 | CHAPTER VIII. Dukesborough tales |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
“Far you well!” said Allen, solemnly, to the fallen chair.
They had all gathered up their books and slates, and hats and
bonnets, and started off for their several homes. Those who went the
same way with Brinkly, listened with the most respectful attention as
he talked with Allen on the way, and showed how bitterly he had
suffered from the cruelty of Mr. Meadows. They had already lost
their resentment at the dishonor of that monarch's royalty, and were
evidently regarding Brinkly with the devotion with which mankind
always regard rebels who are successful. Each one strove to get the
nearest him as he walked. One little fellow, after trying several times
to slip in by his side, got ahead, and walked backwards as he looked
at Brinkly and listened. He was so far gone under the old régime
that he felt no relief from what had happened. He had evidently not
understood anything at all about it. He seemed to be trying to do so,
and to make out for certain whether that was Brinkly or not. The
voice of those young republicans, had Brinkly been ambitious, would
have made him dictator of the Goosepond. Even Allen felt a consideration
for Brinkly which was altogether new. He had always expected
that Brinkly would at some day resist the master, but he did
not dream of the chivalrous spirit of the lad, nor that the resistance
when it should come would be so terrible and disastrous. He had
always regarded Brinkly as his inferior; he was now quite satisfied to
consider him as no more than his equal. How we all, brave men and
cowards, do honor the brave! And Brinkly had just given, in the
opinion of his schoolfellows, the most brilliant illustration of courage
which the world had ever seen.
But Brinkly was not ambitious nor vain; he felt no triumph in his
victory. On the contrary, he was sad; he wished it could have been
avoided. He said to Allen that he wished he could have stood it a
little longer.
“Name o' God, Brinkly Glisson, what for? It is the astonishenist
thing I ever heerd of, for you to be sorry for maulin' a rascal who beat
you like a dog, and that for nothin'. What for, I say again?”
“On mother's account.”
Allen stopped — they had gotten to the road that turned off to his
home.
“You tell your mother that when she knows as much about the
villian as I do, she will be proud of you for maulin' him. Look here,
Brinkly, I promised him I wouldn't tell on him tell he had collected
his schoolin' account and was off. But you tell your mother that if she
gets hurt with you for thrashin' him, she will get worse hurt with herself
when she knows what I do.”
Saying this, Allen shook hands with him and the others, and went
off, merrily singing `Jerusalem, my happy home.' Soon all the rest
had diverged by byroads to their own homes, and Brinkly pursued his
way alone.
It was about twelve o'clock when he reached home. The widow's
house was a single log-tenement, with a small shed-room behind. A
kitchen, a meat-house, a dairy, a crib with two stalls in the rear, one
for the horse the other for the cow, were the out-buildings. Homely
and poor as this little homestead was, it wore an air of much neatness
and comfort. The yard looked clean; the floors of both mansion and
kitchen were clean, and the little dairy looked as if it knew it was
clean, but that was nothing new or strange. Several large rose-bushes
stood on either side of the little gate, ranged along the yard-paling.
Two rows of pinks and narcissus hedged the walk from the gate to the
door, where, on blocks of oak, rested two boxes of the geranium.
The widow was in the act of sitting down to her dinner, when hearing
the gate open and shut, she advanced to the door to see who might
be there. Slowly and sadly Brinkly advanced to the door.
“Lord have mercy upon my soul and body, Brinkly, what is the
matter with you? and what have you been a doing, and what made you
come from the schoolhouse this time o' day?” was the greeting he
met.
“Don't be scared, mother; it isn't much that's the matter with me.
Let us sit down by the fire here, and I'll tell you all about it.”
They sat down, and the mother looked upon the son, and the son
upon the mother.
“I was afraid it would come to it, mother. God knows how I have
tried to keep from doing what I have had to do at last.”
“Brinkly, have you been and gone and fought with Mr. Meadows?”
“Yes, mother.”
“And so ruined yourself, and me, too.”
“I hope not, mother.”
“Yes, here have I worked and denied myself; day and night I have
it,” and she fell straight to crying.
“Mother, do listen to me before you cry and fret any more, and I
believe you will think I have not done wrong. Please, mother, listen
to me,” he entreated as she continued to weep, and rocked herself, in
order, as it seemed, to give encouragement and keep time to her weeping.
But she wept and rocked. Brinkly turned from her and seemed
doggedly hopeless.
“Say on what you're going to say — say on what you're going to say.
If you've got anything to say, say it.”
“I can't tell you anything while you keep crying so. Please don't
cry, mother; I don't believe you will blame me when I tell you what I
have been through.” His manner was so humble and beseeching that
his mother sat still, and in a less fretful tone, again bade him go on.
“Mother, as I said before, God knows that I've tried to keep from
it, and could not. You don't know, mother, how that man has treated
me.”
“How has he treated you?” she inquired, looking at her son for the
first time since she had been sitting.
“You were so anxious for me to learn, and I was so anxious myself
to learn, that I have never told you of hardly any of his treatment.
Oh, mother, he has beat me worse than anybody ought to beat the
meanest dog. He has called me and you poor, and made fun of us
because we were poor. He has called me a scoundrel, a beggar, a
fool. When I told him that you wanted me to quit geography, he said
you was a fool and had a fool for a son, and that he had no doubt that
my father was a fool before me.”
