Part 6

After dinner he escorted my father, leading me by the hand, down to the academy, which was on the outskirts of the town, at the other end of it from Mr. Kenny’s. The buzz, which the usher had not the power to control in the absence of Mr. Sears, hushed instantly in his presence, and as he entered with my father, the pupils all arose, and remained standing until he ordered them to be seated. Giving my father a seat, and placing me in the one which he designed for me in the school, Mr. Sears called several of his most proficient scholars in the different classes, from Homer down to the elements of English, and examined them. When a boy blundered, he darted at him a look which made him shake in his shoes, and when another boy gave a correct answer and took his fellow’s place, and glanced up for Mr. Sears’ smile, it was a picture which my friend Beard, of Cincinnati, would delight to draw. The blunderer looked like one caught in the act of sheep-stealing, while the successful pupil took his place with an air that would have marked one of Napoleon’s doubtful soldiers, when the Emperor had witnessed an act of daring on his part. As for Mr. Sears, he thought Napoleon a common creature to himself. To kill men, he used to say, was much more easy than to instruct them, he felt himself to be like one of the philosophers of old in his academy; and he considered Doctor Parr and Doctor Busby, who boasted that they had whipped every distinguished man in the country, much greater than he of Pharsalia or he of Austerlitz.

When the rehearsal of several classes had given my father a due impression of Mr. Sears’ great gifts as an instructor, and of his scholars’ proficiency, he took my father to Mr. Hall’s, to introduce us to my future host.

We found the family seated in the long room in which their boarders dined. To Mr. Sears they paid the most profound respect. Well they might, for without his recommendation they would have been without boarders. Hall was a tall, good humored, careless man. His wife was older than himself, tall too, but full of energy. He had two daughters, Harriet and Jane. Harriet was a quick, active, lively girl, and withal pretty, while Jane was lolling and lazy in her motions, and without either good looks or prettiness. The matter of my boarding was soon arranged, and it had become time for my father to depart. All this while the variety and excitement of the scene had somewhat relieved my feelings, but when my father bade me be a good boy and drove off, I felt as if the “last link” was indeed broken, and though I made every effort, from a sense of shame, to repress my tears, it was in vain, and they broke forth the wilder from their previous restraint. Harriet Hall came up instantly to comfort me. She took a seat beside me at the open window at which I was looking out after my father, and with a sweet voice, whose tones are in my memory yet, she told me not to grieve because I was from my friends; that I should soon see them again, and that she would think I feared they would not be kind to me if I showed so much sorrow. This last remark touched me, and while I was drying my eyes, one of the larger boys, a youth of eighteen or twenty, came up to the window—for the academy by this time had been dismissed for the evening—and said,

“Ah, Miss Harriet, is this another baby who is crying for home?”

In an instant my eyes were dried. I cast one glance at the speaker—he was a tall, slim, reckless looking fellow, named Prettyman—and from that day to this I have neither forgotten it, nor, I fear, forgiven him.

In the night, when we retired to our rooms, I found that my bed was in a room with two others, Prettyman and a country bumpkin, by the name of Muzzy. As usual on going to bed, I kneeled down to say my prayers, putting my hands up in the attitude of supplication. I had scarcely uttered to myself the first words, “Our Father,” but to the ear that heareth all things, when Prettyman exclaimed—

“He’s praying! ‘By the Apostle Paul!’ as Richard the Third says, that’s against rules. Suppose we cob him, Muzzy?” Muzzy laughed, and got into bed; and I am ashamed to say that I arose with the prayer dying away from my thoughts, and indignation and shame usurping them, and sneaked into bed, where I said my prayers in silence, and wept myself in silence to sleep. In the morning, with a heavy heart, and none but the kind Harriet to comfort me, I betook myself to the academy.

Parents little know what a sensitive child suffers at a public school. I verily believe that these schools engender often more treachery, falsehood and cruelty than exists in West India slavery; I was about saying even in the brains of an abolitionist. Most tenderly nurtured, under the care of an affectionate old aunt, who was always fixing my clothes to keep me warm, coddling up something nice to pamper me with, watching all my outgoings and incomings, and seeing that everything around me conduced to my convenience and comfort, the contrast was indeed great when I appeared at the Belle Air academy, one of the smallest boys there, and subjected to the taunts and buffetings of every larger boy than myself in the institution. My father little knew what agony it cost me to be made a man of.

