The next week the master set James copies in fine hand, and also copies of capital letters; and he began to learn at home, and recite to Bertie, the multiplication table, that was, in those days, printed on the covers of the writing-books. The next week the master gave him short sentences to copy, and wound up the week’s work on Saturday, with setting him for a copy of his own name and that of his mother before her marriage. James was so much delighted with this as to overcome his usual diffidence, and show it to Mr. Whitman.
When school was half done, Mr. Conly put James into the class with Bertie, who no longer instructed James in reading, spelling, or writing at home, as the latter could read nearly as well as his former teacher; and write much better than any boy in the school, or even the master.
The afternoon of Saturday was a half-holiday and stormy; the old gentleman had a fire and was at work in the shop. Mr. Whitman having broken a whiffletree in the course of the week, laid the broken article on the bench, intending to mend it. James saw it, made a new one by it, and put the irons of the old one on the ends. About the middle of the afternoon, Mr. Whitman bethought himself of the whiffletree, and going to the shop, found the remains of it on the bench, and a new one lying beside it.
“Father, did you make this whiffletree?”
“No, Jonathan; your redemptioner made it.”
Mr. Whitman made no remark, but his father noticed that afterwards, on stormy days, he but seldom gave James any indoor work, but seemed well content to have him work in the shop with his father, who in the course of the winter and spring taught him to dovetail, hew with a broad axe, and saw with a whipsaw.
Although Peter, Bertie, and their friends, had taken such unwearied pains, and exhausted their ingenuity, to render the position of James at school both pleasant and profitable, circumstances conspired to render their efforts, to a great extent, and for some time, abortive.
Children hear all that is said in the family, and often much more than it is meant, or desirable, they should.
Many of the boys at the other extremity of the district, had seen James while Wilson had him at the tavern. They had many of them heard disparaging remarks made by their parents and brothers at home. Some of them had listened to the talk in the public-house by their elders respecting him, and imbibed the tone of feeling in the neighborhood that was in general hostile to redemptioners, and were thus prejudiced against him, even before he came to school. The parents of some of the largest scholars were, in politics, the opposite of the Whitmans, and they had heard their parents say that no doubt Jonathan Whitman took that ragamuffin to train him up to vote as he wanted him to, and then would get him naturalized. This feeling of prejudice would have probably worn off, if James had been less reserved, and had joined with the rest in the horse-plays that were ever going on at recess and between schools.
James, however, did not know how to play; sport and amusement were to him terms without signification. The only things he could do that boys generally practise were to shoot, swim, and throw stones. He could shoot indifferently well, swim like a fish, and could kill a bird or a squirrel with a stone.