But holding books at arm"s length was a far milder penalty than "sitting on nothing," which was Czar Brench"s specially devised punishment for those who shuffled uneasily on those hard old benches during study hours.
"Aha, there, my boy!" he would cry. "If you cannot sit still on that bench, come right out here and sit on nothing."
Setting a stool against the wall, he would order the pupil to sit down on it with his back pressing against the wall. Then he would remove the stool, leaving the offender in a sitting posture, with his back to the wall and his knees flexed. By the time the victim had been there ten minutes, he wished never to repeat the experience. I know whereof I speak, for I "sat on nothing" three times that winter.
Czar Brench"s most picturesque, not to say bizarre, punishment was for buzzing lips. Many of us, studying hard to get our lessons, were very likely to make sounds with our lips, and in the silence of that schoolroom the least little lisp was sure to reach the master"s ear.
"Didn"t I hear a buzzer then?" he would ask in his softest tone, raising his finger to point to the offender. "Ah, yes. It is--it is _you_! Come out here. Those lips need a lesson."
The lesson consisted in your standing, facing the school, with your mouth propped open. The props were of wood, and were one or two inches long, for small or large "buzzers."
I remember one day when six boys--and I believe one girl--stood facing the school with their mouths propped open at full stretch, each gripping a book and trying to study! Inveterate "buzzers"--those who had been called out two or three times--had not only to face the school with props in their mouths but to mount and stand on top of the master"s desk.
If Czar Brench had not been so big and strong, the older boys would no doubt have rebelled and perhaps carried him out of the schoolhouse, which was the early New England method of getting rid of an unpopular schoolmaster. None of the boys, however, dared raise a finger against him, and he ruled his little kingdom as an absolute monarch. At last, however, towards the close of the term, some one dared to defy him--and it was not one of the big boys, but our youthful neighbor Catherine Edwards.
That afternoon Czar Brench had put a prop in Rufus Darnley, Jr."s mouth.
Rufus was only twelve years old and by no means one of the bright boys of the school. He stuttered in speech, and, being dull, had to study very hard to get his lessons. Every day or two he forgot his lips and "buzzed." I think he had stood on the master"s desk four or five times that term.
It was a high desk; and that afternoon Rufus, trying to study up there, with his mouth propped open, lost his balance and fell to the floor in front of the desk. In falling, the prop was knocked out of his mouth.
At the crash Czar Brench, who had been hearing the grammar cla.s.s with his back to Rufus, turned. I think he thought that Rufus had jumped down; for, fearing the teacher"s wrath, the frightened boy scrambled to his feet and, with a cry, started to run out of school.
With one long stride the master had him by the arm. "I don"t quite know what I shall do to you," he said, as he brought the boy back.
He shook Rufus until the little fellow"s teeth chattered and his eyes rolled; and while he shook him, he seemed to be reflecting what new punishment he could devise for this rebellious attempt.
To the utter amazement of us all, Catherine, who was sitting directly in front of them, suddenly spoke out.
"Mr. Brench," she cried, "you are a hard, cruel man!"
The master was so astounded that he let go of Rufus and stared down at her. "Stand up!" he commanded, no longer in his soft tone, but in a terrible voice.
Catherine stood up promptly, unflinching; her eyes, blazing with indignation, looked squarely into his.
"Let me see your hand," he said.
Instead of one hand, Catherine instantly thrust out both, under his very nose.
"Ferule me!" she cried. "Ferule both my hands, Mr. Brench! Ferule me all you want to! I don"t care how hard you strike! But you are a bad, cruel man, and I hate you!"
Still holding the ruler, Czar Brench gazed at her for some moments in silence; he seemed almost dazed.
"You are the first scholar that ever spoke to me like that," he said at last. A singular expression had come into his face; he was having a new experience. For another full minute he stared down at the girl, but he apparently had no longer any thought of feruling her.
"Take your seat," he said to her at last; and, after sending the still trembling Rufus to his seat, he dismissed the grammar cla.s.s.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened afterwards. There were but three weeks more of school, and the term ended about as usual.
