By the time the master came they were nearly all seated, though there was some bickering about seats, that was not settled but by an appeal to him, and some trading for seats among the boys themselves.
The majority of the boys had quills for pens, plucked from their parents’ geese.
Nat Witham,—a disagreeable lad, whom the boys had nicknamed Chuck,—sat in the seat before James; his hands were covered with great seed-warts that he was always pricking, and endeavoring to put the blood on the hands of the smaller children, to make them have warts, and pulling the hair of the children before him. He got more whippings than any boy in school, and deserved more than he got.
Bertie and Arthur Nevins gave this boy a Dutch quill each, to change seats with Stillman Russell, a good scholar, and a boy whom they all liked. Having thus successfully carried out all their plans, the Whitmans and Edibeans flattered themselves that they had arranged matters satisfactorily for their own progress and comfort, and that of James during the school term, but they were destined to find that,—
“The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men
Gang aft a-glee.”
Great was the curiosity manifested, when the master called out the class to which James had been assigned, and told Bertie to hear them. You might have heard a pin drop. James was taller by a head than any boy in the school, and his classmates were children; they had attended a woman’s school in the summer, but it was two months’ previous; they had become rusty, and had to spell half their words. James, on the other hand, who had been over the lesson with Bertie the evening before and early that morning, read right along in a very low tone, but without hesitating a moment, greatly to the relief of Bertie, whose heart was in his mouth, for he was afraid James would not muster courage to hear the sound of his own voice.
It was no less a matter of surprise to the school, most of whom were ready to titter at seeing such a big fellow reading with little children.
When, in the afternoon, he came to write, and the master complimented him for the excellence of his writing, James took heart of grace and felt that the worst was over, and when he entered the house at night, Mrs. Whitman gathered from the expression of his face that all had gone well.
While Peter and James were doing up the chores at the barn, Bertie, who was bringing in the night’s wood, embraced the opportunity to unbosom himself to his mother.