Edward Eggleston

“ 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. ”

“ The new teacher who was employed to take the Greenbank school in the autumn was a young man from college. Standing behind the desk hitherto occupied by the grim-faced Mr. Ball, young Williams looked very mild by contrast. He was evidently a gentle-spirited man as compared with the old master, and King Pewee and his crowd were gratified in noting this fact. They could have their own way with such a master as that! When he called the school to order, there remained a bustle of curiosity and mutual recognition among the children. Riley and Pewee kept up a little noise by way of defiance. ”

“ If it was anybody but you, I’d fight. But as it’s you, Pewee, I might just as well come down before you begin.”
Pewee was flattered by this way of putting the question. Had he been alone, Jack would have escaped. But Will Riley, remembering all he had endured from Jack’s retorts, said:
“Oh, give it to him, Pewee; he’s always making trouble.”
At which Pewee squared himself off, doubled up his fists, and came at the slenderer Jack. The latter prepared to meet him, but, after all, it was hard for Pewee to beat so good-humored a fellow as Jack. ”

“ Happy boys and girls that go to school nowadays! You have to study harder than the generations before you, it is true; you miss the jolly spelling-schools, and the good old games that were not half so scientific as base-ball, lawn tennis, or lacrosse, but that had ten times more fun and frolic in them; but all this is made up to you by the fact that you escape the tyrannical old master. ”

“ All up and down the raft and up and down the bank there went up a cry: “Andy is drowning!” while everybody looked for somebody else to save him.
The schoolmaster was sitting on the bank, and saw the accident. He quickly slipped off his boots, but then he stopped, for Jack had already started on a splendid run down that long raft. The confused and terrified boys made a path for him quickly, as he came on at more than the tremendous speed he had always shown in games. ”

“ Here there was a general titter at Riley.
“I cannot have you sit away down at the other end of the school-room and hide your excellent example from the rest. Stand right up here by me and cipher, that all the school may see how industrious you are.”
Riley grew very red in the face and pretended to “cipher,” holding his book in his hand.
“Now,” said the new teacher, “I have but just one rule for this school, and I will write it on the blackboard that all may see it.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Once or twice they allowed themselves to visit an Indian mound or burial-place on the summit of a neighboring hill, where idle boys and other loungers had dug up many bones and thrown them down the declivity. Jack, who had thoughts of being a doctor, made an effort to gather a complete Indian skeleton, but the dry bones had become too much mixed up. He could not get any three bones to fit together, and his man, as he tried to put him together, was the most miscellaneous creature imaginable,—neither man, woman, nor child. ”

“ Jack was already exhausted with swimming, and he had great difficulty in dragging the little fellow to the raft, where Will Riley and Pewee Rose pulled him out of the water.
But now, while all were giving attention to the rescued Andy, there occurred with Jack one of those events which people call a cramp. I do not know what to call it,258 but it is not a cramp. It is a kind of collapse—a sudden exhaustion that may come to the best of swimmers. The heart insists on resting, the consciousness grows dim, the will-power flags, and the strong swimmer sinks. ”

“ It happened that Jack’s side lost on the toss-up for corners, and he got into the ring, where his play showed better than it would have done on the corners. As Jack was the greenhorn and the last chosen on his side, the players on the corners expected to make light work of him; but he was an adroit dodger, and he put out three of the boys on the corners by his unexpected way of evading a ball. Everybody who has ever played this fine old game knows that expertness in dodging is worth quite as much as skill in throwing. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Jack wondered why Mr. Francis Gray was aboard the packet, which went no farther than Madison, while Mr. Gray’s home was in Louisville. He soon guessed, however, that Gray meant to land at Port William, and so to head him off. Jack looked at Mr. Gray’s form, made plump by good feeding, and felt safe. He couldn’t be very dangerous in a foot-race. Jack reflected with much hopefulness that no boy in school could catch him in a straight-away run when he was fox. He would certainly leave the somewhat puffy Mr. Francis Gray behind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Three times a week the scholars of the “Greenbank Academy” met at the house of Dr. Lanham to receive instruction from Professor Susan, for the school trustees could not agree on a new teacher. Some of the people wanted one thing, and some another; a lady teacher was advocated and opposed; a young man, an old man, a new-fashioned man, an old-fashioned man, and no teacher at all for the rest of the present year, so as to save money, were projects that found advocates. The division of opinion was so great that the plan of no school at all was carried because no other could be. ”

“ The master snapped his fingers, but Riley affected not to hear him.
“That young man will put down his slate.” The master spoke in a low tone, as one who expected to be obeyed, and the slate was reluctantly put upon the desk.
“When I am talking to you, I want you to hear,” he went on, very quietly. “I am paid to teach you. One of the things I have to teach you is good manners. You,” pointing to Riley, “are old enough to know better than to take your slate when your teacher is speaking, but perhaps you have never been taught what are good manners. ”

