CHAPTER I

THE NEW SCHOLAR

While the larger boys in the village school of Greenbank were having a game of “three old cat” before school-time, there appeared on the playground a strange boy, carrying two books, a slate, and an atlas under his arm.

He was evidently from the country, for he wore a suit of brown jeans, or woollen homespun, made up in the natural color of the “black” sheep, as we call it. He shyly sidled up to the school-house door, and looked doubtfully at the boys who were playing; watching the familiar game as though he had never seen it before.

The boys who had the “paddles” were standing on three bases, while three others4 stood each behind a base and tossed the ball around the triangle from one hole or base to another. The new-comer soon perceived that, if one with a paddle, or bat, struck at the ball and missed it, and the ball was caught directly, or “at the first bounce,” he gave up his bat to the one who had “caught him out.” When the ball was struck, it was called a “tick,” and when there was a tick, all the batters were obliged to run one base to the left, and then the ball thrown between a batter and the base to which he was running “crossed him out,” and obliged him to give up his “paddle” to the one who threw the ball.

“Four old cat,” “two old cat,” and “five old cat” are, as everybody knows, played in the same way, the number of bases or holes increasing with the addition of each pair of players.

It is probable that the game was once—some5 hundreds of years ago, maybe—called “three hole catch,” and that the name was gradually corrupted into “three hole cat,” as it is still called in the interior States, and then became changed by mistake to “three old cat.” It is, no doubt, an early form of our present game of base-ball.

It was this game which the new boy watched, trying to get an inkling of how it was played. He stood by the school-house door, and the girls who came in were obliged to pass near him. Each of them stopped to scrape her shoes, or rather the girls remembered the foot-scraper because they were curious to see the new-comer. They cast furtive glances at him, noting his new suit of brown clothes, his geography and atlas, his arithmetic, and, last of all, his face.

“There’s a new scholar,” said Peter Rose, or, as he was called, “Pewee” Rose, a6 stout and stocky boy of fourteen, who had just been caught out by another.

“I say, Greeny, how did you get so brown?” called out Will Riley, a rather large, loose-jointed fellow.

Of course, all the boys laughed at this. Boys will sometimes laugh at any one suffering torture, whether the victim be a persecuted cat or a persecuted boy. The new boy made no answer, but Joanna Merwin, who, just at that moment, happened to be scraping her shoes, saw that he grew red in the face with a quick flush of anger.

“Don’t stand there, Greeny, or the cows’ll eat you up!” called Riley, as he came round again to the base nearest to the school-house.

Why the boys should have been amused at this speech, the new scholar could not tell—the joke was neither new nor witty—only7 impudent and coarse. But the little boys about the door giggled.

“It’s a pity something wouldn’t eat you, Will Riley—you are good for nothing but to be mean.” This sharp speech came from a rather tall and graceful girl of sixteen, who came up at the time, and who saw the annoyance of the new boy at Riley’s insulting words. Of course the boys laughed again. It was rare sport to hear pretty Susan Lanham “take down” the impudent Riley.

“The bees will never eat you for honey, Susan,” said Will.

Susan met the titter of the playground with a quick flush of temper and a fine look of scorn.

“Nothing would eat you, Will, unless, maybe, a turkey-buzzard, and a very hungry one at that.”

This sharp retort was uttered with a8 merry laugh of ridicule, and a graceful toss of the head, as the mischievous girl passed into the school-house.

“That settles you, Will,” said Pewee Rose. And Bob Holliday began singing, to a doleful tune:

“Poor old Pidy, She died last Friday.”

Just then, the stern face of Mr. Ball, the master, appeared at the door; he rapped sharply with his ferule, and called: “Books, books, books!” The bats were dropped, and the boys and girls began streaming into the school, but some of the boys managed to nudge Riley, saying:

“Poor old creetur, The turkey-buzzards eat her,”

and such like soft and sweet speeches. Riley was vexed and angry, but nobody was afraid of him, for a boy may be both big and mean and yet lack courage.9

The new boy did not go in at once, but stood silently and faced the inquiring looks of the procession of boys as they filed into the school-room with their faces flushed from the exercise and excitement of the games.

“I can thrash him easy,” thought Pewee Rose.

“He isn’t a fellow to back down easily,” said Harvey Collins to his next neighbor.

