Lewie; Or, The Bended Twig

by Sarah H. Bradford

“Oh, Agnes,” said she, “who will be the friend to me that you have been? Who will drag me out with such relentless cruelty?” and here she smiled sadly through her tears, “through rain and sunshine, heat and cold; I am afraid I shall be as bad as ever, for my walks will be so dull without you.”

But Agnes told her she hoped she had now received sufficient benefit from her regular exercise, to be willing to make a little sacrifice, and obtained from her a solemn promise that she would continue the course they had so long pursued together.

Agnes had employed herself most perseveringly while at Mrs. Arlington’s school, in becoming thoroughly acquainted with various branches of education and accomplishments, being fully determined in her own mind no longer to be a burden to her uncle, but to use the means he was so kindly putting into her hands, in enabling her to gain her own support hereafter. But she had no sooner left the school than other duties claimed her attention, as will presently be seen.

XII.
Lewie at School.

“The child is father of the man.”—WORDSWORTH.

Had our friend Lewie heard Mr. Malcolm’s prediction relative to his school experiences, he would have had reason to think him a true prophet. He came into the school and the play-ground with the same ideas which had been predominant with him ever since his baby-hood; and though he did not, as then, continually say the words, his actions proclaimed as loudly, “Lewie must have his own way!—Lewie must not be crossed!” He found his school companions not quite so complying as his indulgent mother, and those over whom she had control; and before he had been long in the school, he was known by the various names of “Dictator-General,” “First Consul,” “Great Mogul,” &c., and with these epithets he was greeted whenever he put on any of his dictatorial airs.

These constant insults and impertinences, as he called them, irritated his ungoverned spirit, and in consequence many a school-mate measured his length upon the ground in the most sudden manner, and innumerable were the fights and “rows” which were the result. The presence of Lewie seemed everywhere the signal of contention and strife, where all had been heretofore, with very few exceptions, harmony and peace; and yet, but for his hasty and impatient temper, Lewie might have been an unparalleled favorite among his schoolmates. In the still summer evenings, when he took his guitar, and sat upon the steps of the portico, the boys would crowd around him, and listen in breathless silence to his sweet music. As long as his own inclinations were not crossed or interfered with, a more agreeable companion could not be found. He had the frank, open manners, which are not seldom joined with a quick temper, and in many things he showed a noble, generous disposition; but as soon as the wishes of others in their sports and recreations came in conflict with his own, his terrible passion was roused at once, and carried all before it. Many were the complaints which he carried to his mother of insult and ill-treatment; and before he had been six months at Dr. Hamilton’s school, he was urging her to allow him to remove to another of which he had heard, and where he fancied he should be more happy. Mrs. Elwyn’s health was not as firm as it once was; she was becoming weak and nervous, and dreaded change, and endeavored to pacify her son, and to persuade him to remain at Dr. Hamilton’s school. No doubt he would have effected his object by teazing, but it was accomplished in another way.

There are boys to be found in every large school who delight in playing practical jokes, and in teazing and tormenting those who are susceptible of annoyance in this way. There was a large, stout boy in Dr. Hamilton’s school, of the name of Colton, a great bully and teaze, whose delight it seemed to be to torment and put into a passion one so fiery as our little hero, feeling safe from the only kind of retaliation which could injure him, as he was so much the stoutest and strongest of the two. This boy soon found that there was one point upon which Lewie was peculiarly sensitive, and the slightest allusion to which would call the red blood to his face. This was the fact of his being accompanied by his mother when he came to the school, and her having taken board in the village, that she might be near him as long as he was there. Lewie had remonstrated with his mother, when she proposed accompanying him, and had urged her to accept his Uncle Wharton’s invitation to make his house her home. He was just at that age when boys love to appear independent and manly, and able to take care of themselves; and he had hoped that he should be allowed to go alone to school, as many of the other boys did, or perhaps to accompany his uncle and cousins. But to be taken there under the care of a woman, and to have her remain near him, as if he could not take care of himself! Lewie thought this a most humiliating state of things. But for once his mother was firm. It would be like severing her heart-strings, to separate her from her darling son; and wherever he went, she must go as long as she lived. This ingratitude on the part of Lewie and evident desire to rid himself of her company, after so many years spent in devotion to his slightest wishes, wore upon her spirits, and was one cause, perhaps the principal one, of her nervous depression, and consequent ill health.

As soon as Colton understood the state of Lewie’s feelings on this tender point, and noticed How his cheeks would flush with passion whenever the subject was mentioned, he took advantage of it to harass and enrage him, renewing the subject most unmercifully at every convenient opportunity. Thus, whenever, in their sports, Lewie took upon himself to dictate, in his authoritative way, Colton would ask the boys if they were going to be governed by a baby who had not yet broken loose from his mother’s apron-strings; and when Lewie could no longer restrain his passion, and began to show signs of becoming pugnacious, Colton would advise him to “run to mother,” to be petted and soothed.

For sometime prudence restrained Lewie from making an attack upon this boy, so much larger and stronger than himself, for he was almost certain that he would get the worst of it in an encounter with him. But one day when Colton was more aggravating than ever, Lewie suddenly lost all command of himself, and flew at him in a most fearful storm of rage, and with all the might of his passion concentrated in one blow, he dashed the great boy against a tree; and after he was down, and lying insensible, with his head cut and bleeding, Lewie could scarcely be restrained, by the united strength of those about him, from rushing upon his senseless body, and by renewed blows continuing to injure him.