CHAPTER X.

THE REDEMPTIONER AT SCHOOL.

The great chestnut was the favorite resort of the boys and their mates for planning all sorts of enterprises. In the hollow of it they kept their bows and arrows, fishing-poles and bats. It was so large that a little closet was made in one side, where they put foot-balls, fish-hooks, skates, powder-horns, shot, bullet-moulds and anything they wished to keep safe and dry. But in the winter they met for consultation in a little room over the workshop, which was used to keep bundles of flax in. And being on the south side of the barn, and three of its sides and the space overhead filled with hay,—while the chimney of the workshop ran through it,—was warm enough for them. When there was a fire in the workshop they sat on bundles of flax with their backs against the chimney; when there was not they burrowed in the hay and kept warm by contact, or wrapped themselves in skins. The great object of Peter and Bertie in introducing James to the Edibean boys, was that when he should go to school he might have some companions beside themselves. They had succeeded in inspiring them with the like interest for the welfare of James, and many and grave were the consultations held under the great tree, as the time for school to commence drew near.

In pursuance of a settled plan, the Edibeans began to come to Mr. Whitman’s in the evenings. James was unwilling to spell or read before them, or even to write, lest they should look over, and wanted Bertie to go up stairs with him.

It was, however, no part of the boys’ plan to permit this, for their design in inviting the Edibeans was to bring James to recite before them, and thus to moderate the shock to his extreme diffidence that they foresaw would occur when he should be compelled to recite before the whole school; and Bertie, excessively proud of his pupil’s progress, longed to exhibit him to his friends. So he hit upon this plan,—Willie Edibean was a poor writer, but an excellent scholar in other respects. Bertie borrowed his writing-book, and showing it to James and the family, said,—

“There, James, only see how much better your writing is than Willie Edibean’s. Isn’t it, father? Isn’t it, mother? See, gran’pa.”

“It is a great deal better,” said Mr. Whitman, taking both the books in his hand and comparing them, and then handing them to his father.

“James,” said the latter, “you need not be afraid to show that writing-book to anybody.”

“May I show it to the boys, James, next time they come?” said Bertie.

“When are they coming?”

“Day after to-morrow night.”

“I don’t want them to see this old book that I began in, but I’ve written it full, and to-night I’m going to begin the new one your father brought me. I will write in that to-night and to-morrow night instead of reading and spelling, and then you can let ‘em see that.”

When the evening came and Bertie produced the writing-book, James’ face was redder than a fire coal. The boys lavished their praises upon the writing, in which all the family joined. Indeed they laid it “on with a trowel.”

To relieve the embarrassment of James, and prevent the boys from increasing it by their questions, Mrs. Whitman placed a bowl of butternuts and chestnuts upon the table. But the old grandfather changed the subject much more effectually by saying,—

“Fifty years ago this morning, about day-break I shot a Seneca Indian behind the tree these butternuts grew on, with that rifle that hangs over the fireplace, buried him under it, and his bones are there now.”

No more was thought of writing, reading, or spelling, that evening, and for half an hour the nuts were untasted.

James soon became so accustomed to the Edibeans, that he did not hesitate to write when they were present, and John Edibean proposed that they should have a reading-lesson together, and also a writing-lesson, after which they should spell together, the whole family taking part, which was done.

James could now read short sentences and spell most words of two syllables, and could make a better pen than any of them; the boys soon ascertained this and got him to make their pens. So little a matter as this tended very much to inspire him with confidence, and help him overcome the shrinking sensitiveness and self-deprecation when contrasting himself with others, and which he ever manifested in the expression, “such as me or the likes of me.”

When they were about to write, it was quite ludicrous to hear Bertie sinking the master in the pupil, and with much effort to keep a sober countenance, saying,—

“Master, please mend my pen.”

Jonathan Whitman had a good set of carpenter’s tools, made all his farm implements that were constructed of wood, and repaired his buildings. This tendency he inherited from his father, who, according to the son, possessed much more mechanical ability and ingenuity than himself, though the stern struggles and exigencies of his early life left scant opportunity for the practice of it. But now in his old age he spent much time in the shop, repaired all the farming tools, and was considered the best man to make a wheel or stock a rifle in the whole county.

One day he was making a gate, and having lined some boards, set James to split them up with a ripping saw, and after he had finished, said,—

“You have split those boards as true as I could have split them, and cut the chalk mark right out. If I had set either of our boys to splitting them, the line would have been left sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, and they’d have been sawed bevelling, and wider on one side than the other.”

