The Uncalled - Paul Laurence Dunbar (read aloud txt) 📗

nor--nor--the deceit to keep a smooth face when they 're a-laughin' all in their innards."

Miss Prime turned upon him in righteous wrath. "'Liphalet," she exclaimed, "I think it 's enough fur this child to struggle ag'inst natural sin, without encouragin' him by makin' excuses fur him."

"It ain't my intention nor my desire to set a bad example before nobody, especially the young lambs of the flock, but I ain't a-goin' to blame Freddie fur doin' what many another of us wanted to do."

"'Deed an' double, that is fine talk fur you, 'Liphalet Hodges! you a trustee of the church, an' been a class-leader, a-holdin' up fur sich onregenerate carryin's-on."

"I ain't a-holdin' up fur nothin', Miss Hester, 'ceptin' nature an' the very could n't-help-it-ness o' the thing altogether. I ain't a boy no more, by a good many years, but there 's times when I 've set under Dan'l Hastings's testimonies jest mortally cramped to laugh; an' ef it 's so with a man, how will it be with a pore innercent child? I ain't a-excusin' natural sin in nobody. It wa'n't so much Freddie's natural sin as it was Dan'l's natural funniness." And there was something very like a chuckle in 'Liphalet's throat.

"'Liphalet, the devil 's been puttin' fleas into yore ear, but I ain't a-goin' to let you argy me out o' none o' my settled convictions, although the Old Man 's put plenty of argyment into yore head. That 's his way o' capturin' a soul.--Walk on ahead, Frederick, an' don't be list'nin'. I 'll 'tend to yore case later on."

"It 's funny to me, Miss Hester, how it is that Christians know so much more about the devil's ways than they do about the Lord's. They 're allus a-sayin', 'the Lord moves in a mysterious way,' but they kin allus put their finger on the devil."

"'Liphalet Hodges, that 's a slur!"

"I ain't a-meanin' it as no slur, Miss Hester; but most Christians do seem to have a powerful fondness for the devil. I notice that they 're allus admirin' his work an' praisin' up his sharpness, an' they 'd be monstrous disappointed ef he did n't git as many souls as they expect."

"Well, after all the years that I 've been a-workin' in the church an' a-tryin' to let my light so shine before the world, I did n't think that you 'd be the one to throw out hints about my Christianity. But we all have our burdens to bear, an' I 'm a-goin' to bear mine the best I kin, an' do my dooty, whatever comes of it." And Miss Hester gave another sigh of injured rectitude.

"I see, Miss Hester, that you 're jest bent an' bound not to see what I mean, so I might as well go home."

"I think my mind ain't givin' way yit, an' I believe that I do understand plain words; but I ain't a-bearin' you no grudge. You 've spoke yore mind, an' it 's all right."

"But I hope there ain't no hard feelin's, after all these years."

"Oh, 'Liphalet, it ain't a part of even my pore weak religion to bear hard feelin's towards no one, no matter how they treat me. I 'm jest tryin' to bear my cross an' suffer fur the Lord's sake."

"But I hope I ain't a-givin' you no cross to bear. I 'ain't never doubted yore goodness or yore Christianity: I only thought that mebbe yore methods, yore methods--"

Miss Prime's lips were drawn into a line. She divided that line to say, "I know what the Scriptures say: 'If thy right hand offend thee'--"

"Hester, Hester!" he cried, stretching out his hands to her.

"Good-night, Brother Hodges. I must go in." She turned and left him standing at the gate with a hurt look in his face.

On going into the house, Miss Hester did not immediately 'tend to Fred, as she had promised. Instead, she left him and went into her own room where she remained awhile. When she came out, her lips were no less set, but her eyes were red. It is hardly to be supposed that she had been indulging in that solace of woman's woes, a good cry.

"Take off yore jacket, Freddie," she said, calmly, taking down a switch from over the clothes-press. "I 'm a-goin' to whip you; but, remember, I ain't a-punishin' you because I 'm mad. It 's fur the purpose of instruction. It 's fur yore own good."

Fred received his dressing-down without a whimper. He was too angry to cry. This Miss Prime took as a mark of especial depravity. In fact, the boy had been unable to discover any difference between an instructive and a vindictive whipping. It was perfectly clear in his guardian's mind, no doubt, but a cherry switch knows no such distinctions.