I am not certain that the good produced by such academies is equal to their evils. I remember well for two or three nights after Prettyman laughed at me, that I crept into bed to say my prayers, and, at last, under his ridicule—for he practised his gift on me every night—I not only neglected to say them, but began to feel angry towards my aunt that she had ever learned them to me, as they brought so much contempt upon me. Yet, such is the power of conscience, at that tender age, that, when I awoke in the morning of the first night that I had not prayed, I felt myself guilty and unworthy, and went into the garden and wept aloud, tears of sincere contrition.

Too often, in public schools, the first thing a youth learns from his elders, is to laugh at parental authority, and to exhibit to the ridicule of his fellows the letter of advice which his parent or guardian feels it his duty to write to him, taking care, with a jest upon them, to pocket the money they send, with an air of incipient profligacy which, any one may see, will soon not only be rank but prurient—such a moral contagion should be avoided, and, I therefore am inclined to think that the Catholic mode of tuition, where some one of the teachers is with the scholars, not only by day but by night, is preferable. And, in fact, any one who has witnessed the respectful familiarity they teach their pupils to feel and act towards them, and the kindness with which they return it, cannot but be impressed with the truth of my remark.

There were nearly one hundred pupils at Belle Air, at the period of which I write, and the only assistant Mr. Sears had, was a gaunt fellow named Dogberry. Like his illustrious namesake in Shakspeare, from whom I believe he was a legitimate descendant, he might truly have been “_written down an ass_.”

The boys invented all sorts of annoyances to torture Dogberry withal. A favorite one was, when Mr. Sears was in the city, which was at periods not unfrequent, for them to assemble in the school before Dogberry came, and setting one by the door to give notice when the usher was within a few feet of it, to begin as soon as he appeared in sight, to shout, as with one voice—first _Dog_, and then, after a pause, by way of a chorus, _berry_.

As soon as notice was given by the watcher, he leaped to his seat, and every tongue was silent, and every eye upon the book before it. The rage of Dogberry knew no bounds on these occasions. He did not like to tell the principal, for the circumstance would have proved not only his want of authority over the boys, but the contempt in which they held him.

A trick which Prettyman played him, nearly caused his death, and, luckily for the delinquent, he was never discovered. Dogberry was very penurious, and he saved two-thirds of his salary; as it was not large, he had, of course, to live humbly. He dined at Halls and took breakfast and supper in his lodgings, if he ever took them, and the quality of the dinner of which he made himself the receptacle, caused it to be doubted. His lodgings were the _dormant_ story of a log cabin, to which he had entrance by a rough flight of stairs without the house and against its side. Under the stairs there was a large mud-hole, and Prettyman contrived one gusty night to pull them down, with the intention of calling the usher in the tone of Mr. Sears, for he was a good mimic, and causing him to fall in the mud. Unluckily, the usher heard the racket without, and not dreaming it was the fall of the stairs, he leaped from his bed, and hurried out to see what it was. He fell on them, and though no bones were broken, he was laid up for several weeks. The wind always had the credit of the affair, and Prettyman won great applause for his speedy assistance and sympathy with Dogberry, whom he visited constantly during his confinement.

