The Black Forge Mills

by William P. Chipman

RAY IN HIS SCHOOL LIFE.

Away up at the extreme end of the Parade, and commanding an extensive view of the town and bay, stood the Afton Graded School building. Four stories high, solid, square, substantial was the structure, and through its spacious doors passed daily five or six hundred pupils. Eight departments occupied its pleasant rooms, ranging from primary up to senior, the latter department being a grade higher than the grammar, and yet hardly advanced enough to be called academic. The scholars ranged from the five-year-old beginners to youths of sixteen or seventeen, and were of both sexes.

Mr. Greenough, the principal, was a kind-hearted, just man, a good disciplinarian, and an excellent teacher. For some years now he had been in charge of the school, and under his management it had reached a degree of success never experienced before. Admission to the school, especially in the higher departments, had been eagerly sought for by scholars who lived far beyond the limits of the corporation; and the town authorities, under certain restrictions and for an ample tuition, had consented that a limited number of outsiders should be admitted. It was under this provision that Ray Branford had the September before entered the school.

But as soon as Mr. Greenough learned that the lad's residence at Long Point Farm was but a temporary one, and that his legal home was still that of his father at Black Forge, he had decided that he was within the corporation limits, and was therefore entitled to free tuition at the school, and to all of its privileges. In this opinion the school board of the town had concurred; and so, with that understanding among all the interested parties, his name had been put on the regular roll of the corporation scholars.

The room occupied by the senior department was on the second floor of the building, and on the south side. The next lower grade, the grammar, occupied the same room also, and the two departments came directly under the care of Mr. Greenough and his two assistants. Consequently, in this room alone, there were nearly one hundred pupils, whose ages ran from twelve to seventeen.

Into this room on the Monday morning after Thanksgiving Ray came for the first time as a scholar. There was a novelty to him in his surroundings, and for a time he felt that every pair of eyes in the room was turned curiously upon him. He could not appear at ease, and evinced an awkwardness quite contrary to his usual, calm self-possession. He also found it difficult at first to study among so many, and it was well for him that the lessons for the day had been already thoroughly prepared.

In his own immediate class he found some strangers, but the greater part were already old acquaintances; for it happened that Edward Lawton, the son of the president of the Forge Mills, John Bacon, the son of the superintendent, and all the other lads of Miss Squire's Sunday-school class were in the senior grade at the public school. For the most part, too, they gave Ray a cordial welcome—in fact, the only exception was Edward Lawton. He had never been quite reconciled to Ray's position in the class at the Bible school, and he now manifested a similar resentment at Ray's entrance to the senior grade. This resentment, for reasons which will soon appear, steadily increased, and became open dislike before the term closed.

Doubtless the first cause of his resentment had been simply Ray's humble position. He knew his own father was rich, and held a position of influence not only in the town, but throughout the State. This had led him to assume aristocratic airs toward Ray. He continually spoke of him as "one of my father's mill hands," or as "that fellow from the Forge," as though honest toil could belittle the man or his soul. After Ray's triumphant acquittal, he had seemed to accept the inevitable, and treated him with an air of sufferance, if not of courtesy. Possibly this would have continued to have been his attitude toward him in the school, had not a circumstance occurred soon after the opening of the term which brought Ray unconsciously into what Lawton called "a direct antagonism with himself," and thus the old feeling of resentment was not only re-aroused, but was intensified. At the close of school one day, Mr. Greenough detained the scholars for a few minutes to make, what he called, an important announcement.

"It is generally known to the scholars of the town," he said, "that at the end of the year the school board presents a silver medal to the scholar graduating with the highest rank. But it may not be as generally understood that this medal can be won only by a scholar belonging within the corporation limits, and even then it must be a scholar whose name has been on the school register for the entire school year. In other words, whatever rank an outside scholar may hold, or whatever the rank one may attain who has entered during the school year, the fact that one is without the corporation, and that the other has not been on the school roll for the whole year, will debar each from receiving this honor.

"But the school board, finding that so many have entered the school this term under one or the other of these restrictions, has decided to give them an opportunity to win at least one distinction, and has requested me to announce that a set of Shakespeare's works, bound in morocco and valued at ten dollars, will be given to that scholar of the senior class, without regard to the time he entered the school, or the place where he may reside, who, in the judgment of the examining committee, shall show the most marked improvement in his studies, the highest average scholarship, and the most perfect deportment. There is but one exception to this competition: the scholar on the corporation roll, who wins the silver medal, cannot also receive the second prize; that must go to the one who ranks next to him, if it should be found that he, in the judgment of the committee, would otherwise have been entitled to it. Here is now a chance for distinction open alike to all, and I trust that there will be such an incentive to all to try for it that a higher excellence will be manifest in our studies, and thus the wisdom of the board in offering the prize be completely vindicated."