This incident only prepared Fred Brent for a further infraction of his guardian's rules the next day. One of Miss Prime's strictest orders had to do with fighting. Whatever the boys did to Fred, he was never to resent it. He must come to her, and she would go to the boy's mother. What an order to give a boy with muscles and fists and Nature strong within him! But, save for the telling, it had been obeyed, although it is hard to feel one's self an unwilling coward, a prig, and the laughingstock of one's fellows. But when, on the day after his unjust punishment, and while still stung by the sense of wrong, one of the petty schoolboy tyrants began to taunt him, he turned upon the young scamp and thrashed him soundly. His tormentor was not more hurt than surprised. Like most of his class, he was a tattler. The matter got to the teacher's ears, and that night Fred carried home an ominous-looking note. In his heart he believed that it meant another application of cherry switch, either instructive or vindictive, but he did not care. He had done the natural thing, and Nature rewards us for obeying her laws by making us happy or stoical. He had gone up in the estimation of his schoolfellows, even the thrashed one, and he felt a reckless joy. He would welcome a whipping. It would bring him back memories of what he had given Billy Tompkins. "Would n't Miss Hester be surprised," he thought, "if I should laugh out while she is whipping me?" And he laughed at the very thought. He was full of pleasure at himself. He had satisfied the impulse within him for once, and it made him happy.

Miss Prime read the ominous note, and looked at her charge thoughtfully. Fred glanced expectantly in the direction of the top of the clothes-press. But she only said, "Go out an' git in yore kindlin', Freddie; git yore chores done, an' then come in to supper." Her voice was menacingly quiet. The boy had learned to read the signs of her face too well to think that he was to get off so easily as this. Evidently, he would "get it" after supper, or Miss Prime had some new, refined mode of punishment in store for him. But what was it? He cudgelled his brain in vain, as he finished his chores, and at table he could hardly eat for wondering. But he might have spared himself his pains, for he learned all too soon.

Immediately after supper he was bidden to put on his cap and come along. Miss Prime took him by the hand. "I 'm a-goin' to take you," she said, "to beg Willie Tompkins's pardon fur the way you did him."

Did the woman know what it meant to the boy? She could not, or her heart would have turned against the cruelty. Fred was aghast. Beg his pardon! A whipping was a thousand times better: indeed, it would be a mercy. He began to protest, but was speedily silenced. The enforced silence, however, did not cool his anger. He had done what other boys did. He had acted in the only way that it seemed a boy could act under the circumstances, and he had expected to be punished as his fellows were; but this--this was awful. He clinched his hands until the nails dug into the palms. His face was as pale as death. He sweated with the consuming fire of impotent rage. He wished that he might run away somewhere where he could hide and tear things and swear. For a moment only he entertained the thought, and then a look into the determined face of the woman at his side drove the thought away. To his childish eyes, distorted by resentment, she was an implacable and relentless monster who would follow him with punishment anywhere he might go.

And now they were at Billy Tompkins's door. They had passed through, and he found himself saying mechanically the words which Miss Prime put into his mouth, while his tormentor grinned from beside his mother's chair. Then, after a few words between the women, in which he heard from Mrs. Tompkins the mysterious words, "Oh, I don't blame you, Miss Hester; I know that blood will tell," they passed out, and the grinning face of Billy Tompkins was the last thing that Fred saw. It followed him home. The hot tears fell from his eyes, but they did not quench the flames that were consuming him. There is nothing so terrible as the just anger of a child,--terrible in its very powerlessness. Polyphemus is a giant, though the mountain hold him down.

Next morning, when Fred went to school, Billy Tompkins with a crowd of boys about was waiting to deride him; but at sight of his face they stopped. He walked straight up to his enemy and began striking him with all his might.

"She made me beg your pardon, did she?" he gasped between the blows; "well, you take that for it, and that." The boys had fallen back, and Billy was attempting to defend himself.

"Mebbe she 'll make me do it again to-night. If she does, I 'll give you some more o' this to-morrow, and every time I have to beg your pardon. Do you hear?"

The boys cheered lustily, and Billy Tompkins, completely whipped and ashamed, slunk away.

That night no report of the fight went home. Fred Brent held the master hand.

In life it is sometimes God and sometimes the devil that comes to the aid of oppressed humanity. From the means, it is often hard to tell whose handiwork are the results.


CHAPTER VII

Cynics and fools laugh at calf-love. Youth, which is wiser, treats it more seriously. When the boy begins to think of a girl, instead of girls, he displays the first budding signs of a real growing manhood. The first passion may be but the enthusiasm of discovery. Sometimes it is not. At times it dies, as fleeting enthusiasms do. Again it lives, and becomes a blessing, a curse, or a memory. Who shall say that the first half-sweet pang that strikes a boy's heart in the presence of the dear first girl is any less strong, intoxicating, and real to him than that which prompts him to take the full-grown woman to wife? With factitious sincerity we quote, "The boy is father to the man," and then refuse to believe that the qualities, emotions, and passions of the man are inherited from this same boy,--are just the growth, the development, of what was embryonic in him.

Nothing is more serious, more pleasant, and more diverting withal, than a boy's brooding or exultation--one is the complement of the other--over his first girl. As, to a