The night of the adjournment of court, the lawyers, and even the judges, had what they called a regular frolic. Mr. Sears was in Baltimore, and the scholars were easily induced to join in it—in fact they wanted no inducement. About twelve o’clock at night we were aroused from our beds by a most awful yelling for the ex-sheriff. “Hall, Hall,” was the cry—soon the door was opened, and the trampling of feet was heard—in a minute the frolickers ascended the stairs, and one of the judges, with a blanket wrapped round him, like an Indian, with his face painted, and a red handkerchief tied round his head, and with red slippers on, entered our room, with a candle in one hand and a bottle in the other; and, after making us drink all round, bade us get up. We were nothing loath. On descending into the dining-room, lo! there were the whole bar, dressed off in the most fantastic style, and some of them scarcely dressed at all. They were mad with fun and wine. The ex-sheriff brought forth his liquors, and was placed on his own table as a culprit, and tried and found guilty of not having been, as in duty bound, one of the originators of the frolic. He was, therefore, fined glasses round for the company, and ordered by the judges to pay it at Richardson’s bar. To Richardson’s the order was given to repair. Accordingly, without they formed a line, Indian file. Two large black women carried a light in each hand beside the first judge, and two smaller black women carried a light in the right hand beside the next one. The lawyers followed, each with a light in his hand, and the procession closed with the scholars, who each also bore a light. I, being smallest, brought up the rear. There was neither man nor boy who was not more or less inebriated, and the wildest pranks were played.

When we reached Dogberry’s domicile, one of the boys proposed to have him out with us. The question was put by one of the judges and carried by acclamation unanimously. It was further resolved, that a deputation of three, each bearing a bottle of different liquor, should be appointed to wait on him, with the request that he would visit the Pawnee tribe, from the far west, drink some fire-water with them, and smoke the pipe of peace.

Prettyman, whose recklessness knew no bounds, and who, as I suppose, wished to involve me in difficulty, moved that the smallest and tallest person in the council be of that deputation. There happened to be a quantity of logs, which had been gathered there for the purpose of building a log house. Mr. Patterson (I use here a fictitious name) was at this time the great lawyer of Maryland. He was dressed in a splendid Indian costume, which a western client had given him, and he had painted himself with care and taste. He was a fine looking man, and stretching out his hand, he exclaimed:

“Brothers, be seated; but not on the prostrate forms of the forest, which the ruthless white man has felled to make unto himself a habitation. Like the big warrior Tecumseh, in council with the great white chief Harrison, we will sit upon the lap of our mother the earth—upon her breast we will sleep—the Pawnee has no roof but the blue sky, where dwelleth the Great Spirit—and he looks up to the shining stars, and they look down upon him—and they count the leaves of the forest and know the might of the Pawnees.”

Every one, by this time, had taken a seat upon the ground, and all were silent. As the lights flashed o’er the group, they formed as grotesque a scene as I have ever witnessed.

“Brothers,” he continued, “those eyes of the Great Spirit,” pointing upwards to the stars, “behold the rushing river, and they say to our fathers, who are in the happy hunting grounds of the blest, that, like it, is the might of the Pawnee when he rushes to battle. The white men are dogs—their carcasses drift in the tide—they are cast out on the shore, and the prairie-wolf fattens on them.

“Brothers—the eyes of the Great Spirit behold the prairies and the forest, where the breath of the wintry wind bears the red fire through them—where the prairie-wolf flies, and the fire flies faster. Brothers, the white man is the prairie-wolf, and the Pawnee is the fire.

“Brothers—when the forked fire from the right arm of the Great Spirit smites the mountain’s brow, the eagle soars upwards to his home in the clouds, but the snake crawls over the bare rock in the blast, and hides in the clefts and in the hollows and holes. Behold! the forked fire strikes the rock and scatters it as the big warrior would throw pebbles from his hand, and the soaring eagle darts from the clouds and the death-rattle of the snake is heard, and he hisses no more.

“Brothers—the Pawnee is the eagle, the bird of the Great Spirit, and the white man is the crawling snake that the Great Spirit hates.

“Brothers—the shining eyes of the Great Spirit sees all these things, and tells them to our fathers, who are in the happy hunting ground of the blest, and they say that some day, wrapped in the clouds, they will come and see us, for our land is like theirs.”

This was said with so much eloquence, by the distinguished lawyer, that there was the silence of nearly a minute when he concluded. In the company was a lawyer named Short, who, strange to say, was just six feet three inches and a half high, and he had a client—which is stranger still—named Long, who was but five feet high.

“Who has precedence, Judge Willard?” called out somebody in the crowd, breaking in upon the business of the occasion, as upon such occasions business always will be broken in upon—“who has precedence, Long or Short?”

