"Then tell him you been saying what you heard Agency man say to horses; but you don't know what those words mean, maybe they're swear words, you don't know."
Gray-beard went up to his room, followed by William T. Sherman, who for the first time entered that apartment. Boys who committed serious offences were disciplined in that place. I was taken there for fighting Andrew Johnson; Brush took his punishment there when he nearly cut Jonathan's ear off with a wooden sword. Most of us had had peculiar experiences in that room.
William T. Sherman had come to us direct from a tent; our bare school-room and play-room were all that he had seen of the furnishings of a civilized dwelling, so when he was suddenly ushered into Gray-beard's room he was quite dazzled by the bright draperies, pictures, and the polished furniture. He stood with hands in his pockets, mouth and eyes wide-open staring at the things, although twice requested by his host to sit down.
William timidly took the chair assigned him. It rocked backwards, and up went his feet; he clutched wildly at the arms, and the chair rocked forward; he got his footing, then sat perfectly still, fearing the chair would fall over with him.
Gray-beard took a seat facing the boy, and began to question him, "I was told that you had been swearing; is it true?"
Bewilderment at new sights, and the flight of the rocking-chair had put Brush's promptings out of Sherman's head, and in his confusion he answered, "Yes, sir—ma'am."
"It is wicked to swear, and you must be taught to know that it is. Now say what I say," and Gray-beard repeated the third commandment, until Sherman could say it without assistance, and then bade him to keep on until told to stop.
Poor William sat in the treacherous rocking-chair repeating this commandment, while Gray-beard wrote at his desk. William might as well have sat there imitating the cry of some animal or bird, for his mind was not dwelling upon the words he was uttering, but following his eyes as they moved from one strange object to another,—the pictures, the gilt frames, the sea shells, the clock on the mantelpiece, then something hanging near the window absorbed his attention, and his tongue and lips ceased to move as he drew with his finger on his knee the figure 1, adding to it a number of aughts. Gray-beard noted the pause, and said, "Go on, William, don't stop." After some little prompting, the boy resumed, but his finger kept moving, making the figure 1 and a string of aughts after it.
When Gray-beard and William T. Sherman left the school-room, Brush and I and the rest of the five went toward the spring and sat under the large elm. Brush lay down on the grass and read a book he had borrowed from the superintendent, while the rest of us talked.
"I'd like to see that boy who told on William T. Sherman; I'd give him a licking," said Warren.