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ALLEN THIGPEN was the only one of the pupils who did not lose his wits while the events of the last few minutes were taking place. While the contest was even between the combatants, he stood gazing down upon them with the most intense interest. His body was bent down slightly, and his arms were extended in a semicircle, as if to exclude the rest of the world from a scene which he considered all his own. When Mr. Meadows called for quarter, Allen folded his arms across his breast, and to a tune which was meant for "Auld Lang Syne," and which sounded, indeed, more like that than any other, he sang as he turned off,
"Jerusalem, my happy home."
When Mr. Meadows had taken his seat, he looked at him for a moment or two as if hesitating what to do. He then walked slowly to him, and delivered the following oration:
"It's come to it at last, jest as I said. I seen it from the fuss; you ought to a seen it yourself, but you wouldn't, ur you couldn't, and I don't know which, and it makes no odds which; you didn't. I did, and now it's come, and sich a beatin', Jerusalem! But don't you be too much took back by it. You warn's goin' to keep school here no longer'n to-day, nohow. Now, I had laid off in my mind to have gin you a duckin' this very day; and I'll tell you for why. Not as I've got anything particklar agin you myself; you have not said one word out of the way to me this whole term. But, in the fust place, it's not my opinion, nor hadn't been for some time, that you are fitten to be a schoolmarster. Thar's them sums in intrust which I can't work, and which you can't show me how to work, or hadn't yit, though I've been cipherin' in it now two months. And thar's Mely Jones, that's in the same, and she hadn't learnt 'em neither, and dinged if I believe all the fault's in me and her, and in course it can't be in the book. But that ain't the main thing; it's your imposin' disposition. If this here schoolhouse," he continued, looking around -- "if this here schoolhouse hadn't seen more unmerciful beatin' than any other schoolhouse in this country, then I say it's a pity that thar's any sich a thing as ejecation. And if the way things has been car'd on in this here schoolhouse sence you've been in it is the onliest way of getting of a ejecation, then I say again it's a pity thar's sich a thing.19 It ain't worth while for me to name over all the ways you've had of tormentin' o' these children. You know 'em; I know 'em; everybody about this here schoolhouse knows 'em. Now, as I said before, I had laid off to a gin you a duckin' this very day, and this mornin' I was going to let Brinkly into it, tell I found that the time I seen was a comin' in him was done come; and I knowed he wouldn't jine in duckin' you on account of his mother. I've been thinking o' this for more'n two weeks, bekase -- now listen to me; didn't you say you was from South Calliner?"
Pausing for, but not receiving, an answer, he continued:
"Yes, that's what you said. Well, now, I've heern a man -- a travelin' man -- who stayed all night at our house on his way to Fluriday, say he knowed you. You ain't from South Calliner; I wish you was, but you ain't; you're from Columby County, and I'm ashamed to say it. He ast me, seein' me a-studyin', who I went to school to and when I told him 'Meadows,' says he, 'What Meadows?' 'Iserl,' says I. 'Iserl Meadows a schoolmarster?' says he, and he laughed, he did; he laughed fit to kill hisself. Well, he told me whar you was raised, and who you was. But you needn't be too bad skeered. I ain't told it to the fust human, and I ain't going to, tell you leave. Now, I had laid off, as I told you, to gin you a duckin', but I hadn't the heart to do it, and you in the fix you are now at the present."
Saying which, he puckered his mouth as if for a whistle, and stalked back to his seat.
Mr. Meadows, during the last few sentences of this harangue, had exhibited evidences of a new emotion. When Allen told him what the traveler had said, he looked up with a countenance full of terror, and, beckoning to him imploringly, they went out of the house together a few steps and stopped.
"I never done you any harm," said Mr. Meadows.
"You never did, certin shore," answered Allen, "nor no particklar good. But that's neither here nor thar; what do you want?"
"Don't tell what you heard tell I git away."
"Didn't I say I wouldn't? But you must leave toler'ble soon. I can't keep it long. I fairly eech to tell it now."
The schoolmaster stood a moment, turning his hat in his hands, as if hesitating what sort of leave to take. He timidly offered Allen his hand.
"I'd ruther not," said Allen, and, for the first time, seemed a little embarrassed. Suddenly the man hauled his hat on his head and walked away. He had just entered the path in the thicket, and, turning unobserved, he paused, and looked back at the schoolhouse. The anger, the impotent rage, the chagrin and shame which were depicted upon his bloodshot face! He paused but for a moment; then, raising both his hands, and shaking them toward the house, without saying a word, he turned again and almost ran along the path.
After he had gone, Allen took Mr. Meadow's chair, and, crossing his legs, said:
"Well, boys and gals, the Goosepond, it seem, are a broke-up school. The schoolmarster have, so to speak, absquatulated. Thar's to be no more horsin' here, and the circus are clean shot up. And the only thing I hates about it is, that it's Brinkly that's done it, and not me. But he wouldn't give me a chance. No," he continued sorrowfully, and as if speaking to himself, "he wouldn't give me a chance. Nary single word could I ever git him to say to me out of the way. I have misted lessons: 'deed I never said none. I never kept nary single rule in his school, and yit he wouldn't say nothin' to me."