“Long,” exclaimed the judge, “of course. It is a settled rule in law, that you must take as much land as is called for in the deed—therefore Long takes precedence of Short. May be, Short has a remedy in equity; but this court has nothing to do with that—so you have the _long_ and the _short_ of the matter.”

“Judge,” cried out the ex-sheriff, “we must go to Richardson’s—you know it is my treat.”

“The Pawnee—the eagle of his race,”—exclaimed Patterson, “the prophet of his tribe; he who is more than warrior—whose tongue is clothed with the Great Spirit’s thunder—who can speak with the eloquence of the spring air when it whispers amidst the leaves and makes the flowers open and give forth their sweets—he, the Charming Serpent, that hath a tongue forked with persuasion—he, even he, will go in to the white man, and invite him to come forth and taste the fire-water, and smoke the pipe of peace with the Pawnee. Then, if he comes not forth when the charming serpent takes him by the hand, and bids him, the Pawnees shall smoke him out like a fox, and his blazing habitation shall make night pale, and there shall be no resting place for his foot, and children and squaws shall whip him into the forest, and set the dogs upon his trail, and he shall be hunted from hill to hill, from river to river, from prairie to prairie, from forest to forest, till, like the frightened deer, he rushes, panting, into the great lakes, and the waters rise over him, and cover him from the Pawnees’ scorn.”

This was received with acclamation. Mr. Patterson played the Indian so well, that he drew me one of the closest to him, in the charmed circle that surrounded him. His eye flashed, his lips quivered with fiery ardor, though at the mimic scene. I was so lost in admiration of him, that I placed myself beside him without knowing it. He saw the effect he had produced upon me, and was evidently gratified. Taking me by the hand, he said:

“Warriors and braves, give unto me the brand, that the Charming Serpent may light the steps of the boy to the hiding-place of the pale-face. He shall listen to the eloquence of the Charming Serpent when he takes the white man by the hand—he shall learn how to move alike the heart of the pale-face and the red man.

“Brothers—the Charming Serpent to-night,” said he, handing me the candle, and placing himself in an oratorial attitude, while every man lifted up his candle so that it shone full upon him,—“Brothers, the Charming Serpent to-night could speak unto the four winds that are now howling in the desolate Pawnee paths of the wilderness, and make them sink into a low moan, and sigh themselves to silence, were he to tell them of the many of his tribe who are now lying mangled, unburied, and cold, beneath the shadow of the rocky mountains—victims of the white man’s vengeance.

“Brothers: O! that the Great Spirit would give the Charming Serpent his voice of thunder—then would he stand upon the highest peak of the Alleghanies, with the forked lightning in his red right hand, and tell a listening and heart-struck world the wrong of his race. And, when all of every tribe of every people had come crouching in the valleys, and had filled up the gorges of the hills, then would the Charming Serpent hurl vengeance on the oppressor. But come,” said he, taking the candle in one hand, and myself by the other, “the Pawnee talks like a squaw. The Charming Serpent will speak with the pale-face, and lead him forth from his wigwam to the great council fire.”

Accordingly, the Charming Serpent took me by the hand, and led me up the stairs. His steps were steady, and it was evident that his libations had excited his brain, and, instead of weakening him, given him strength.

“What’s your name?” said he to me kindly.

“William Russel, sir.”

“Do you know me, my little fellow?”

“Yes, sir, you’re Mr. Patterson, the great lawyer.”

“Ah, ah! they call me a great lawyer, do they! What else do they say?”

“That you’re the greatest orator in the country,” I replied—for what I had drank made me bold too.

“They do—I know they do, my little fellow—I believe, in fact, that I could have stood up in the Areopagus of old, in favor of human rights, and faced the best of them. Yes, sir, I too could have ‘fulmined over Greece.’ But we are not Grecians now—we are Pawnees.”

“Stop, stop, Mr. Pawnee,” called out some one from the crowd, “Short was to go, he is the tallest man.”

“The tallest man,” re-echoed Mr. Patterson, speaking in his natural tone. “The judge, sir, has already decided that by just legal construction, Short is short, no matter how long he is; and, if he claims to be long, sir, I can just inform him that Lord Bacon says ‘that tall men are like tall houses, the upper story is the worst furnished.’” Here, every eye was turned on Short, and there was a shout of laughter.