The school agent and certain of the parents in the district who believed in the importance of rigid discipline wished to have Czar Brench teach there another winter; but for some reason he declined to return. At the old Squire"s we thought that it was, perhaps, because he had failed to conquer Catherine.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
WHEN OLD PEG LED THE FLOCK
During the fifth week of school there was an enforced vacation of three or four days, over Sunday, while the school committee were investigating certain complaints of abusive punishment, against Master Brench.
The complaints were from numbers of the parents, and concerned putting those props in pupils" mouths to abolish "buzzing" of the lips, while studying their lessons; and also complaints about "sitting on nothing,"
said to be injurious to the spine. The affair did not much concern us young folks at the old Squire"s. Indeed, we did not much care for the school that winter. Master Brench"s attention was chiefly directed to keeping order and devising punishments for violations of school discipline. School studies appeared to be of minor importance with him.
It was on Tuesday of that week, while we were at home, that the following incident occurred.
Owing to our long winters, sheep raising, in Maine, has often been an uncertain business. But at the old Squire"s we usually kept a flock of eighty or a hundred. They often brought us no real profit, but grandmother Ruth was an old-fashioned housewife who would have felt herself bereaved if she had had no woolen yarn for socks and bed blankets.
The sheep were already at the barn for the winter; it was the 12th of December, though as yet we had had no snow that remained long on the ground. We were cutting firewood out in the lot that day and came in at noon with good appet.i.tes, for the air was sharp.
While we sat at table a stranger drove up. He said that his name was Morey, and that he was stocking a farm which he had recently bought in the town of Lovell, nineteen or twenty miles west of our place.
"I want to buy a flock of sheep," he said. "I have called to see if you have any to sell."
"Well, perhaps," the old Squire replied, for that was one of the years when wool was low priced. As he and Morey went out to the west barn where the sheep were kept, grandmother Ruth looked disturbed.
"You go out and tell your grandfather not to sell those sheep," she said after a few minutes to Addison and me. "Tell him not to price them."
Addison and I went out, but we arrived too late. Mr. Morey and the old Squire were standing by the yard bars, looking at the sheep, and as we came up the stranger said:
"Now, about how much would you take for this flock--you to drive them over to my place in Lovell?"
Before either Addison or I could pa.s.s on grandmother Ruth"s admonition, the old Squire had replied smilingly, "Well, I"d take five dollars a head for them."
As a matter of fact, the old gentleman had not really intended to sell the sheep; he had not thought that the man would pay that price for them, because it was now only the beginning of winter, and the sheep would have to be fed at the barn for nearly six months.
But to the old Squire"s surprise Mr. Morey, with as little ado as if he were buying a pair of shoes, said, "Very well. I will take them."
Drawing out his pocketbook, he handed the old Squire ten new fifty-dollar bills and asked whether we could conveniently drive the sheep over to his farm on the following day. In fact, before the old Squire had more than counted the money, Mr. Morey had said good-day and had driven off.
Just what grandmother Ruth said when the old gentleman went in to put the bills away in his desk, we boys never knew; but for a long time thereafter the sale of the sheep was a sore subject at the old farm.
The transaction was not yet complete, however, for we still had to deliver the sheep to their new owner. At six o"clock the following morning Halstead, Addison and I set out to drive them to Lovell. The old Squire had been up since three o"clock, feeding the flock with hay and provender for the drive; he told us that he would follow later in the day with a team to bring us home after our long walk. The girls put us up luncheons in little packages, which we stowed in our pockets.
It was still dark when we started. The previous day had been clear, but the sky had clouded during the night. It was raw and chilly, with a feel of snow in the air. The sheep felt it; they were sluggish and unwilling to leave the barn. Finally, however, we got them down the lane and out on the hard-frozen highway; Halstead ran ahead, shaking the salt dish; Addison and I, following after, hustled the laggards along.
The leader of our flock was a large brock-faced ewe called Old Peg. She was known to be at least eleven years old, which is a venerable age for a sheep. She raised twin lambs every spring and was, indeed, a kind of flock mother, for many of the sheep were either her children or her grandchildren. Wherever the flock went, she took the lead and set the pace.
So long as we kept Old Peg following Halstead and the salt dish, the rest of the sheep scampered after, and we got on well.