Aunt 'Liza's Hero and Other Stories Part 8

As he spoke he waved the stump of his right arm so vigorously that the empty sleeve was torn from its pinning across his breast and flapped pathetically.

"I want to say," he went on, "that I fit for that old flag, and yet, livin' here so long, and never a celebration for young or old, I'd half forgot my patriotism. It's our school-teacher has woke me up to seeing the truth. Now that we hev beat our swords into pruning-hooks, and peace has pitched her tent alongside ours to stay, I can't help thinking there's danger in settlin' down too comfortable and off gyard like.

"This country," he raised his voice higher, "ain't teaching its children enough of the feelin' of patriotism. It takes the same kind of principle to make a good citizen that it doos a good soldier. It ought to be the very bone and sinew of every school in this whole land. I could talk all night on that subject, now I've got started. But what I want to say is this:

"I propose that we all get out our pocket-books, and throw in to get a handsome flag to fly over this schoolhouse. Take an old soldier's word for it, there ain't no greater inspiration anywhere, to make a fellow put in his best licks, and come out on top. Now, Miss Teacher, I'll just get the sense of this meeting."

He paused a moment, then turned to the audience: "All who want to express their thanks for this evening's entertainment, and are willing a collection should be took, say aye!"

Such a storm of ayes followed, that Peter caught up his slouched hat and began to pa.s.s it around, with his only arm. Dimes and quarters clinked into it, while an occasional dollar showed how deeply selfish hearts had been stirred by the uplifting influences of the hour.

Miss Atworth seated herself at the piano, and beckoned to the bewildered G.o.ddess of Liberty to lead the States again across the stage. Some of the smaller ones straggled sadly out of line, but as Karl, at a nod from his teacher, caught the great flag from its place and stood with it in the midst of them, every voice rang out full and true on the chorus:

"Yes, we'll rally round the flag, boys, We'll rally once again, Shouting the battle-cry of freedom!"

People seemed loath to go when it was all over. They came up to the teacher with awkward expressions of pleasure and appreciation.

"I'll never forget this night," drawled one faded, overworked woman, to whose eyes the rich colours and tinsel of the stage decorations had seemed a part of fairyland. "That music was so sweet, and my little Meta looked like a picture with her hair curled, and that beautiful dress on you made her. I really didn't know she was so pretty. I'm going to fix her up and get her a lot of nice things after this."

"Well, it was worth while," said the little teacher, as she dropped into a chair at home, too tired to take off her wraps.

"Indeed it was," answered the squire. "Jake Schneider's new patriotism rose so he said he'd put a walk on each side of the school for half a mile, even if n.o.body'd help him. Then a lot of 'em began to talk it over. The upshot was that old Schmidt is going to give the logs, and they're all going to work to-morrow to hew them off and stake them down."

The next Monday morning Karl stopped at Miss Atworth's desk to say joyfully, "O teacher! father was so pleased. He is going to hire another hand and let me keep on till the end of the term."

"Then I need never regret my sacrifice," thought the happy girl.

That celebration was the beginning of better times in Hardyville. When the doors were barred for vacation, and the gra.s.s grew rank on the bare playground, the new flag still floated from the schoolhouse belfry.

Many a boy catching sight of the glorious flag as he plodded through the furrows behind his plough, felt himself lifted beyond the bounds of his little horizon, to some great plane of endeavour where all great things were possible. Still those beckoning folds teach a silent lesson of loftier ideals, and a broader humanity to people whom the little teacher thrilled with her enthusiastic spirit.

AN OLD DAGUERREOTYPE

CALEB SPEED pushed back his chair from the dinner-table with anger and disgust in his face. The door had just banged behind a big, hearty boy of seventeen, whom he could still see through the narrow window trudging off toward the barn.

The lively whistle that sounded through the closed windows seemed to aggravate the man's ill-temper. He walked over to the fireplace, and kicked the smouldering logs with his heavy boot.

"If there's any one thing that riles me all over," he exclaimed, angrily, "it's having that boy always setting himself up to be in the right, and everybody else in the wrong!"

"Well, he 'most generally is in the right," answered Caleb's wife, clearing the table. "It's remarkable what a memory Jerry has, 'specially for dates. At the quilting here last week the women folks were trying to settle when 'twas old Mis' Lockett died, and Jerry knew to the day. He said 'twas two days after Deacon Stone's cows were killed by lightning, and that happened on the thirteenth of September, just a hundred years to the very day after Wolfe captured Quebec. You can't trip Jerry up in history."

