Full of these dreams, he went on, stopping at the post office to send, as he supposed, his letter to Henry.
Time wore away, and the hour for the “essays” to be read, came at last. Teacher Meadows took his seat, and they were laid on the desk before him. Good man, he himself would read them all, lest the “composers” should not do themselves justice.
Only a dozen or so had competed for the prize, but all these had done their best, and the handwriting was so plain that it was a pleasure to read it.
A few of the competitors’ parents and “well-wishers” were present, “to see justice done to all,” as they pleasantly put it. But they served only to increase the master’s pompousness and self-esteem, and the “essayists’” bashfulness and inquietude; while they themselves were surely neither very much instructed nor very much delighted.
In fact, the truth was probably forced home to the more intelligent of the audience, that schoolboys and schoolgirls who would soar to the pinnacle of fame by attempting to write beyond their capabilities, generally find themselves floundering about in the slough of ignominious failure.
Mr. Meadows certainly read the different compositions with great care and earnestness, and took as much pains with the worthless ones as with the tolerably good ones.
By some chance, Will’s was the last to be read, and dead silence was observed till it was finished.
Whenever a new idea had struck the boy, he had set it down without the slightest regard to consecutiveness; and if the same idea was afterwards seen in a different light, he had promptly expressed his views, though in the midst of a paragraph.
A mere handful of words had been sufficient for him on this occasion, and these were repeated with unwearied persistency. A schoolboy writing a letter excels in repetition, at least.
If either Mr. or Mrs. Lawrence had reviewed it for him it would not have been so incomprehensible.