He then laid out some mortises, and set James to boring and beating them out with mallet and chisel, and then to planing the slats, after which he said,—“James, I see you have a mechanical eye and a natural turn to handle tools. I knew that before by your chopping. I advise you to cultivate it, because it will give you a means to earn your bread. I’m most always here stormy days in the winter, come in and practise with the tools, and I’ll show you. If, as I trust you will, you should have a piece of land, it will be a great thing in a new settlement to be able to handle tools.”

Scarcely had the old gentleman and James left the shop, than Peter, Bertie, and the Edibeans came in, replenished the fire to heat the chimney, and taking some skins from the wagon, ascended to the loft above, and seated themselves for consultation, evidently with something of great weight upon their minds.

“The fact is,” said Peter, “school begins in two days. James is going, father says so. How he’ll look, great big creature, bigger than the master,—yes, he could take the master and fling him over his head,—standing up to read and spell with little tots not up to his knees. I don’t believe he’ll be able to get a word out.”

“That’s not the worst of it,” said John Edibean, “perhaps some of ‘em will laugh because he’s a _redemptioner_, Sammy Parsons called Mr. Wood’s man an old redemptioner, and the man flung a stone at him and hurt him awfully.”

The master, Walter Conly, was a farmer’s son, living two miles distant, and the boys knew him well, as he had kept the school the winter previous.

“Let us do this,” said Willie, “Walter Conly is a nice man; we’ll go over there this evening, tell him all about James, how fast he learns and how hard we’ve been trying to help him, and ask him if he won’t hear him read by himself, and not put him in a class with little children.”

“So we will,” said Bertie, “he’s going to board round, and I’ll ask father to tell him to come to our house first and get him to send a note by me, and then James will get acquainted with him. We’ll call you the minute we get our supper.”

Mr. Conly, a young man of nineteen, who labored on his father’s farm in the summer and taught school in the winter, and under the instruction of the minister was fitting for college, received this deputation of his best scholars with great cordiality. He listened to their story with great interest, and expressed his gratification at the spirit they had manifested, and the efforts they had put forth to benefit James, but told them that he would improve much faster to be in a class than to recite by himself, as there would be more stimulus, though he might be subjected to some mortification at first.

“If,” said he, “James has so good a memory, and is as willing to apply himself as you have represented, he will very soon begin to excel his mates, because the mind of a boy of that age is more mature than the mind of a child, and he is capable of more application. He will outstrip them, that will encourage him. I will then put him into a class with older scholars, which will stimulate him still more. I shall put him to nothing but reading, writing, and spelling, for the first two months, but at home you can teach him the multiplication table, and then give him some sums to do in his head, and thus prepare him to cipher the last part of the school term.”

Bertie was a beautiful boy, with a face that expressed every emotion of his heart, and Mr. Conly, observing a shade of disappointment upon his handsome features, said,—“Boys, you have manifested such a noble spirit in regard to James, that I would not, for any consideration, that you should feel hurt or be in any way discouraged. On the other hand, I want you to feel satisfied and happy, and if you are not content with my method I will hear him by himself.”

The boys, after talking the matter over among themselves, concluded the master’s plan was the best.

“I see what troubles you in particular. You fear that as he has never been at school, coming on the floor to spell, and standing before me a stranger, will so confuse him that he will not be able to spell perhaps at all; certainly not to do himself justice. I think, however, we can get over that. The school was so large last winter that I was compelled to make use of some of the older scholars as assistants. It will be larger this winter, as the two districts are to be put together and the term lengthened. I will appoint you, Albert, to hear the class that I put James in, and that will go a good way towards giving him confidence.”

“O, sir, I thank you.”

“We all thank you,” said John Edibean.

“That will make all the difference in the world,” said Peter. “You see, sir, what makes him so sensitive is that in England they picked upon him and called him ‘workhouse,’ and in the vessel coming over, the rest of the redemptioners and the sailors did so. Mr. Wilson told my father, after he came here, a good many mean fellows at the public-house made fun of him and called him a redemptioner. He told me that a good many people who came to look at and see if they would take him, called him hard names. One man told Mr. Wilson he was a chowder-head; wasn’t worth his salt, and the best thing he could do would be to put a good stone to his neck and drop him into the mill-pond. And another man asked Wilson whose cornfield he robbed to get that scarecrow.”

