CHAPTER XXIII

CALLED TO ACCOUNT

Successful hounds, having caught their fox, ought to have come home in triumph; but, instead of that, they came home like dogs that had been killing sheep, their heads hanging down in a guilty and self-betraying way.

Jack walked into the school-house first. It was an hour and a half past the time for the beginning of school. He tried to look unconcerned as he went to his seat. There stood the teacher, with his face very calm but very pale, and Jack felt his heart sink.

One by one the laggards filed into the school-room, while the awe-stricken girls on the opposite benches, and the little A B C boys, watched the guilty sinners take their places, prepared to meet their fate.

Riley came in with a half-insolent smile on his face, as if to say: "I don't care." Pewee was sullen and bull-doggish. Ben Berry looked the sneaking fellow he was, and Harry Weathervane tried to remember that his father was a school-trustee. Bob Holliday couldn't help laughing in a foolish way. Columbus had fallen out of the race before he got to the "brick-pond," and so had returned in time to be punctual when school resumed its session.

During all the time that the boys, heated with their exercise and blushing with shame, were filing in, Mr. Williams stood with set face and regarded them. He was very much excited, and so I suppose did not dare to reprove them just then. He called the cla.s.ses and heard them in rapid succession, until it was time for the spelling-cla.s.s, which comprised all but the very youngest pupils. On this day, instead of calling the spelling-cla.s.s, he said, evidently with great effort to control himself: "The girls will keep their seats. The boys will take their places in the spelling-cla.s.s."

Riley's lower jaw fell--he was sure that the master meant to flog them all. He was glad he was not at the head of the cla.s.s. Ben Berry could hardly drag his feet to his place, and poor Jack was filled with confusion. When the boys were all in place, the master walked up and down the line and scrutinized them, while Riley cast furtive glances at the dusty old beech switches on the wall, wondering which one the master would use, and Pewee was trying to guess whether Mr. Williams's arm was strong, and whether he "would make a fellow take off his coat" or not.

"Columbus," said the teacher, "you can take your seat."

Riley shook in his shoes, thinking that this certainly meant a whipping.

He began to frame excuses in his mind, by which to try to lighten his punishment.

But the master did not take down his switches. He only talked. But such a talk! He told the boys how worthless a man was who could not be trusted, and how he had hoped for a school full of boys that could be relied on. He thought there were some boys, at least--and this remark struck Jack to the heart--that there were some boys in the school who would rather be treated as gentlemen than beaten with ox-goads. But he was now disappointed. All of them seemed equally willing to take advantage of his desire to avoid whipping them; and all of them had shown themselves _unfit to be trusted_.

Here he paused long enough to let the full weight of his censure enter their minds. Then he began on a new tack. He had hoped that he might have their friendship. He had thought that they cared a little for his good opinion. But now they had betrayed him. All the town was looking to see whether he would succeed in conducting his school without whipping.

A good many would be glad to see him fail. Today they would be saying all over Greenbank that the new teacher couldn't manage his school. Then he told the boys that while they were sitting on the trunk of the fallen sycamore looking at the steam-boat race, one of the trustees, Mr.

Weathervane, had driven past and had seen them there. He had stopped to complain to the master. "Now," said the master, "I have found how little you care for me."

This was very sharp talk, and it made the boys angry. Particularly did Jack resent any intimation that he was not to be trusted. But the new master was excited and naturally spoke severely. Nor did he give the boys a chance to explain at that time.

"You have been out of school," he said, "one hour and thirty-one minutes. That is about equal to six fifteen-minute recesses--to the morning and afternoon recesses for three days. I shall have to keep you in at those six recesses to make up the time, and in addition, as a punishment, I shall keep you in school half an hour after the usual time of dismission, for three days."

Here Jack made a motion to speak.

"No," said the master, "I will not hear a word, now. Go home and think it over. To-morrow I mean to ask each one of you to explain his conduct."

