“Crying? I wonder what’s the matter now? Well, it’s beyond me to keep track of anything in the shape of a woman. One moment they are up in the attic of ecstasy; the next, down in the cellar of despondency, as the Almanac says; and it is as true as if it had been written in the Apocrypha. I only said that it is a thousand pities that you were not a boy; then you could graft my trees for me, and hoe, and dig, and plant, and plough, and all that sort of thing. This puttering round, washing dishes a little, and mopping floors a little, and wringing out a few clothes, don’t amount to much toward supporting yourself. Let me see, you have had, since you came here”—and my uncle put on his spectacles, and pulled out a well-thumbed pocket memorandum—“You’ve had two pairs of shoes, at three shillings a pair, and nine yards of calico, for a dress, at six cents a yard. That ’mounts up, Hetty, ’mounts up. You see it costs something to keep you. I earned my money, and if you ever expect to have any, you must earn yours”—and my uncle took out his snuff-box, helped himself to a pinch, and, with the timely aid of a stray sunbeam, achieved a succession of very satisfactory sneezes.
The following day, under the overwhelming consciousness of my feminity and consequent good-for-nothingness, I made my debut at Master Grey’s school.
It was a huge barn of a room, ill lighted, ill warmed, and worse ventilated, crowded with pupils of both sexes, from the little, chubby A B C D-arian, to the gaunt Jonathan of thirty, who had begun to feel the need of a little ciphering and geography, in making out his accounts, or superscribing a business letter. There were rows of awkward, mop-headed, freckled, red-fisted boys; and rosy-cheeked, buxom lasses, bursting out of their dresses, half-shy, half-saucy, who were much more conversant with “apple bees,” and “husking frolics,” than with grammar or philosophy. There was the parson’s son, and the squire’s and the blacksmith’s son, besides a few who hadn’t the remotest idea whose sons they were, having originally been indentured to their farming masters, by the overseers of the county alms-house.
Amid these discordant elements, Master Grey moved as serenely as the August moon of a cloudless night; now patting some little curly head, cruelly perplexed by “crooked S;” now demonstrating to some slow, older brain, a stumbling block in Euclid; now closing the creaking door after an ill-mannered urchin; now overlooking the pot-hooks and trammels of an unsophisticated scribe, who clutched the pen as if it were a hoe-handle; now feeding the great, draftless Behemoth of a stove with green hickory knots, and vainly attempting to thaw out his own congealed fingers.
In a remote corner of the school-room sat Zeb Smith, the village blacksmith’s son, who came into the world with his fists doubled up, and had been pugilist-ing ever since. It was Zeb’s proud boast that “he had whipped every schoolmaster who had ever appeared in Frog-town,” and in his peaceful retreat from under his bent brows, he was now mentally taking the measure of Master Grey, ending his little reverie with a loud, protracted whistle.
Master Grey turned quickly round, and facing his overgrown pupil of thirty, said in a voice clear as the click of a pistol, “You will be pleased not to repeat that annoyance, Mr. Smith.” Zeb bent his gooseberry eyes full upon the master, and gave him a blast of “Yankee Doodle.”
All eyes were bent on Master Grey. The gauntlet of defiance was thrown in his very teeth. Zeb had a frame like an ox, and a fist like a sledge-hammer, and he knew it. Master Grey was slight, but panther-y; to their unscientific eyes, he was already victimized.
Not a bit of it! See! Master Grey’s delicate white fingers are on Zeb’s check shirt-collar; there is a momentary struggle: lips grow white; teeth are set; limbs twist, and writhe, and mingle, and now Zeb lies on the floor with Master Grey’s handsome foot on his brawny chest. Ah, Master Grey! science is sometimes a match for bone and muscle. Your boxing master, Monsieur Punchmellow, would have been proud of his pupil.
Peace restored, Master Grey shakes back from his broad forehead his curly locks, and summons the first class in geography. A row of country girls, round as little barrels and red as peonies, stand before him, their respect and admiration for “the master” having been increased ten per cent. by his victory over Zeb. Feminity pardons any thing in a man sooner than lack of courage. The recitation goes off very well, with the exception of Miss Betsey Jones, who persists in not reciting at all. Master Grey looks at her: he has conquered a man, but that’s no reason why he should suppose he can conquer a woman. He sees that written in very legible characters in Miss Bessie’s saucy black eye. Miss Bessy is sent to her seat, and warned to stay after school, till her lesson is learned and recited perfectly. With admirable nonchalance, she takes her own time to obey, and commences drawing little caricatures of the master, which she places in her shoe, and passes round under the desk, to her more demure petticoat neighbors.