“He was lame then, sir,” said Bertie, “‘cause he had cut himself and had on the worst-looking old clothes, and such a downcast look. But now he has good clothes; is not lame, has got red cheeks, and we think is real handsome.”

“So he is, Bertie,” said Mrs. Conly, the master’s mother. “I saw him in your pew Sunday, and told husband when we came home I guessed that young man was some of your mother’s relations from Lancaster.”

When the boys reached home, Bertie noticed that James seemed a good deal disturbed about something, and very sad, and in a few moments went to bed.

“What is the matter with James, mother? What makes him look so downcast?” said Bertie.

“Your father has told him he must go to school, and he feels bad about it, I suppose.”

Bertie ran up stairs and told James not to feel bad about going to school, for the master was a real kind man, and he was going to hear him recite there just as he did at home. James’ ideas of school were very vague; he only knew that he was going among a crowd of strange boys to be exposed to criticism, and put under a new master, but much comforted by what Bertie told him, he composed himself and went to sleep.

The morning school was to begin, the boys took an early start, thus giving James an opportunity to view the schoolhouse. It was a log building of the rudest kind, and nearly a hundred years old. It had remained without alteration, except receiving a shingle roof and glazed windows. The walls were chestnut logs of the largest size, save a few near the top, and the crevices between them were stuffed with clay, and moss and hemlock brush had been recently piled to the windows around the whole building, for the sake of warmth. The door was of plank with wooden hinges and latch.

It was situated in a singularly wild and rugged spot, on a high ridge of broken land, over the surface of which huge boulders and precipices alternated with abrupt hills and swales of moderate extent, the whole region heavily timbered with oak, chestnut, and beech.

The ancient building seemed to have appropriated to itself the only level spot in the vicinity, a little green plot, though of small extent.

It was bounded on the northwest by a precipice that rose perpendicularly above the roof of the schoolhouse that was built within a few feet of it. On the summit of this cliff were large beeches that thrust their gnarled roots into the interstices of the rock, and flung their branches over the ancient building. The main road was through a natural break in the ridge of rock, and beside it a pure spring of water supplied the wants of the school, and the necessities of travellers.

There lay in the mind of this apparently stolid lad, whose life hitherto had known neither childhood nor joyous youth, a keen susceptibility to impressions of the beautiful and majestic in nature. Through all those years of misery it had lain dormant and undeveloped, but of late the woods and fields had begun to have a strange fascination for him, he knew not why, and his happiest hours were spent while laboring alone in the forest. He had as yet seen nothing to compare in rugged grandeur and beauty with this, and the old schoolhouse was in such perfect keeping with its wild surroundings that it seemed to have grown there.

“Do let me look a little longer.”

This to Bertie, who was pulling him by the arm and saying,—“Come, let’s go into the schoolhouse. I want you to speak to Arthur and Elmer Nevins before the rest come; they are first-rate boys and live close by here, this land is on their farm. I want you to see Edward Conly, the master’s brother, too.”

“In a moment.”

James kept gazing, and for the first time the thought came into his mind: “Oh, that I could own land like this!” As this idea like the lightning’s flash darted through his mind, and with it all the stories he had heard the old grandfather tell of persons who began with only their hands and obtained a freehold, it was with reluctance he at last permitted Bertie (who might as well have tugged at a mountain) to pull him away from the spot.

Entering the house they found the Nevins boys, Edward Conly, and a few more of both girls and boys present, with a fire sufficient to roast an ox and every window open. The boys had overdone the matter, for the schoolhouse, though old, was warm, being sheltered by the precipice and the forest from the cold winds. It had been stuffed with moss and clay that fall, and the logs, though decayed on the outside were of great size, making a very thick wall and sound at heart.

If the outside of the house had arrested the attention of James, the inside was much more calculated to do so. The fireplace was of stone. The jambs and mantel were large single stones, the back composed of single stones set edgewise upon each other. There were a large pair of shovel and tongs, but no andirons, and in their stead were two stones four feet in length, and a foot in height, to hold the wood and afford a draft beneath, and an iron bar laid across to keep the wood from rolling out.

The walls were of rough logs with the bark still adhering, except where it had been pulled off by the busy fingers of the children. There was no flooring above, all was open to the roof and the purlins were decked with swallows’ nests, the birds having found admittance at some place where the clay had fallen out, and despite the noise of the children during the summer school, had reared their young and migrated at the approach of winter. Along the walls on either side were seats for single scholars, and the space between was filled up with seats that held three, and aisles between.

