The next morning, Clinton having expressed some curiosity to see how a Boston school was managed, he was invited by his cousin to accompany him as a visitor, and he concluded to do so. Reaching the schoolhouse a little before the hour of commencement, they stood in the yard, watching the movements of the merry groups around them, when a large, ill-favored boy cried out:
“There comes that big dunce that’s down in the fourth class! Let’s poke some fun at him, boys. What’s his name?—does any body know? No matter, we’ll call him Donkey,—ha! ha! Let’s give him that for a nickname! Don’t you call him anything else,—will you, boys?”
“Good!—his name shall be Donkey!” said another boy; and several others seconded the motion, while one or two began to shout “Donkey! Hallo, Donkey!” to the unsuspecting butt of their sport.
Whistler, perceiving how matters were tending, now stepped forward, and said:
“Don’t you do it, boys! It’s too bad to twit a fellow for what he can’t help. That boy has been sick all his lifetime, and couldn’t go to school, and that’s the reason he’s in the lowest class.”
“That’s all gammon!” retorted the boy who proposed the nickname, and whose name was Nathan Clapp. “Bill Davenport has a natural sympathy for dunces,—he doesn’t want much of being one himself. You know he tried to get into the High School, the other day, and they wouldn’t take him, and he had to come back here again. Let him stick up for Donkey, if he wants to; it’s natural for him to stand up for his own breed!”
“If I’m a dunce, I should like to know what you are?” exclaimed Whistler, his eye flashing with anger.
“I wasn’t such a big fool as to try to get into the High School, at any rate!” replied Nathan.
“Don’t say anything more to him,—he isn’t worth noticing,” whispered Clinton in the ear of his cousin; and the latter wisely heeded the advice, and suppressed the angry retort which was trembling upon his lips.
“Can’t say anything more, can you? Well, I think you had better shut up!” continued the other boy; and then, turning to the lad in whose behalf Whistler had interfered, and who had now entered the yard, he continued, “Hallo, Donkey! how d’ ye do? Got your lesson, hey? Let’s hear you say your a, b, c’s. There, Donkey,”—snatching the book from under his arm, and pointing to a line,—“what letter’s that? Don’t you know, hey? Can’t you speak, you dunce? Come, talk up like a little man! nobody will hurt you. What’s that letter, hey?”