Only good-natured, rough Bob Holliday stopped and spoke to the new-comer a friendly word. All that he said was “Hello!” But how much a boy can put into that word “Hello!” Bob put his whole heart into it, and there was no boy in the school that had a bigger heart, a bigger hand, or half so big a foot as Bob Holliday.

The village school-house was a long one built of red brick. It had taken the place of the old log institution in which one generation10 of Greenbank children had learned reading, writing, and Webster’s spelling-book. There were long, continuous writing-tables down the sides of the room, with backless benches, so arranged that when the pupil was writing his face was turned toward the wall—there was a door at each end, and a box stove stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by a rectangle of four backless benches. These benches were for the little fellows who did not write, and for others when the cold should drive them nearer the stove.

The very worshipful master sat at the east end of the room, at one side of the door; there was a blackboard—a “newfangled notion” in 1850—at the other side of the door. Some of the older scholars, who could afford private desks with lids to them, suitable for concealing smuggled apples and maple-sugar, had places at the other end of the room from the master.11 This arrangement was convenient for quiet study, for talking on the fingers by signs, for munching apples or gingerbread, and for passing little notes between the boys and girls.

When the school had settled a little, the master struck a sharp blow on his desk for silence, and looked fiercely around the room, eager to find a culprit on whom to wreak his ill-humor. Mr. Ball was one of those old-fashioned teachers who gave the impression that he would rather beat a boy than not, and would even like to eat one, if he could find a good excuse. His eye lit upon the new scholar.

“Come here,” he said, severely, and then he took his seat.

The new boy walked timidly up to a place in front of the master’s desk. He was not handsome, his face was thin, his eyebrows were prominent, his mouth was rather large and good-humored, and there12 was that shy twinkle about the corners of his eyes which always marks a fun-loving spirit. But his was a serious, fine-grained face, with marks of suffering in it, and he had the air of having been once a strong fellow; of late, evidently, shaken to pieces by the ague.

“Where do you live?” demanded Mr. Ball.

“On Ferry Street.”

“What do they call you?” This was said with a contemptuous, rasping inflection that irritated the new scholar. His eyes twinkled, partly with annoyance and partly with mischief.

“They call me Jack, for the most part,”—then catching the titter that came from the girls’ side of the room, and frightened by the rising hurricane on the master’s face, he added quickly: “My name is John Dudley, sir.”

“Don’t you try to show your smartness13 on me, young man. You are a new-comer, and I let you off this time. Answer me that way again, and you will remember it as long as you live.” And the master glared at him like a savage bull about to toss somebody over a fence.

The new boy turned pale, and dropped his head.

“How old are you?” “Thirteen.”

“Have you ever been to school?”

“Three months.”

“Three months. Do you know how to read?”

“Yes, sir,” with a smile.

“Can you cipher?” “Yes, sir.”

“In multiplication?” “Yes, sir.”

“Long division?”

“Yes, sir; I’ve been half through fractions.”

“You said you’d been to school but three months!” “My father taught me.”14

There was just a touch of pride in his voice as he said this—a sense of something superior about his father. This bit of pride angered the master, who liked to be thought to have a monopoly of all the knowledge in the town.

“Where have you been living?”

“In the Indian Reserve, of late; I was born in Cincinnati.”

“I didn’t ask you where you were born. When I ask you a question, answer that and no more.”

“Yes, sir.” There was a touch of something in the tone of this reply that amused the school, and that made the master look up quickly and suspiciously at Jack Dudley, but the expression on Jack’s face was as innocent as that of a cat who has just lapped the cream off the milk.

CHAPTER II

KING MILKMAID

Pewee Rose, whose proper name was Peter Rose, had also the nickname of King Pewee. He was about fourteen years old, square built and active, of great strength for his size, and very proud of the fact that no boy in town cared to attack him. He was not bad-tempered, but he loved to be master, and there were a set of flatterers who followed him, like jackals about a lion.

