VIII

But he loved his mother very dearly when she came to him at night to put him to bed and listen to his prayers. He would kneel down in front of her, in the warmth of the kitchen so that he might not catch cold in the unheated bedroom, and would shut his eyes very tightly because G.o.d did not like to see little boys peeping through their distended fingers at Him, and would say his verse:

I lay my body down to sleep....

I pray the Lord my soul to keep, And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

and having said that, he would add a general prayer for his family.

"G.o.d bless my Mother" ... he always said _"Mother"_ in his prayers, although he said _"Ma"_ in ordinary talk ... "and my Uncle William and my Uncle Matthew and all my friends and relations, and make me a good boy for Jesus' sake, Amen. Our Father which art...."

Then he would scamper up the stairs to bed, and his mother would hap the clothes about him and tell him to go to sleep soon. She would bend over him and kiss him very tightly, and he would put his arms about her, too. "Son, dear!" she would say.

THE SECOND CHAPTER

I

When John MacDermott was seventeen years of age and entering into his fourth year of monitorship, his Uncle William said to him, "John, boy, you're getting on to be a man now, and it's high time you began to think of what you're going to do with yourself when you are one!"

"You're mebbe right," said John.

"The next year'll be your last one at the monitoring, won't it?" Uncle William continued.

John nodded his head.

"Well, if I were you I'd make a plan of some sort during the next year or two, for it would never do for you to come to the years of discretion, and have to take to the teachering because you couldn't think of anything else to do. I can see well your heart's not in that trade."

"It is not, indeed!" John said vigorously. "It's a terrible tiring job, teaching children, and some of them are that stupid you feel provoked enough to slap the hands off them! I'm nearly afraid of myself sometimes with the stupid ones, for fear I'd lose my temper with them and hurt them hard. Mr. Cairnduff says no one should be a teacher that has a bad temper, and dear knows, Uncle William, I've a fearful temper!

He's a quare wise man, Mr. Cairnduff: he doesn't let any of his monitors use the cane, for he says it's an awful temptation to be cruel, especially if you're young and impatient the way I am!"

"Is that so now?" said Uncle William.

"Oh, it is, right enough. I know well there's times when a child's provoked me, that I want to be cruel to it ... and I'd hate to be cruel to any child. There's a wee girl in my cla.s.s now.... Lizzie Turley's her name!..."

"John Turley's child?"

"Yes. G.o.d knows she's the stupidest child in the world!"

"Her da's a match, for her, then, for he's the stupidest man I've ever known. That fellow ought not to have been let have children!..."

"It's not her fault, I know," John continued, "but you forget that when you're provoked. I've tried hard to teach that child ... vowed to myself I'd teach her ... to add up, but I'm afraid she's beaten me. She can subtract well enough ... that's the queer part about her ... but she cannot add up. You'll mebbe not believe me. Uncle William, but that child can't put two and one together and be sure of getting the right answer. At first she couldn't add two and one together at all. She'd put down twelve for the answer as likely as not. But I worked hard with her, and I got her to add up to two and six make eight ... and there she stuck. I couldn't get her past that: she couldn't add two and seven together and get nine for the answer. But if you asked her to subtract two from nine, she'd say "seven" all right! That's a queer thing, now!

Isn't it?"

"Aye, it's queer enough!"

"There's been times when I've wanted to hit that wee girl ... hit her with my shut fists ... and I don't like to feel that way about a child that's not all there ... or any child! I'm afraid I'm not fit to be a teacher, Uncle William. You have to be very good and patient... and it's no use pretending you haven't. Mr. Cairnduff says it's more important for a teacher to be good than it is for a minister, and he's right, too. He says a child should never be slapped by the teacher that's offended with it, but by another teacher that knows nothing about the bother. He doesn't use the cane much himself, but there's some teachers likes using it. Miss Gebbie does... she carries a big bamboo about with her, and gives you a good hard welt across the hand with it, if you annoy her. I wouldn't like to be in that woman's grip, I can tell you. Some women are fearful hard, Uncle William!"

"Worse nor men, some of them," Uncle William agreed.

"Mr. Cairnduff told me one time of a teacher he knew that got to like the cane so much that he used to try and trip the children into making mistakes so's he could slap them for it. Isn't it fearful, that?"

"Terrible, John!"

"I'd be ashamed to death if I got that way. Oh, I couldn't go on with the teaching, Uncle William. I wouldn't be near fit for it."

"Well, never mind, John. There's one thing, the extra schooling you've had has done you no harm, and I daresay it's done you a lot of good.

But you'll have to think of something to do!..."

"Yes, I will!"

"Do you never think of anything? Is there any particular thing you'd like to do?"

"There's a whole lot of things I've fancied I'd like to be, but after a wee while I always change my mind. The first time I went to Belfast, I thought it would be lovely to be a tram-driver 'til I saw a navvy tearing up the street ... and then I thought a navvy had the best job in the world. You know, Uncle William, it takes me a long while to find out what it is I want, but when I do find it out, I take to it queer and quick. I'll mebbe go footering about the world like a lost thing, and then all of a sudden I'll know what I want to do ... and I'll just do it!"

"Hmmm!" said Uncle William.

"It sounds queer and foolish, doesn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know, John. Many's a thing sounds silly, but isn't."

"It's true, anyway. I've noticed things like that about myself.

It's ... it's like a man getting converted. One minute he's a guilty, h.e.l.l-deserving sinner, the way John Hutton says he was, footering about the world, drinking and guzzling and leading a rotten life ... and then all of a sudden, he's hauled up and made to give his testimony and do G.o.d's will for the rest of his life! I daresay I'll drift from one thing to another ... and then I'll know, just like a flash of lightning ... and I'll go and do it!"

"That's a dangerous kind of a doctrine," said Uncle William. "It's easier to get into the way of drifting nor it is to get out of it again. And you're a young lad to be thinking strange thoughts like that!"

"I'm seventeen," John replied. "That's not young!"

"It's not oul' anyway. Anybody'd think to hear you, you had the years of Methuselah. I suppose, now, you never thought of coming into the shop?"

"I did think of it one time, but you wouldn't let me!..."

"That was when you wanted to help me. But did you never think of it for your own sake? You see, John, you're the last of us, and this shop has been in our family for a long while ... it's a good trade, too, and you'll have no fear of hardship as long as you look after it, although the big firms in Belfast are opening branches here. The MacDermotts can hold their heads up against any big firm in the world, I'm thinking ...

in this place, anyway. Did you never feel you'd like to come into the shop?"

John glanced about the shop, at the a.s.sistants who were serving customers with tea and groceries....

"No," he said, shaking his head, "I don't think I'd like it!"

Uncle William considered for a few moments. Then he said, "No, I thought you wouldn't care for it. Your da felt that way too. The shop wasn't big enough for him. All the same, there has to be shops, and there has to be people to look after that!"

"Oh, I know that right enough, Uncle William. I'm not saying anything against them. They're all right for them that likes them!..."

He paused for a while, and his Uncle waited for him to proceed.

"Sometimes," he said at last, "I'm near in the mind to go and be a soldier!..."

"For dear sake!" said Uncle William impatiently.