Complete Prose Works
The one to whom he spoke came forward. He was a slight, fair-looking boy
of about thirteen; and his face had a laughing, good-humor'd expression,
which even the charge now preferr'd against him, and the stern tone
and threatening look of the teacher, had not entirely dissipated. The
countenance of the boy, however, was too unearthly fair for health; it
had, notwithstanding its fleshy, cheerful look, a singular cast as if
some inward disease, and that a fearful one, were seated within. As the
stripling stood before that place of judgment--that place so often
made the scene of heartless and coarse brutality, of timid innocence
confused, helpless child-hood outraged, and gentle feelings crush'
d--Lugare looked on him with a frown which plainly told that he felt in
no very pleasant mood. (Happily a worthier and more philosophical system
is proving to men that schools can be better govern'd than by lashes and
tears and sighs. We are waxing toward that consummation when one of the
old-fashion'd school-masters, with his cowhide, his heavy birch-rod,
and his many ingenious methods of child-torture, will be gazed upon as
a scorn'd memento of an ignorant, cruel, and exploded doctrine. May
propitious gales speed that day!)
"Were you by Mr. Nichols's garden-fence last night?" said Lugare.
"Yes, sir," answer'd the boy, "I was."
"Well, sir, I'm glad to find you so ready with your confession. And
so you thought you could do a little robbing, and enjoy yourself in a
manner you ought to be ashamed to own, without being punish'd, did you?"
"I have not been robbing," replied the boy quickly. His face was
suffused, whether with resentment or fright, it was difficult to tell.
"And I didn't do anything last night, that I am ashamed to own."
"No impudence!" exclaim'd the teacher, passionately, as he grasp'd a
long and heavy ratan: "give me none of your sharp speeches, or I'll
thrash you till you beg like a dog."
The youngster's face paled a little; his lip quiver'd, but he did not
speak.
"And pray, sir," continued Lugare, as the outward signs of wrath
disappear'd from his features; "what were you about the garden for?
Perhaps you only receiv'd the plunder, and had an accomplice to do the
more dangerous part of the job?"
"I went that way because it is on my road home. I was there again
afterwards to meet an acquaintance; and--and--But I did not go into the
garden, nor take anything away from it. I would not steal,--hardly to
save myself from starving."
"You had better have stuck to that last evening. You were seen, Tim
Barker, to come from under Mr. Nichols's garden-fence, a little after
nine o'clock, with a bag full of something or other over your shoulders.
The bag had every appearance of being filled with fruit, and this
morning the melon-beds are found to have been completely clear'd. Now,
sir, what was there in that bag?"
Like fire itself glow'd the face of the detected lad. He spoke not a
word. All the school had their eyes directed at him. The perspiration
ran down his white forehead like rain-drops.
"Speak, sir!" exclaimed Lugare, with a loud strike of his ratan on the
desk.
The boy look'd as though he would faint. But the unmerciful teacher,
confident of having brought to light a criminal, and exulting in
the idea of the severe chastisement he should now be justified in
inflicting, kept working himself up to a still greater and greater
degree of passion. In the meantime, the child seem'd hardly to know what
to do with himself. His tongue cleav'd to the roof of his mouth. Either
he was very much frighten'd, or he was actually unwell.
"Speak, I say!" again thunder'd Lugare; and his hand, grasping his
ratan, tower'd above his head in a very significant manner.
"I hardly can, sir," said the poor fellow faintly. His voice was husky
and thick. "I will tell you some--some other time. Please let me go to
my seat--I a'n't well."
"Oh yes; that's very likely;" and Mr. Lugare bulged out his nose and
cheeks with contempt. "Do you think to make me believe your lies? I've
found you out, sir, plainly enough; and I am satisfied that you are as
precious a little villain as there is in the State. But I will postpone
settling with you for an hour yet. I shall then call you up again;
and if you don't tell the whole truth then, I will give you something
that'll make you remember Mr. Nichols's melons for many a month to
come:--go to your seat."
Glad enough of the ungracious permission, and answering not a sound,
the child crept tremblingly to his bench. He felt very strangely,
dizzily--more as if he was in a dream than in real life; and laying his
arms on his desk, bow'd down his face between them. The pupils turn'd
to their accustom'd studies, for during the reign of Lugare in the
village-school, they had been so used to scenes of violence and severe
chastisement, that such things made but little interruption in the tenor
of their way.
Now, while the intervening hour is passing, we will clear up the mystery
of the bag, and of young Barker being under the garden fence on the
preceding night. The boy's mother was a widow, and they both had to live
in the very narrowest limits. His father had died when he was six years
old, and little Tim was left a sickly emaciated infant whom no one
expected to live many months. To the surprise of all, however, the poor
child kept alive, and seem'd to recover his health, as he certainly
did his size and good looks. This was owing to the kind offices of an
eminent physician who had a country-seat in the neighborhood, and who
had been interested in the widow's little family. Tim, the physician
said, might possibly outgrow his disease; but everything was uncertain.
It was a mysterious and baffling malady; and it would not be wonderful
if he should in some moment of apparent health be suddenly taken away.