As often happens, Nature had built for King Pewee a very fine body, but had forgotten to give him any mind to speak of. In any kind of chaff or banter, at any sort of talk or play where a good head was worth more than a strong arm and a broad back, King Pewee was sure to have the16 worst of it. A very convenient partnership had therefore grown up between him and Will Riley. Riley had muscle enough, but Nature had made him mean-spirited. He had—not exactly wit—but a facility for using his tongue, which he found some difficulty in displaying, through fear of other boys’ fists. By forming a friendship with Pewee Rose, the two managed to keep in fear the greater part of the school. Will’s rough tongue, together with Pewee’s rude fists, were enough to bully almost any boy. They let Harvey Collins alone, because he was older, and, keeping to himself, awed them by his dignity; good-natured Bob Holliday, also, was big enough to take care of himself. But the rest were all as much afraid of Pewee as they were of the master, and as Riley managed

Pewee, it behooved them to be afraid of the prime minister, Riley, as well as of King Pewee.17

From the first day that Jack Dudley entered the school, dressed in brown jeans, Will Riley marked him for a victim. The air of refinement about his face showed him to be a suitable person for teasing.

Riley called him “milksop,” and “sap-head”; words which seemed to the dull intellect of King Pewee exceedingly witty. And as Pewee was Riley’s defender, he felt as proud of these rude nicknames as he would had he invented them and taken out a patent.

But Riley’s greatest stroke of wit came one morning when he caught Jack Dudley milking the cow. In the village of Greenbank, milking a cow was regarded as a woman’s work; and foolish men and boys are like savages,—very much ashamed to be found doing a woman’s work. Fools always think something else more disgraceful than idleness. So, having seen Jack milking,18 Riley came to school happy. He had an arrow to shoot that would give great delight to the small boys.

“Good-morning, milkmaid!” he said to Jack Dudley, as he entered the school-house before school. “You milk the cow at your house, do you? Where’s your apron?”

“Oh-h! Milkmaid! milkmaid! That’s a good one,” chimed in Pewee Rose and all his set.

Jack changed color.

“Well, what if I do milk my mother’s cow? I don’t milk anybody’s cow but ours, do I? Do you think I’m ashamed of it? I’d be ashamed not to. I can”—but he stopped a minute and blushed—“I can wash dishes, and make good pancakes, too. Now if you want to make fun, why, make fun. I don’t care.” But he did care, else why should his voice choke in that way?

“Oh, girl-boy; a pretty girl-boy you19 are—” but here Will Riley stopped and stammered. There right in front of him was the smiling face of Susan Lanham, with a look in it which made him suddenly remember something. Susan had heard all the conversation, and now she came around in front of Will, while all the other girls clustered about her with a vague expectation of sport.

“Come, Pewee, let’s play ball,” said Will.

“Ah, you’re running away, now; you’re afraid of a girl,” said Susan, with a cutting little laugh, and a toss of her black curls over her shoulder.

Will had already started for the ball-ground, but at this taunt he turned back, thrust his hands into his pockets, put on a swagger, and stammered: “No, I’m not afraid of a girl, either.”

“That’s about all that he isn’t afraid of,” said Bob Holliday.

“Oh! you’re not afraid of a girl?” said20 Susan. “What did you run away for, when you saw me? You know that Pewee won’t fight a girl. You’re afraid of anybody that Pewee can’t whip.”

“You’ve got an awful tongue, Susan. We’ll call you Sassy Susan,” said Will, laughing at his own joke.

“Oh, it isn’t my tongue you’re afraid of now. You know I can tell on you. I saw you drive your cow into the stable last week. You were ashamed to milk outside, but you looked all around——”

“I didn’t do it. How could you see? It was dark,” and Will giggled foolishly, seeing all at once that he had betrayed himself.

“It was nearly dark, but I happened to be where I could see. And as I was coming back, a few minutes after, I saw you come out with a pail of milk, and look around you like a sneak-thief. You saw me and hurried away. You are such a21 coward that you are ashamed to do a little honest work. Milkmaid! Girl-boy! Coward! And Pewee Rose lets you lead him around by the nose!”

“You’d better be careful what you say, Susan,” said Pewee, threateningly.

“You won’t touch me. You go about bullying little boys, and calling yourself King Pewee, but you can’t do a sum in long division, nor in short subtraction, for that matter, and you let fellows like Riley make a fool of you. Your father’s poor, and your mother can’t keep a girl, and you ought to be ashamed to let her milk the cows. Who milked your cow this morning, Pewee?”

