That night Seger made his announcement: “Hereafter every scholar must obey my bell—and return to the schoolroom promptly. Those who do not will be whipped.”
The children looked at him as if he had gone crazy.
He went on: “Go home and tell your people. Ask them to think it over—but remember to be here at sunset, and after this every bell must be obeyed instantly.”
The children ran at once to the camp, and the news spread like some invisible vapor, and soon every soul in the entire agency, red and white alike, was athrill with excitement. The half-breeds (notoriously timorous) hastened to warn the intrepid schoolmaster: “Don’t do that. They will kill you.” The old scouts and squaw-men followed: “Young feller, you couldn’t dig out of the box a nastier job—you better drop it right now and skip.”
“I am going to have discipline,” said Seger, “or tan the jacket of every boy I’ve got.”
Soon after this he met Tomacham and Tontonava, both men of great influence. After greeting him courteously Tomacham said:
“I hear that you said you were going to whip our children. Is this true?”
“It is!” answered Seger, curtly.
“That is very wrong and very foolish,” argued Tontonava. “We did not give our children into your care to be smitten with rods as the soldiers whip mules.”