Tommy Remington's Battle

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

“Will that be enough?” he asked anxiously.

The quick tears sprang to her eyes as she pressed the bank back into his hands.

“No, no,” she protested. “You won’t need any books at all at first, for I will write your lessons on the blackboard yonder. After that, I have plenty of books here that you can use. Keep the money, and we’ll find a better way to spend it.”

He looked at her doubtfully.

“A better way?” he repeated, as though it seemed impossible there could be a better way.

“Yes. You’ll see. You’ll want something besides mere school-books before long. Put your bank in your pocket,” she added. “Here come the other children.”

He put it back reluctantly, and in a few minutes had made the acquaintance of the dozen children which were all that Miss Andrews had been able to bring together. Most of them belonged to the more important families of the neighborhood. Tommy, of course, had never before associated with them, and he felt strangely awkward and embarrassed in their presence. He reflected inwardly, however, that he could undoubtedly whip the biggest boy in the crowd in fair fight; but all the reassurance that came from his physical strength was presently taken out of him when he heard some of them, much younger than himself, reading with more or less glibness from their books.

He himself had his first struggle with the alphabet, and before the hour ended had mastered some dozen letters. He rejoiced when he learned that there were only twenty-six, but his heart fell again when he found that each of them had two forms, a written and a printed form, and that there were two variations of each form, capitals and small letters. Between these he was, as yet, unable to trace any resemblance or connection; but he kept manfully at work, attacking each new letter much as a great general attacks each division of the enemy’s army, until he has overcome them all. And it is safe to say that no general ever felt a greater joy in his conquests.

It is not an easy thing for a boy totally unused to study to undertake a task like this, and more than once he found his attention wandering from the board before him, where the various letters were set down. He wondered how his father was getting along at the mine without him; he caught himself gazing through the window at the cows on the hillside opposite; he had an impulse to run to the door and watch the New York express whirl by. The hum of the children about him, reciting to the teacher or conning their lessons at their desks, set his head to nodding; but he sat erect again heroically, rubbed his eyes, and went back to his task. The teacher was watching him, and smiled to herself with pleasure at this sign of his earnestness.

I think the greatest lesson he learned that morning—the lesson, indeed, which it is the end of all education to teach—was the value of concentration, of keeping his mind on the work in hand. The power he had not yet acquired, of course,—very few people, and they only great ones, ever do acquire it completely,—yet he made a long stride forward, and when at last noon came and school was dismissed, he started homeward with the feeling that he had won a victory.