"Well," answered her husband, impatiently, "he needn't be so sa.s.sy about it. We had a dispute over them same cows. I was telling the new minister about the storm, and I happened to say they was standing under a pine-tree. He chipped in, 'Why, no, it wasn't, uncle; it was an oak.'

'It was a pine!' says I. 'No, it wasn't; it was an oak,' says he.

"Just then Hiram Stone came by, and Jerry yelled to know which 'twas.

Hiram said, 'Oak.' Then Jerry grinned as malicious, and said, 'I told you so! I knew I was right!' If he hadn't been my dead sister's only child and the minister looking on--" Caleb stopped in anger.

Mrs. Speed made no comment. She was fond of her husband's nephew. He had grown to be almost like a son in the five years he had lived with them.

They were not old--not many years older than Jerry; for Caleb's sister had been older than he.

Mrs. Speed only laughed at the patronizing manners which he sometimes a.s.sumed, to the great annoyance of his young uncle. But Caleb Speed was too dogmatic himself to tolerate such a spirit in any one else.

"He sha'n't sit up and contradict me at my own table!" Caleb declared.

"I'll thrash him first! He's got to show me proper respect. He needn't think because I've given him advantages that I couldn't have myself, that he knows it all, and I don't know anything!"

"Now, Caleb, what's the use? It's only Jerry's way," said Mrs. Speed, soothingly.

"Dear me!" she sighed, as Caleb went to his work. "It's a pity they can't get along as they used to. Caleb's so touchy he can't stand anything. I must tell Jerry to be more careful."

But when Jerry came in to supper and began his lively joking, she forgot the little lecture she had planned.

"The Spencers are going to move West next week," remarked Mr. Speed.

"Land's cheap, and I guess they need more elbow-room for such a big family. Greenville is a mighty thriving place, they say."

"You mean Grandville, don't you, uncle?" suggested Jerry.

"I generally say what I mean, young man!" was the curt reply.

"Well, it's Grandville, anyway!" persisted Jerry, feeling in his pockets. "Jack Spencer is out there now. I got a letter from him yesterday begging me to go out there to him. Oh, here it is! Look at the postmark. It _is_ Grandville! I knew I was right about it."

Nettled by the tone and his own mistake, Mr. Speed finished his supper in moody silence. The boy had no idea how his habit had grown, or how sensitive his uncle had become in regard to it. "Why, Aunt Lucy," he insisted, when she remonstrated with him, "I never contradict people unless I know positively that they are wrong!"

"Maybe," she answered. "But what real difference does it make whether the weasels killed five chickens or six, or that it was the black pig and not the spotted one that rooted up the garden? Those are such little things to bicker about, just for the satisfaction of saying, 'I told you so!'"

She imitated Jerry's tone and manner so well that he laughed a little sheepishly.

"Well, I'll turn over a new leaf," he promised, "just to please you."

Caleb Speed's farm was in southern Maine, near the coast. Jerry had grown up with the sound of the sea in his ears. It had long sung only a meaningless monotone to the boy, but it had begun to fill him with something of its own restless spirit. And about this time the Spencer boys were urging him to go West.

"No," he answered; "I owe it to Uncle Caleb to stay here. He was too good to me when I was a little shaver for me to leave him now when he needs me. He shall have the best service I can give him until I am twenty-one; then I'll be free to follow you."

But there came a crisis. Uncle Caleb gave Jerry a sum of money to pay a bill in town. There was a five-dollar piece in a roll of bills, and the gold-piece had disappeared.

Jerry insisted that he could not have had the money. "I _know_, Aunt Lucy. Uncle Cale handed me the roll of bills, and I put it down in this pocket, and never touched it till I got to town. When I took it out there were the bills just as he had handed them to me, and not a thing more."

"Maybe there's a hole in your pocket," she suggested.

She turned it wrong side out, but found no place where a coin could have slipped through.

"Well, it's a mystery where it went," she said. "I can't understand it."

"Pooh! It's no mystery," answered Jerry, contemptuously. "Uncle simply didn't give it to me. He thought he had rolled it up in the bills, but was mistaken. That's all!"

"What do you mean by that?" cried Caleb, jumping up white with anger. "I tell you it _was_ wrapped up in the bills, and if you can't account for it, you've either lost it or spent it!"