Then rising and going to Brinkly, he put his hand upon his shoulder.
"No, it's jest as it ought to a been; you was the one to do it; and, in the name of all that's jest, Brinkly Glisson, what is you been cryin' about? Git up, boy, and go and wash your face. I would rather have done what you've done than to a been the man that fooled the Tory in the Revolutionary War, and stoled his horse in the Life of Marion. Come along and wash that face and hands."20
He almost dragged Brinkly to the pail, and poured water while he washed.
The children, recovering from the consternation into which they had been thrown by the combat and its result, began to walk about the house, picking up their books and laying them down again. They would go to the door and look out toward Mr. Meadows' path, as if expecting, and, indeed, half-way hoping, half-way fearing that he would return; and then they would stand around Allen and Brinkly, as the latter was washing and drying himself. But they spoke not a word. Suddenly, Allen, mimicking the tone of Mr. Meadows, cried out:
"Asa Boatright and Sam Pate, go to horsin'!"
In a moment they all burst into shouts of laughter. Asa mounted upon Sam's back, and Sam pranced about and neighed, oh, so gayly! Allen got a switch and made as if he would strike Asa, and that young gentleman, for the first time in the performance of this interesting exercise, screamed with delight instead of pain.
"Let Asa be the schoolmarster," shouted Allen. "Good-morning, Mr. Boatright," said he, with mock humility. "Mr. Boatright, may I go out?" asked, timidly, half a dozen boys.
Asa dismounted, and, seizing a hickory, he stood up in the middle of the floor, and the others formed the circus around him. Here they came and went, jumping over his switch, and crying out and stooping to rub their legs, and begging him to stop, "for God's sake, Mr. Boatright, stop!"
Suddenly an idea struck Mr. Boatright. Disbanding the circus, he cried out:
"You, Is'rl Meadows, come up here, sir. Been a fighten, have you, sir? Come up, sir. Oh, here you are."
Mr. Boatright fell upon the teacher's chair, and of all the floggings ever inflicted upon a harmless piece of furniture, that unlucky chair did then and there receive the worst. Mr. Boatright called it names; he dragged it over the floor; he threatened to burn it up; he shook it violently; he knocked it against the wall; one of its rounds falling out, he beat it most unmercifully with that; and at last, exhausted by the exercise and satisfied with his revenge, he indignantly kicked it out-of-doors, amid the screams and shouts of his schoolfellows.21
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 respectful attention as he talked with Allen on the way, and showed how bitterly he had suffered from the cruelty of this man. 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 regards rebels who are successful. Each one strove to get the nearest him as he walked. One little fellow, Abel Kitchens by name, after trying several times to slip in by his side, got ahead, and walked backward as he looked at Brinkly and listened. He was so far gone under the old regime that he felt no relief from what had happened. Evidently he had 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 in time he would 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 vehement and triumphant. 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!
But Brinkly was not ambitious or vain; he felt no triumph in his victory. On the contrary, he was sad. He said to Allen that he wished he could have stood it a little longer.
"Name o' God, Brinkly Giisson, 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 villion 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 by-roads 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 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 pinched to give you a ejecation, and this is the way you pay me for it."
"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. 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 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 jography, 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 schoolmarster." And she looked as if she were 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, yisterday, you know you sent me by Mr. Norris's to pay back the meal we borrowed, and I didn't get to the schoolhouse quite in time. But he wasn't more than a hundred yards ahead of me, and when he saw me he hurried just to keep me from being in time. When 1 told him how you had sent me by Mr. Norris's, 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 bruises.
"Oh, my son, my poor son!" was all she could say.
She had not known a tenth of the cruelties and insults which Brinkly had borne. He had frequency 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 get a little learning, even at the risk of receiving some harsh punishment, made her persist in keeping him there. Seeing her anxiety, and to avoid making her unhappy, he had concealed from her the greater part of the wrongs that he had suffered. But when she heard how he had been abused, and saw the stripes and bruises upon his body, 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 afterward 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 had the sperrit 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 didn't 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, certin 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 schoolmarster to boot. Maybe it was best -- maybe it was best -- maybe I might a done it too, but it ain't 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 grand and beautiful, as if he were a royal hero's son, and the inheritor of his crown.
Among the comments upon the career of Mr. Israel Meadows and his overthrow, those of William Williams, one of our near neighbors, were the most pronounced. The wonder with him was, that as much of a man as Allen Thigpen seemed to be had not put the end to such atrocities, at least those which were inflicted upon the girls. If it had been William Williams, he -- well, the fact was, he would not like to say what he would or would not have done, particularly if one or more of them had been anything to him. Shortly afterward a school nearer to us was opened, and, conscious of the need of something more of arithmetic for the sake of an ambitious scheme that for some time past had been lying pleasantly upon his breast, he decided to attend it for a quarter or two. His experience there, and in other scenes, will be related in the succeeding tales in this collection.22
The End
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