Arthur Nevins was nineteen, and Edward Conly eighteen, they were therefore among the largest boys, excellent scholars, of good principles and dispositions, and met James in a very kind and social manner.

“I am going to take my old seat,” said Bertie, selecting one of the single seats in the back corner,—“Where are you going to have yours, James?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, take the one right before me, put your books in it, and sit down, then you’ll hold it.”

Peter, John, and Will Edibean took the back seat next to Bertie; Arthur and Elmer Nevins, and Edward Conly the seats before them. Thus by previous arrangement among the boys, who were no novices in these matters, James had Bertie directly behind; Peter and the Edibeans, Arthur and Elmer Nevins, and Edward Conly on the side, and behind; all fast friends to each other and all friendly to him. Peter, Bertie, and the Edibean boys, had determined to make the school pleasant for James, by prejudicing the Nevins boys and Edward Conly in his favor, and they had come to school thus early for that purpose. Let boys alone for carrying out any plan of that kind they get in their noddles. They never let the iron cool on the anvil, not they.

By the time the master came they were nearly all seated, though there was some bickering about seats, that was not settled but by an appeal to him, and some trading for seats among the boys themselves.

The majority of the boys had quills for pens, plucked from their parents’ geese.

Nat Witham,—a disagreeable lad, whom the boys had nicknamed Chuck,—sat in the seat before James; his hands were covered with great seed-warts that he was always pricking, and endeavoring to put the blood on the hands of the smaller children, to make them have warts, and pulling the hair of the children before him. He got more whippings than any boy in school, and deserved more than he got.

Bertie and Arthur Nevins gave this boy a Dutch quill each, to change seats with Stillman Russell, a good scholar, and a boy whom they all liked. Having thus successfully carried out all their plans, the Whitmans and Edibeans flattered themselves that they had arranged matters satisfactorily for their own progress and comfort, and that of James during the school term, but they were destined to find that,—

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men Gang aft a-glee.”

Great was the curiosity manifested, when the master called out the class to which James had been assigned, and told Bertie to hear them. You might have heard a pin drop. James was taller by a head than any boy in the school, and his classmates were children; they had attended a woman’s school in the summer, but it was two months’ previous; they had become rusty, and had to spell half their words. James, on the other hand, who had been over the lesson with Bertie the evening before and early that morning, read right along in a very low tone, but without hesitating a moment, greatly to the relief of Bertie, whose heart was in his mouth, for he was afraid James would not muster courage to hear the sound of his own voice.

It was no less a matter of surprise to the school, most of whom were ready to titter at seeing such a big fellow reading with little children.

When, in the afternoon, he came to write, and the master complimented him for the excellence of his writing, James took heart of grace and felt that the worst was over, and when he entered the house at night, Mrs. Whitman gathered from the expression of his face that all had gone well.

While Peter and James were doing up the chores at the barn, Bertie, who was bringing in the night’s wood, embraced the opportunity to unbosom himself to his mother.

“Oh, mother, James did first-rate, ma’am, first-rate.”

“Yes, child, I hear you.”

“He’s tickled to death. What do you suppose he did, mother? He didn’t know anybody saw him, but I was up on the haymow; he put both arms round Frank’s neck, and hugged him, and talked to him ever so long, and I expect he told Frank how glad he was that he had read and spelt, before the whole school, and got through the first day.”

“What reply did Frank make?” said his mother, laughing.

“He wickered. You may laugh, mother, but he knew well enough that James was glad, and that was his way to say he was glad too.”

“I suppose Frank heard you on the mow, and wickered for some hay.”

“James,” said Bertie, not heeding the interruption, “won’t talk with other folks, but he’s all the time talking to the horses when he thinks nobody hears him.”

The naturally proud and sensitive nature of James shrank from familiar contact with those who had been reared under such different conditions. He was haunted with the notion that, in their secret mind they looked upon him as inferior, and notwithstanding the kindness they manifested, did in thought revert to his former condition; but in regard to the animals this feeling had no place, he lavished upon them his caresses, and understood their expressions of gratitude. To them, he well knew, the redemptioner and “work’us” was master, benefactor, friend.

Thus passed away the first week of school, to the mutual satisfaction of all concerned.