One day he was making a gate, and having lined some boards, set James to split them up with a ripping saw, and after he had finished, said,—
“You have split those boards as true as I could have split them, and cut the chalk mark right out. If I had set either of our boys to splitting them, the line would have been left sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, and they’d have been sawed bevelling, and wider on one side than the other.”
He then laid out some mortises, and set James to boring and beating them out with mallet and chisel, and then to planing the slats, after which he said,—“James, I see you have a mechanical eye and a natural turn to handle tools. I knew that before by your chopping. I advise you to cultivate it, because it will give you a means to earn your bread. I’m most always here stormy days in the winter, come in and practise with the tools, and I’ll show you. If, as I trust you will, you should have a piece of land, it will be a great thing in a new settlement to be able to handle tools.”
Scarcely had the old gentleman and James left the shop, than Peter, Bertie, and the Edibeans came in, replenished the fire to heat the chimney, and taking some skins from the wagon, ascended to the loft above, and seated themselves for consultation, evidently with something of great weight upon their minds.
“The fact is,” said Peter, “school begins in two days. James is going, father says so. How he’ll look, great big creature, bigger than the master,—yes, he could take the master and fling him over his head,—standing up to read and spell with little tots not up to his knees. I don’t believe he’ll be able to get a word out.”
“That’s not the worst of it,” said John Edibean, “perhaps some of ‘em will laugh because he’s a redemptioner, Sammy Parsons called Mr. Wood’s man an old redemptioner, and the man flung a stone at him and hurt him awfully.”
The master, Walter Conly, was a farmer’s son, living two miles distant, and the boys knew him well, as he had kept the school the winter previous.
“Let us do this,” said Willie, “Walter Conly is a nice man; we’ll go over there this evening, tell him all about James, how fast he learns and how hard we’ve been trying to help him, and ask him if he won’t hear him read by himself, and not put him in a class with little children.”
“So we will,” said Bertie, “he’s going to board round, and I’ll ask father to tell him to come to our house first and get him to send a note by me, and then James will get acquainted with him. We’ll call you the minute we get our supper.”
Mr. Conly, a young man of nineteen, who labored on his father’s farm in the summer and taught school in the winter, and under the instruction of the minister was fitting for college, received this deputation of his best scholars with great cordiality. He listened to their story with great interest, and expressed his gratification at the spirit they had manifested, and the efforts they had put forth to benefit James, but told them that he would improve much faster to be in a class than to recite by himself, as there would be more stimulus, though he might be subjected to some mortification at first.