The Book of the Bush - George Dunderdale (life books to read txt) 📗

whisper said to us: "Ain't he getting on finely? He'll be all right again to-morrow, please God."

"And didn't the doctor say I'd be dead before twelve this day?" asked Harrigan.

I looked at the clock on the mantelshelf. It was past ten. He died an hour later.

One day the young man from Vermont rose from his seat and looked at me across the schoolroom. I thought he was going to say something. He took down his hat, went to the door, turned and looked at me again, but he did not speak or make any sign. Next morning his place was vacant, and I asked one of the boys if he had seen the young man. The boy said:

"He ain't a-coming to school no more, I calkilate. He was buried this morning before school hours."

That year, '49 was a dismal year in Joliet.

Mr. Rogers, one of the school managers, came and sat on a bench near the door. He was a New Englander, a carpenter, round-shouldered, tall and bony. He said:

"I called in to tell you that I can't vote for appinting you to this school next term. Fact is the ladies are dead against you; don't see you at meeting on the Sabbath; say you go to the Catholic Church with the Irish and Dutch. I a'n't a word to say agen you myself. This is a free country; every man can go, for aught I care, whichever way he darn chooses-to heaven, or hell, or any other place. But I want to be peaceable, and I can't get no peace about voting for you next term, so I thought I'd let you know, that you mightn't be disappointed."

In that way Mr. Rogers washed his hands of me. I said I was sorry I did not please the ladies, but I liked to hear a man who spoke his mind freely.

Soon afterwards the Germans brought me word that the Yankees were calling a meeting about me. I was aware by this time that when a special gathering of citizens takes place to discuss the demerits of any individual, it is advisable for that individual to be absent if possible; but curiosity was strong within me; hitherto I had never been honoured with any public notice whatever, and I attended the meeting uninvited.

The Yankees are excellent orators; they are born without bashfulness; they are taught to speak pieces in school from their childhood; they pronounce each word distinctly; they use correctly the rising inflection and the falling inflection. Moreover, they are always in deadly earnest; there is another miserable world awaiting their arrival. Their humorists are the most unhappy of men. You may smile when you read their jokes, but when you see the jokers you are more inclined to weep. With pain and sorrow they grind, like Samson, at the jokers' mill all the days of their lives.

The meeting was held in the new two-storey school-house.

Deacon Beaumont took the chair-my chair-and Mr Curtis was appointed secretary. I began to hate Deacon Beaumont, as also Mr. Curtis, who was the only other teacher present; it was evident they were going to put him in my place.

Each speaker on rising put his left hand in the side pocket of his pants. I was not mentioned by name, but nevertheless I was given clearly to understand that I had been reared in a land whose people are under the dominion of a tyrannical monarch and a bloated aristocracy; that therefore I had never breathed the pure air of freedom, and was unfitted to teach the children of the Great Republic.

Mr. Tucker, an influential citizen, moved finally that the school managers be instructed to engage a Mr. Sellars, of Dresden, as teacher at the West Joliet School. He said Mr. Sellars was a young man from New England who had been teaching for a term at Dresden, and had given great satisfaction. He had the best testimony to the character and ability of the young man from his own daughter, Miss Priscilla Tucker, who had been school marm in the same school, and was now home on a visit. She could give, from her own personal knowledge, any information the managers might require.

Mr. Tucker's motion was seconded. There was no amendment proposed, and all in favour of the motion were requested by Deacon Beaumont to stand up. The Yankees all rose to their feet, the others sat still, all but old Gorges, a Prussian, who, with his two sons, had come to vote for me. But the old man did not understand English. His son John pulled him down, but Deacon Beaumont had counted his vote, and the motion was carried by a majority of one. So I was, in fact, put out of the school by my best friend, old Gorges.

I went away in a dudgeon and marked off a cellar on my real estate, 30 feet by 18 feet, on the top of the bluff, near the edge of the western prairie. The ground was a mixture of stiff clay and limestone rock, and I dug at it all through the month of September. Curious people came along and made various remarks; some said nothing, but went away whistling. One day Mr. Jackson and Paul Duffendorff were passing by, and I wanted them to pass, but they stopped like the rest. Mr. Jackson was reckoned one of the smartest men in Will county. He had a large farm, well stocked, but he was never known to do any work except with his brains. He was one of those men who increased the income of the State of Illinois by ability. Duffendorf was a huge Dutchman, nearly seven feet in height. He was a great friend of mine, great every way, but very stupid; he had no sense of refinement. He said:

"Ve gates, schoolmeister? Py golly! Here, Mr. Shackson, is our schoolmeister a vurkin mit spade and bick. How vas you like dat kind of vurk, Mr. Shackson?"

