you tucked the bundle under your arm and marched out of the room, with
as much majesty as could be made to comport with a chip hat and bare
feet; and as you passed the teacher you gave a twist of the head that
was meant to carry dismay to the heart of your enemy. I note all these
particulars carefully, so as to show the boys of the present day what
fools the boys of the past were; though I think they will hardly believe
it. My boy was once that kind of fool; but not twice. He left school
with all his things at twelve o'clock, and he returned with them at one;
for his father and mother did not agree with him about the teacher's
behavior in putting him back. No boy's father and mother agreed with him
on this point; every boy returned in just the same way; but somehow the
insult had been wiped out by the mere act of self-assertion, and a boy
kept his standing in the world as he could never have done if he had not
left school when he was put back.
The Hydraulic ran alongside of the Academy, and at recess the boys had a
good deal of fun with it, one way and another, sailing shingles with
stones on them, and watching them go under one end of the culvert and
come out of the other, or simply throwing rocks into the water. It does
not seem very exciting when you tell of it, but it really was exciting;
though it was not so exciting as to go down to the mills, where the
Hydraulic plunged over that great wheel into the Miami. A foot-bridge
crossed it that you could jump up and down on and almost make touch the
water, and there were happier boys, who did not go to school, fishing
there with men who had never gone. Sometimes the schoolboys ventured
inside of the flour-mill and the iron-foundry, but I do not think this
was often permitted; and, after all, the great thing was to rush over to
the river-bank, all the boys and girls together, and play with the
flutter-mills till the bell rang. The market-house was not far off, and
they went there sometimes when it was not market-day, and played among
the stalls; and once a girl caught her hand on a meat-hook. My boy had a
vision of her hanging from it; but this was probably one of those grisly
fancies that were always haunting him, and no fact at all. The bridge
was close by the market-house, but for some reason or no reason the
children never played in the bridge. Perhaps the toll-house man would
not let them; my boy stood in dread of the toll-house man; he seemed to
have such a severe way of taking the money from the teamsters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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