The poor widow was at first in a continual state of uneasiness; but
several years had now pass'd, and none of the impending evils had fallen
upon the boy's head. His mother seem'd to feel confident that he would
live, and be a help and an honor to her old age; and the two struggled
on together, mutually happy in each other, and enduring much of poverty
and discomfort without repining, each for the other's sake.
Tim's pleasant disposition had made him many friends in the village, and
among the rest a young fanner named Jones, who, with his elder brother,
work'd a large farm in the neighborhood on shares. Jones very frequently
made Tim a present of a bag of potatoes or corn, or some garden
vegetables, which he took from his own stock; but as his partner was a
parsimonious, high-tempered man, and had often said that Tim was an
idle fellow, and ought not to be help'd because he did not work, Jones
generally made his gifts in such a manner that no one knew anything
about them, except himself and the grateful objects of his kindness.
It might be, too, that the widow was both to have it understood by the
neighbors that she received food from anyone; for there is often an
excusable pride in people of her condition which makes them shrink from
being consider'd as objects of "charity" as they would from the severest
pains. On the night in question, Tim had been told that Jones would send
them a bag of potatoes, and the place at which they were to be waiting
for him was fixed at Mr. Nichols's garden-fence. It was this bag that
Tim had been seen staggering under, and which caused the unlucky boy to
be accused and convicted by his teacher as a thief. That teacher was one
little fitted for his important and responsible office. Hasty to decide,
and inflexibly severe, he was the terror of the little world he ruled
so despotically. Punishment he seemed to delight in. Knowing little of
those sweet fountains which in children's breasts ever open quickly
at the call of gentleness and kind words, he was fear'd by all for his
sternness, and loved by none. I would that he were an isolated instance
in his profession.
The hour of grace had drawn to its close, and the time approach'd at
which it was usual for Lugare to give his school a joyfully-receiv'd
dismission. Now and then one of the scholars would direct a furtive
glance at Tim, sometimes in pity, sometimes in indifference or inquiry.
They knew that he would have no mercy shown him, and though most of them
loved him, whipping was too common there to exact much sympathy. Every
inquiring glance, however, remain'd unsatisfied, for at the end of the
hour, Tim remain'd with his face completely hidden, and his head bow'd
in his arms, precisely as he had lean'd himself when he first went
to his seat. Lugare look'd at the boy occasionally with a scowl which
seem'd to bode vengeance for his sullenness. At length the last class
had been heard, and the last lesson recited, and Lugare seated himself
behind his desk on the platform, with his longest and stoutest ratan
before him.
"Now, Barker," he said, "we'll settle that little business of yours.
Just step up here."
Tim did not move. The school-room was as still as the grave. Not a sound
was to be heard, except occasionally a long-drawn breath.
"Mind me, sir, or it will be the worse for you. Step up here, and take
off your jacket!"
The boy did not stir any more than if he had been of wood. Lugare shook
with passion. He sat still a minute, as if considering the best way to
wreak his vengeance. That minute, passed in death-like silence, was
a fearful one to some of the children, for their faces whiten'd with
fright. It seem'd, as it slowly dropp'd away, like the minute which
precedes the climax of an exquisitely-performed tragedy, when some
mighty master of the histrionic art is treading the stage, and you
and the multitude around you are waiting, with stretch'd nerves and
suspended breath, in expectation of the terrible catastrophe.
"Tim is asleep, sir," at length said one of the boys who sat near him.
Lugare, at this intelligence, allow'd his features to relax from their
expression of savage anger into a smile, but that smile look'd more
malignant if possible, than his former scowls. It might be that he felt
amused at the horror depicted on the faces of those about him; or
it might be that he was gloating in pleasure on the way in which he
intended to wake the slumberer.
"Asleep! are you, my young gentleman!" said he; "let us see if we can't
find something to tickle your eyes open. There's nothing like making the
best of a bad case, boys. Tim, here, is determin'd not to be worried in
his mind about a little flogging, for the thought of it can't even keep
the little scoundrel awake."
Lugare smiled again as he made the last observation. He grasp'd his
ratan firmly, and descended from his seat. With light and stealthy steps
he cross'd the room and stood by the unlucky sleeper. The boy was still
as unconscious of his impending punishment as ever. He might be dreaming
some golden dream of youth and pleasure; perhaps he was far away in the
world of fancy, seeing scenes, and feeling delights, which cold reality
never can bestow. Lugare lifted his ratan high over his head, and with
the true and expert aim which he had acquired by long practice, brought
it down on Tim's back with a force and whacking sound which seem'd
sufficient to wake a freezing man in his last lethargy. Quick and fast,
blow foliow'd blow. Without waiting to see the effect of the first cut,
the brutal wretch plied his instrument of torture first on one side of
the boy's back, and then on the other, and only stopped at the end of
two or three minutes from very weariness. But still Tim show'd no signs
of motion; and as Lugare, provoked at his torpidity, jerk'd away one of
the child's arms, on which he had been leaning over the desk, his head
dropp'd down on the board with a dull sound, and his face lay turn'd up