The widow dried her face with her handkerchief, settled herself in
her chair, and said:
“When he said them things he told a — what's not so; I'll say it if
he is schoolmaster.” And she looked as if she was aware that the
responsibility of that bold observation was large.
“He said,” continued Brinkly, “that I should study it, and if I didn't
git the lessons, he'd beat me as long as he could find a hickory to beat
me with. I stood it all because it was my only chance to git any
schoolin'. But I told him then — that is when he called you a fool,
and father one, too — that it wasn't so, and that he ought not to say
so. Well, yesterday, you know you sent me by Mr. Norris' to pay back
the meal we borrowed, and I didn't get to the schoolhouse quite in
when he saw me, he hurried just to keep me from being in time.
When I told him how you had sent me by Mr. Norris', he only laughed
and called me a liar, and then — look at my shoulder, mother.”
He took off his coat, unbuttoned his shirt, and exposed his shoulder
and back, blackened with hideous bruises.
“Oh, my son, my poor son,” was all that mother could say.
She had not, in fact, known a tenth of the cruelties and insults which
Brinkly had borne. He had frequently importuned her to let him quit
the school. But she supposed that it was because of the difficulties
of learning his lessons which got for him an occasional punishment,
and such as was incident to the life of every schoolboy, bad and good,
idle and industrious. These thoughts combining with her ardent desire
that he should have some learning, even at the risk of receiving some
harsh and even unjust punishment, made her persist in keeping him
there. Seeing her anxiety, and to avoid making her unhappy, Brinkly
had concealed from her the greater part of the wrongs which he had
suffered. But when she heard how he had been abused, and saw the
stripes and bruises upon his body, her mother's heart could not restrain
itself, and she wept sorely.
“Well, mother, I stood this too, but last night I couldn't sleep. I
thought about all he had said and all he had done to me, and I made
up my mind to quit him anyhow. But this morning, before day, I
thought for your sake I would try it once more. So I got up and
studied my lesson here and all the way to the schoolhouse; and I did
know it, mother, or I thought I did, for he wouldn't tell me how to pronounce
the words, but Allen Thigpen did, and I pronounced them just
like Allen told me. When I told him that, he called me a liar, and
afterwards I begged him not to strike me, but to let me go home. But
he would strike me, and I fought him.”
“And you done right. Oh, my son, my poor Brinkly! Yes, you are
poor, the poor son of a poor widow; but I am proud that you have got
the heart to fight when you are abused and insulted. If I'd known
half of what you have had to bear, you should have quit his school
long ago; you should, Brinkly, my darling, that you should. But how
could you expect to fight him and not be beat to death? Why didn't
you run away from him and come to me? He wouldn't have beat you
so where I was.” And she looked as if she felt herself to be quite
sufficient for the protection of her young.
“Mother, I didn't want to run; I couldn't run from such a man as he
is. Once I thought I would take my hat and books and come away;
but I could not do that without running, and I couldn't run; you wouldn't
want me to run, would you, mother?” The widow looked puzzled.
“No; but he is so much bigger than you, that it wouldn't a looked
exactly like you was a coward; and then he has hurt you so bad. My
poor Brinkly, you don't know how your face is scratched.”
“I hurt him worse than he hurt me, mother.”
“What?”
“I hurt him worse than he hurt me; I got the best of it.”
“Glory!” shouted Mrs. Glisson.
“In fact, I whipped him.”
“Glory! glory!”
“When I had him down —”
“Brinkly, did you have him down, my son?”
“Yes, and he begged me to spare him.”
“Glory be to — glory be to — but you did not do it, did you?”
“Yes, mother, as soon as he give up and begged me to stop, I let
him alone.”
“I wouldn't a done it, certain, shore!”
“Yes you would, mother; if you had seen how he was hurt, and how
bad he looked, you would a spared him, I know you would.”
“Well, maybe I might; I suppose it was right, as he was a man
grown, and schoolmaster to boot. Maybe it was best — maybe it was
best — maybe I might a done it too, but it aint quite certin.”
She had risen from the chair and was pacing the floor. This new
view of Brinkly's relation to his tyrant was one on which she required
time for reflection. She evidently felt, however, that as Brinkly had so
often been at the bottom in the combat, now when he had risen to the
top, there was no great harm in staying there a little longer. “But
maybe it was best; I reckon now he won't be quite so brash with his
other scholars.”
“He will never have another chance.”
“What?”
“Allen has found out all about him, and where he came from, and
says he's a man of bad character. He begged Allen not to say anything
about it until he got his money and could git away. So he is
quit, and the school is broke up.”
“Glory! glory! hallelujah!” shouted again and sung the mother.
Let her shout and sing. Sing away and shout, thou bereaved, at
this one little triumph of thine only beloved! Infinite Justice! pardon
her for singing and shouting now, when her only child, though poor
and an orphan, though bruised and torn, seems to her overflowing eyes
to be grand and beautiful, as if he were a royal hero's son, and the inheritor
of his crown.
| CHAPTER VIII. Dukesborough tales | |