With this, he dismissed the school, and the boys went out as angry as a hive of bees that have been disturbed. Each one made his speech. Jack thought it "mean that the master should say they were not fit to be trusted. He wouldn't have stayed out if he'd known it was school-time."

Bob Holliday said "the young master was a blisterer," and then he laughed good-naturedly.

Harry Weathervane was angry, and so were all the rest. At length it was agreed that they didn't want to be cross-questioned about it, and that it was better that somebody should write something that should give Mr.

Williams a piece of their mind, and show him how hard he was on boys that didn't mean any harm, but only forgot themselves. And Jack was selected to do the writing.

Jack made up his mind that the paper he would write should be "a scorcher."

CHAPTER XXIV

AN APOLOGY

Of course, there was a great deal of talk in the village. The I-told-you-so people were quite delighted. Old Mother Horn "always knew that boys couldn't be managed without switching. Didn't the Bible or somebody say: 'Just as the twig is bent the boy's inclined?' And if you don't bend your twig, what'll become of your boy?"

The loafers and loungers and gad-abouts and gossips talked a great deal about the failure of the new plan. They were sure that Mr. Ball would be back in that school-house before the term was out, unless Williams should whip a good deal more than he promised to. The boys would just drive him out.

Jack told his mother, with a grieved face, how harsh the new master had been, and how he had even said they were _not fit to be trusted_.

"That's a very harsh word," said Mrs. Dudley, "but let us make some allowances. Mr. Williams is on trial before the town, and he finds himself nearly ruined by the thoughtlessness of the boys. He had to wait an hour and a half, with half of the school gone. Think how much he must have suffered in that time. And then, to have to take a rebuke from Mr.

Weathervane besides, must have stung him to the quick."

"Yes, that's so," said Jack, "but then he had no business to take it for granted that we did it on purpose."

And Jack went about his ch.o.r.es, trying to think of some way of writing to the master an address which should be severe, but not too severe. He planned many things but gave them up. He lay awake in the night thinking about it, and, at last, when he had cooled off, he came to the conclusion that, as the boys had been the first offenders, they should take the first step toward a reconciliation. But whether he could persuade the angry boys to see it in that light, he did not know.

When morning came, he wrote a very short paper, somewhat in this fashion:

Mr. Williams:

Dear Sir: We are very sorry for what we did yesterday, and for the trouble we have given you. We are willing to take the punishment, for we think we deserve it; but we hope you will not think that we did it on purpose, for we did not, and we don't like to have you think so.

Respectfully submitted.

Jack carried this in the first place to his faithful friend, Bob Holliday, who read it.

"Oh, you've come down, have you?" said Bob.

"I thought we ought to," said Jack. "We _did_ give him a great deal of trouble, and if it had been Mr. Ball, he would have whipped us half to death."

"We shouldn't have forgot and gone away at that time if Old Ball had been the master," said Bob.

"That's just it," said Jack; "that's the very reason why we ought to apologize."

"All right," said Bob, "I'll sign her," and he wrote "Robert M.

Holliday" in big letters at the top of the column intended for the names. Jack put his name under Bob's.

But when they got to the school-house it was not so easy to persuade the rest. At length, however, Johnny Meline signed it, and then Harry Weathervane, and then the rest, one after another, with some grumbling, wrote their names. All subscribed to it excepting Pewee and Ben Berry and Riley. They declared they never would sign it. They didn't want to be kept in at recess and after school like convicts. They didn't deserve it.

"Jack is a soft-headed fool," Riley said, "to draw up such a thing as that. I'm not afraid of the master. I'm not going to knuckle down to him, either."

Of course, Pewee, as a faithful echo, said just what Riley said, and Ben Berry said what Riley and Pewee said; so that the three were quite unanimous.

"Well," said Jack, "then we'll have to hand in our pet.i.tion without the signatures of the triplets."

"Don't you call me a triplet," said Pewee; "I've got as much sense as any of you. You're a soft-headed triplet yourself!"