The Drummer Boy Part 4

"I suppose," thought Frank, "we shall find our drums in the woods;" into which his instructor straightway conducted him in order to be away from the diversions and noises of the camp.

Frank was disappointed. The veteran gave him his first exercise--on a board!

"I thought I was to learn on a drum," he ventured to suggest, looking up, not without awe, at the bushy mustache.

"You don't want a drum till you know how to drum," said the veteran.

"But I should think it would be better----"

"Wait!" lifting his drumstick. "Do you understand what we are here for?"

"To learn to drum," replied Frank, in some astonishment.

"To learn to drum," repeated the veteran, a curious smile just raising the corners of that grizzled mustache. "You understand correctly. Now, am I your teacher, or are you mine?"

"You are mine, sir," answered the boy, still more amazed.

"Right again!" exclaimed the professor. "That's the way I understood it; but I might be wrong, you know. We are all liable to be wrong--are we not?"

"Yes, sir."

Frank stared.

"Good again! But now it is understood correctly; I am your instructor, and you are not mine; that is it."

Frank a.s.sented.

"Very well! Now listen. Since I am to give you lessons, and you are not to give me lessons, you will follow the method I propose, and excuse me if I decline to follow your method. That is reasonable,--isn't it?"

"Certainly, sir," murmured the abashed pupil.

"The point settled, then, we will proceed," said the veteran, with the same incomprehensible, half-sarcastic, half-humorous, but now quite good-natured smile lighting up his grim visage.

"But before we proceed," said Frank, "may I just say what I was going to?"

The old drummer lifted both his sticks, and his eyebrows too (not to speak of his s.h.a.ggy mustache), in surprise at the lad's audacity.

"Do you want me to report you as insubordinate?" he asked, after a pause, during which the two regarded each other somewhat after the fas.h.i.+on of two dogs making acquaintance--a tall, leering old mastiff looking surlily down at the advances of an anxious yet stout and unflinching young spaniel.

"No, sir," answered Frank. "But I thought----"

"You thought! What business have you to think?"

"No business, perhaps," Frank admitted, confronting the weather-beaten old drummer with his truthful, undaunted, fine young face. "But I can't help thinking sir, for all that."

"You can help expressing your thoughts out of season, though," said the veteran.

"I will try to in future, sir," answered Frank, laughing.

At the same time a smile of genuine benevolence softened the tough, ancient visage of the veteran; and they proceeded with the lesson.

After it was over, the teacher said to the pupil,--

"Now, my young friend, I will hear that observation or question of yours, whatever it is."

"I think I have answered it for myself," said Frank. "I was going to say, I should think it would be better to learn to drum on a drum; but I see now, if I get to roll the sticks on a board, which is hard, I can roll them so much the better on a drumhead, which is elastic."

"Right, my young friend," replied the veteran, approvingly. "And in the mean time, we avoid a good deal of unpleasant noise, as you see." For he had other pupils practising under his eye in the woods, not far from Frank.

"And I should like to ask--if I could have permission," began Frank, archly.

"Ask me any thing you please, out of lesson-hours." And the old drummer patted the young drummer's shoulder.

Frank felt encouraged. He was beginning to like his teacher, notwithstanding his odd ways; and he hoped the old man was beginning to like him.

"I want to know, then, if you think I will make a drummer?"

"And what if you will not?"

"Then I shall think I ought to give up the idea of it at once; for I don't want to be second-rate in any thing I once undertake."

"And you have been just a little discouraged over your first lesson? and would be willing now to give up?"

"No, sir. I should feel very bad to be obliged to give up the drum."

"Very well. Then I can say something to comfort you. Stick to it, as you have begun, and you will make a drummer."

"A first-rate one?" Frank asked, eagerly.

"First-rate, or else I am no judge."

"I am glad!" and the delighted pupil fairly jumped for joy.

From that time the two got on capitally together. Frank soon become accustomed to the veteran's eccentric manners, and made great proficiency in his exercises. And it was not long before the hard-featured old drummer began to manifest, in his way, a great deal of friendly interest in his young pupil.

"Now, my boy," said he one day, after Frank had been practising successfully the "seven-stroke roll," greatly to the satisfaction of his instructor,--"now, my boy, I think you can be safely intrusted with your comrade."

"My comrade?" queried the pupil.

"I mean, your better half."

"My better half?"

Frank was mystified.

"Yes, your wife." And the grizzly mustache curled with quiet humor.

"I must be a married man without knowing it!" laughed Frank.