“If,” continued Mr. Patterson—and it was evident his potations were doing their work—“if it be true—I’ll just say this to you, sirs. Doctor Watts was a very small man; and, I repeat it for the benefit of all small men—

‘Had I the height to reach the pole Or meet the ocean with my span, I would be measured by my soul— The mind’s the standard of the man.’

“There, gentlemen of the jury; if that be true, I opine that the tallest man in the crowd is now addressing you. But, I forget. I am a Pawnee.

“Brothers: The tall grass of the prairies is swept by the fire, while the flint endureth the hot flames of the stake. The loftiest trees of the forest snap like a reed in the whirlwind, and the bird that builds there leaves her eggs unhatched. The highest peak of the mountain is always the bleakest and barest—in the valley are the sweet waters and the pleasant. Damn it,” said he, speaking in his proper person, for he began to forget his personation, “why do we value the gem—

‘Ask why God made the gem so small, And why so huge the granite? Because he meant mankind should set The higher value on it.’

“That’s Burns—an illustrious name, gentlemen. When I was minister abroad, I stood beside the peasant poet’s grave, and thanked God that he had given me the faculties to appreciate him. Suppose that he had been born in this land of ours, sirs; all we who think ourselves lights in law and statesmanship, would have seen our stars paled—paled, sirs, as the fire of the prairie grows dim, when the eye of the Great Spirit looks forth from the eastern gates—damn it, that’s Ossian and not Pawnee—upon it in its fierceness.

‘Thou, the bright eye of the universe, That openest over all, and unto all Art a delight—thou shinest not on my soul.’

“That’s Byron—I knew him well—handsome fellow. ‘Thou shinest not on my soul’—no, but thou shinest on the prairie.”

“The usher—Dogberry—let’s have Dogberry,” called out several of the students.

“Ha!” exclaimed Mr. Patterson; “Dogberry, ha! He’s Goldsmith’s village teacher, that caused the wonder

‘That one small head could carry all he knew.’

Dogberry—Dogberry—but that sounds Shakspearian. ‘Reading and writing comes by Nature.’ That’s certainly not his sentiments; were they, he should throw away the usher’s rod and betake himself to something else; for if these things come by nature, then is Dogberry’s occupation gone. Yes, he had better betake himself to the constableship. Come, my little friend—come, son of the Pawnee, and we will arouse the pale face.”

Stepping by the side of Mr. Patterson, we ascended to the little platform in front of Dogberry’s door, at which we rapped three times distinctly. “Who’s there?” cried out a voice from within. Dogberry must of course have been awake for at least half an hour.

“Pale face,” said the Pawnee chief, “thou hast not followed the example of the great chief of the pale faces; the string of thy latch is pulled in. Upon my word, this is certainly the attic story,” he continued in a low voice.

“I am not very well to-night, gentlemen, unless your business is pressing.”

“Pressing! Pale face, the Pawnees have lit their council fire, and invite thee to drink with them the fire-water and smoke the pipe of peace.”

“Thank you, gentlemen, I never drink,” responded Dogberry, in an impatient tone.

“Never drink! Pale face, thou liest! Who made the fire-water, and gave it to my people, but thee and thine? Lo! before it, though they once covered the land, they have melted away like snow beneath the sun.”

“I belong to the temperance society,” cried out Dogberry from within.

“Dogberry,” exclaimed Patterson—whose patience, like that of the crowd below, who were calling for the usher as if they were at a town meeting, and expected him to speak, was becoming exhausted—“Dogberry, compel me not, as your great namesake would say, to commit either ‘perjury’ or ‘burglary,’ and break your door open. You remember in Marmion, Dogberry, that the chief, speaking of the insult which had been put upon him, said,

‘I’ll right such wrongs where’er they’re given, Though in the very court of Heaven.’

Now I will not say that I would make you drink wherever the old chief would ‘right his wrongs,’ but this I will say, that wherever I, Burbage Patterson, get drunk, I think you can come forth and take a stirrup cup with him; he leaves for the Supreme Court to-morrow.”