an earnest consideration to this subject in all its
bearings, whether in relation to ventilation, length of confinement
to study, or ease of position; and forced upon his mind
the conviction, that physical education, or an observance of
those laws of life which can only insure the health of the
body, and the consequent health of the mind, is, as truly as
any other, a part of an instructor's duty, for the performance
of which, before high Heaven, he will be held responsible.
| CHAPTER V. Locke Amsden, The schoolmaster | |