“ Poor Riley felt the last support drop from under him. Pewee had deserted him, and he was now an orphan, unprotected in an unfriendly world!79
Jack knew that the truce with so vain a fellow as Pewee could not last long, but it served its purpose for the time. And when, after school, Susan Lanham took pains to go and thank Pewee for standing up for Columbus, Pewee felt himself every inch a king, and for the time he was—if not a “reformed prize-fighter,” such as one hears of sometimes, at least an improved boy. The trouble with vain people like Pewee is, that they have no stability. ”

“ 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. ”

“ DOWN WITH OLD BAWL!
and thought the bad spelling of the name a good joke, while men and women began to talk about getting a new master.
Will Riley and Ben Berry had the hardest time. For the most part they stayed at home during the excitement, only slinking out in the evening. The boys nicknamed them “Gunpowder cowards,” and wrote the words on the fences. Even the loafers about the street asked them whether Old Ball had given them that whipping yet, and how they liked “powder and Ball.” ”

“ Jack and Bob had to amuse Columbus with stories, to divert his mind from the notion that Pewee and his party meant them some harm. The Indian burying-ground was not an uncommon place of resort on Sundays for loafers and idlers, and now and then parties came from as far as Greenbank, to have the pleasure of a ride and the amusement of digging up Indian relics from the cemetery on the hill. This hill-top commanded a view of the Ohio River for many miles in both directions, and of the Kentucky River, which emptied into the Ohio just opposite. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That day at noon Riley came to Jack, with a most gentle tone and winning manner, and whiningly begged Jack to show him how to divide 770 by 14.49
“It isn’t interesting to show greenhorns,” said Jack, mimicking Riley’s tone on the playground that morning. “If I show you, Pewee Rose will want me to show him; then there’ll be two babies to teach. I can’t be always helping babies. Go and play two-hole cat with the First-Reader boys.” ”

“ I ought to have told beforehand,” said Jack, after a pause. “But I thought it was only some coffee-nuts that they had put in. The mean fellows, to let Columbus take a whipping for them! But the way Mr. Ball beats us is enough to make a boy mean and cowardly.”
After a long silence, the mother said: “I think we shall have to give it up, Jack.”99
“What, mother?”
“The schooling for this winter. I don’t want you to go where boys are beaten in that way. In the morning, go and get your books and see what you can do at home.” ”

“ The office was soon crowded with people discussing the result of the race, and a part of them were even now in favor of seizing one or the other of the runners for a theft, which some said had been committed on the packet, and others declared was committed on the wharf-boat. Francis Gray came in, and could not conceal his chagrin.
“I meant to do the fair thing by you,” he said to Jack, severely, “but now you’ll never get a cent out of me.”
“I’d rather have the law on men like you, than have a thousand of your sort of fair promises,” said Jack.
“I’ve a mind to strike you,” said Gray. ”

“ As soon as Mr. Ball had shaken off the ashes from his coat, he said: “Be quiet—there’s no more danger. Columbus Risdale, come here.”
“He did not do it,” spoke up Susan Lanham.
“Be quiet, Susan. You know all about this,” continued the master to poor little Columbus, who was so frightened as hardly to be able to stand. After looking at Columbus a moment, the master took down a great beech switch. “Now, I shall whip you until you tell me who did it. You were afraid to go to the stove. You knew there was powder there. Who put it there? That’s the question. ”

“ You’ve lived in the woods till you’re as shy as a flying-squirrel. All you’ve got to do is to talk up and take it rough and tumble, like the rest of the world. Riley can’t bear to be laughed at, and you can make him ridiculous as easy as not.”
The next day, at the noon recess, about the time that Jack had finished helping Bob Holliday to find some places on the map, there came up a little shower, and the boys took refuge in the school-house. They must have some amusement, so Riley began his old abuse. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the pigeon flight comes on Saturday, it is very convenient for those boys that have guns. If these pigeons had only come on Saturday instead of on Monday, Mr. Ball might have taught the Greenbank school until to-day,—that is to say,86 if he hadn’t died or quite dried up and blown off meanwhile.
For when Riley and Ben Berry saw this flight of pigeons begin on Monday morning, they remembered that the geography lesson was a hard one, and so they played “hooky,” and, taking their guns with them, hid in the bushes at the top of the hill. ”

“ All the boys and girls would like you.”
“I s’pose may be that’s so,” said the king.
“There’s poor little Columbus Risdale——”
“I don’t like him,” said Pewee.
“You mean you don’t like Susan. She is a little sharp with her tongue. But you wouldn’t fight with a baby—it isn’t like you.”
“No, sir-ee,” said Pewee.
“You’d rather take a big boy than a little one. Now, you ought to make Riley let Lummy alone.”
“I’ll do that,” said Pewee. “Riley’s about a million times bigger than Lum.”
“I went to the school-house this morning,” continued Jack, “and I found Riley choking and beating him. ”

“ Just as Johnny Meline was about to lay hold on Jack, Sam Crashaw, having just left his base, gave chase to Johnny, and just as Sam thought he had a good chance to catch Johnny, up came Jack, fresh from having touched his base, and nabbed Sam. When one has caught another, he has a right to return to his base with his prisoner, unmolested. The prisoner now becomes an active champion of the new base, and so the game goes on until all the bases are broken up but one. ”