"Never could be such a darned fool; sooner steal," answered Jackson.

Duffendorf laughed until he nearly fell into the cellar. Now this talk was very offensive. I knew Mr. Jackson was defendant in a case then pending. He had been charged with conspiring to defraud; with having stolen three horses; with illegally detaining seventy-five dollars; and on other counts which I cannot remember just now. The thing was originally very simple, even Duffendorff could understand it.

Mr. Jackson was in want of some ready money, so he directed his hired man to steal three of his horses in the dead of night, take them to Chicago, sell them to the highest bidder, find out where the highest bidder lived, and then return with the cash to Joliet. The hired man did his part of the business faithfully, returned and reported to his employer. Then Mr. Jackson set out in search of his stolen horses, found them, and brought them home. The man expected to receive half the profits of the enterprise. The boss demurred, and only offered one-third, and said if that was not satisfactory he would bring a charge of horse-stealing. The case went into court, and under the treatment of learned counsel grew very complicated. It was remarkable as being the only one on record in Will county in which a man had made money by stealing his own horses. It is, I fancy, still 'sub judice'.

Both the old school and the new school remained closed even after the cholera ceased to thin out the citizens, but I felt no further interest in the education of youth. When winter came I tramped three miles into the forest, and began to fell trees and split rails in order to fence in my suburban estate. For some time I carried a rifle, and besides various small game I shot two deer, but neither of them would wait for me to come up with them even after I had shot them; they took my two bullets away with them, and left me only a few drops of blood on the snow; then I left the rifle at home. For about four months the ground was covered with snow, and the cold was intense, but I continued splitting until the snakes came out to bask in the sun and warm themselves. I saw near a dead log eight coiled together, and I killed them all. The juice of the sugar maples began to run. I cut notches in the bark in the shape of a broad arrow, bored a hole at the point, inserted a short spout of bark, and on sunny mornings the juice flowed in a regular stream, clear and sparkling; on cloudy days it only dropped.

One evening as I was plodding my weary way homeward, I looked up and saw in the distance a man inspecting my cellar. I said, "Here's another disgusting fool who ain't seen it before." It certainly was a peculiar cellar, but not worth looking at so much. I hated the sight of it. It had no building over it, never was roofed in, and was sometimes full of snow.

The other fool proved to be Mr. Curtis, the teacher who had written the resolution of the meeting which voted me out of the school. He held out his hand, and I took it, but reluctantly, and under secret protest. I thought to myself, "This mine enemy has an axe to grind, or he would not be here. I'll be on my guard."

"I have been waiting for you some time," said Mr. Curtis. "I was told you were splitting rails in the forest, and would be home about sundown. I wanted to see you about opening school again. Mr. Rogers won't have anything to say to it, but the other two managers, Mr. Strong and Mr. Demmond, want to engage you and me, one to teach in the upper storey of the school, the other down below, and I came up to ask you to see them about it."

"How does it happen that Mr. Sellars has not come over from Dresden?" I said.

"Joliet is about the last place on this earth that Mr. Sellars will come to. Didn't you hear about him and Priscilla?" asked Mr. Curtis.

"No, I heard nothing since that meeting; only saw the school doors were closed every time I passed that way."

"Well, I am surprised. I thought everybody knew by this time, though we did not like to say much about it."

I began to feel interested. Mr. Curtis had something pleasant to tell me about the misfortunes of my enemies, so I listened attentively.

It was a tale of western love, and its course was no smoother in Illinois than in any less enlightened country of old Europe. Miss Priscilla reckoned she could hoe her own row. She and Mr. Sellars conducted the Common School at Dresden with great success and harmony. All went merry as a marriage bell, and the marriage was to come off by-and-by-so hoped Miss Priscilla. During the recess she took the teacher's arm, and they walked to and fro lovingly. All Dresden said it was to be a match, but at the end of the term Miss Priscilla returned