For a minute the boys feigned not to see me, and played the harder, trying to drown my cries in their yells to the runners on the bases. But the girls took up my call and came trooping schoolward. The little boys began to break away, and soon the school resounded with the shuffle of feet, the clatter of empty dinner pails, and the banging of desk tops.
"It's books, William; hurry," I cried to the last laggard.
I knew this boy well. He was the biggest in the school, and to hold his position among his fellows he had to defy me. As long as I watched him, he must lag. The louder I called, the deafer he must seem to be. His post was hemmed around by tradition. It was his by divine right, and it involved on its holder duties sometimes onerous, often dangerous; but for him to abate one iota of his privileges would be a reflection on his predecessors, an injustice to his heirs. It would mean scholastic revolution. He knew that I must yell at him. My position also was hemmed about by tradition. To appear not to fear the biggest boy was one of the chief duties of a successful pedagogue. We understood each other. So I yelled once more and closed the window. The moment my back was turned he ran for the door.
"It is," Daniel Arker was shouting.
"It ain't," Samuel Carter retorted, sticking out his tongue.
"Boys, be quiet!" I commanded.
"He said his eye was swole worse 'an mine oncet," cried Daniel.
His good eye was blazing, his shoulders were squared back, and his fists were clenched. There was no sign of a snuffle about him now. Heaven, but he looked fine! All this time I had wronged Daniel. I had only known him as he crawled to me broken and bruised after the conflict. I had never known the odds he had encountered, for when I questioned him he just snuffled. Now I saw him before the battle, ready to defend his honor against a lad of more than his years and size, and the wickedest fighter in the school. I believed that had I let him loose there he would have whipped. But one in my position is hemmed in by tradition, so in my private capacity I was patting the boy's head with the same motion that I used in my public capacity to push him into his seat, while with a crutch I made a feint at Samuel that sent him scurrying to his place.
The biggest boy in the school sauntered in. He carefully upset three dinner pails from the shelves in the rear as he hung up his hat. I reprimanded him most severely, but I finished my lecture before he had replaced the cans. Then he shuffled to his place and got out a book as a sign that school might begin.
Now, I always liked that biggest boy. He knew his position so well. He knew just how far it was proper for him to go, and never once did he overstep those bounds. He held the respect and fear of his juniors without making any open breach with the teacher. But in one way William Bellus had been peculiarly favored. His predecessors had to deal with Perry Thomas, and in spite of his gentle ways and intellectual cast, Perry is active and wiry. He is a blacksmith by trade, and is the leading tenor in the Methodist choir. This makes a combination that for staying powers has few equals. My biggest boy's predecessor had been utterly broken. Even the girls jeered at him until he quit school entirely. But William had another problem. It was the disappointment of his life that Perry Thomas retired just as he came into power. He had declared at a mass-meeting behind the woodshed that it was a gross injustice on the part of the directors to put a crippled teacher in charge of the school. Where now was glory to be gained? They would have a school-ma'am next, like they done up to Popolomus, and none but little boys, and girls not yet out of plaits, would be so servile as to suffer such domination. Mark Hope, the soldier, he honored! Mark Hope, the veteran, he revered! Mark Hope, the teacher, he despised; for his crutches made him a safe barricade against which no Biggest Boy with a spark of honor would dare to hurl himself. There might be in the school boys base enough to charge that he lacked spirit in his attitude of armed neutrality. Let those traducers step forward, whether they be two or a dozen. What would follow, the Biggest Boy did not say; but he had pulled off his coat, and there was none to dispute him. His position was established. Thereafter he assumed toward me a calm indifference. He was never openly offensive. He always kept within certain carefully laid bounds of supercilious politeness. At first he was exasperating, and I longed to have him forget himself and overstep those bounds, that I might make up for his disappointment in being cheated out of Perry Thomas. But he never did.