“I don’t know,” said the king, looking like the king’s fool.

“You did it,” said Susan. “Don’t deny it. Then you come here and call a strange boy a milkmaid!”22

“Well, I didn’t milk in the street, anyway, and he did.” At this, all laughed aloud, and Susan’s victory was complete. She only said, with a pretty toss of her head, as she turned away: “King Milkmaid!”

Pewee found the nickname likely to stick. He was obliged to declare on the playground the next day, that he would “thrash” any boy that said anything about milkmaids. After that, he heard no more of it. But one morning he found “King Milkmaid” written on the door of his father’s cow-stable. Some boy who dared not attack Pewee, had vented his irritation by writing the hateful words on the stable, and on the fence-corners near the school-house, and even on the blackboard.

Pewee could not fight with Susan Lanham, but he made up his mind to punish the new scholar when he should have a chance. He must give somebody a beating.

CHAPTER III

ANSWERING BACK

It is hard for one boy to make a fight. Even your bully does not like to “pitch on” an inoffensive school-mate. You remember Æsop’s fable of the wolf and the lamb, and what pains the wolf took to pick a quarrel with the lamb. It was a little hard for Pewee to fight with a boy who walked quietly to and from the school, without giving anybody cause for offence.

But the chief reason why Pewee did not attack him with his fists was that both he and Riley had found out that Jack Dudley could help them over a hard place in their lessons better than anybody else. And notwithstanding their continual persecution of Jack, they were mean enough to24 ask his assistance, and he, hoping to bring about peace by good-nature, helped them to get out their geography and arithmetic almost every day. Unable to appreciate this, they were both convinced that Jack only did it because he was afraid of them, and as they found it rare sport to abuse him, they kept it up. By their influence Jack was shut out of the plays. A greenhorn would spoil the game, they said. What did a boy that had lived on Wildcat Creek, in the Indian Reserve, know about playing bull-pen, or prisoner’s base, or shinny? If he was brought in, they would go out.

But the girls, and the small boys, and good-hearted Bob Holliday liked Jack’s company very much. Yet, Jack was a boy, and he often longed to play games with the others. He felt very sure that he could dodge and run in “bull-pen” as well as25 any of them. He was very tired of Riley’s continual ridicule, which grew worse as Riley saw in him a rival in influence with the smaller boys.

“Catch Will alone sometimes,” said Bob Holliday, “when Pewee isn’t with him, and then thrash him. He’ll back right down if you bristle up to him. If Pewee makes a fuss about it, I’ll look after Pewee. I’m bigger than he is, and he won’t fight with me. What do you say?”

“I shan’t fight unless I have to.”

“Afraid?” asked Bob, laughing.

“It isn’t that. I don’t think I’m much afraid, although I don’t like to be pounded or to pound anybody. I think I’d rather be whipped than to be made fun of, though. But my father used to say that people who fight generally do so because they are afraid of somebody else, more than they are of the one they fight with.”26

“I believe that’s a fact,” said Bob. “But Riley aches for a good thrashing.”

“I know that, and I feel like giving him one, or taking one myself, and I think I shall fight him before I’ve done. But father used to say that fists could never settle between right and wrong. They only show which is the stronger, and it is generally the mean one that gets the best of it.”

“That’s as sure as shootin’,” said Bob. “Pewee could use you up. Pewee thinks he’s the king, but laws! he’s only Riley’s bull-dog. Riley is afraid of him, but he manages to keep the dog on his side all the time.”

“My father used to say,” said Jack, “that brutes could fight with force, but men ought to use their wits.”

“You seem to think a good deal of what your father says,—like it was your Bible, you know.”27

“My father’s dead,” replied Jack.

“Oh, that’s why. Boys don’t always pay attention to what their father says when he’s alive.”

“Oh, but then my father was—” Here Jack checked himself, for fear of seeming to boast. “You see,” he went on, “my father knew a great deal. He was so busy with his books that he lost ’most all his money, and then we moved to the Indian Reserve, and there he took the fever and died; and then we came down here, where we owned a house, so that I could go to school.”

“Why don’t you give Will Riley as good as he sends?” said Bob, wishing to get away from melancholy subjects. “You have got as good a tongue as his.”

“I haven’t his stock of bad words, though.”