Winning His Way Part 2

Whack! it fell, a blow which made the flesh purple. There was an Oh!

upon his tongue; but he set his teeth together, and bit his lips till they bled, and so smothered it. Another blow,--another,--another. They were hard to bear; but his teeth were set like a vice. There was a twitching of the muscles round his lips; he was pale. When the blows fell, he held his breath, but did not snivel.

"I'll see if I can't bring you to your feeling, you good-for-nothing scapegrace," said the master, mad with pa.s.sion, and surprised that Paul made no outcry. He gave another round, bringing the ferule down with great force. Blood began to ooze from the pores. The last blow spattered the drops around the room. Cipher came to his senses. He stopped.

"Are you sorry, sir?"

"I don't know whether I am or not. I didn't mean any harm. I suppose I ought not to have drawn it in school; but I didn't do it to make fun. I drew you just as you are," said Paul,--his voice trembling a little in spite of his efforts to control it.

The master could not deny that it was a perfect likeness. He was surprised at Paul's cleverness at drawing, and for the first time in his life saw that he cut a ridiculous figure wearing that long, loose, swallow-tailed coat, with great, flaming bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and resolved upon the spot that his next coat should be a frock, and that he would get a longer pair of pants.

"You may take your seat, sir!" he said, puzzled to know whether to punish Paul still more, and compel him to say that he was sorry, or whether to accept the explanations, and apologize for whipping him so severely.

Paul sat down. His hands ached terribly; but what troubled him most was the thought that he had been whipped before the whole school. All the girls had witnessed his humiliation. There was one among them,--Azalia Adams,--who stood at the head of Paul's cla.s.s, the best reader and speller in school. She had ruby lips, and cheeks like roses; the golden sunlight falling upon her chestnut hair crowned her with glory; deep, thoughtful, and earnest was the liquid light of her hazel eyes; she was as lovely and beautiful as the flower whose name she bore. Paul had drawn her picture many times,--sometimes bending over her task, sometimes as she sat, unmindful of the hum of voices around her, looking far away into a dim and distant dream-land. He never wearied of tracing the features of one so fair and good as she. Her laugh was as musical as a mountain-brook; and in the church on Sunday, when he heard her voice sweetly and melodiously mingling with the choir, he thought of the angels,--of her as in heaven and he on earth.

"Run home, sonny, and tell your marm that you got a licking," said Philip when school was out.

Paul's face became livid. He would have doubled his fist and given Philip a blow in the face, but his palms were like puff-b.a.l.l.s. There was an ugly feeling inside, but just then a pair of bright hazel eyes, almost swimming with tears, looked into his own. "Don't mind it, Paul!"

said Azalia.

The pain was not half so hard to bear after that. He wanted to say, "I thank you," but did not know how. Till then his lips had hardly quivered, and he had not shed a tear; now his eyes became moist; one great drop rolled down his cheek, but he wiped it off with his coat-sleeve, and turned away, for fear that Azalia would think him a baby.

On his way home the thought uppermost in his mind was, "What will mother say?" Why tell her? Would it not be better to keep the matter to himself? But then he remembered that she had said, "Paul, I shall expect you to tell me truthfully all that happens to you at school." He loved his mother. She was one of the best mothers that ever lived, working for him day and night. How could he abuse such confidence as she had given him? He would not violate it. He would not be a sneak.

His mother and the Pensioner were sitting before the fire as he entered the house. She welcomed him with a smile,--a beautiful smile it was, for she was a n.o.ble woman, and Paul was her darling, her pride, the light, joy, and comfort of her life.

"Well, Paul, how do you get on at school?" his grandfather asked.

"I got a whipping to-day." It was spoken boldly and manfully.

"What! My son got a whipping!" his mother exclaimed.

"Yes, mother."

"I am astonished. Come here, and tell me all about it."

Paul stood by her side and told the story,--how Philip Funk tried to bribe him, how he called him names,--how, having got his lessons, he made a picture of the master. "Here it is, mother." He took his slate from his little green bag. The picture had not been effaced. His mother looked at it and laughed, notwithstanding her efforts to keep sober, for it was such a perfect likeness. She had an exquisite sense of the ludicrous, and Paul was like her. She was surprised to find that he could draw so well.

"We will talk about the matter after supper," she said. She had told Paul many times, that, if he was justly punished at school, he must expect a second punishment at home; but she wanted to think awhile before deciding what to do. She was pleased to know that her boy could not be bribed to do what his conscience told him he ought not to do, and that he was manly and truthful. She would rather follow him to the church-yard and lay him in his grave beneath the bending elms, than to have him untruthful or wicked.

The evening pa.s.sed away. Paul sat before the fire, looking steadily into the coals. He was sober and thoughtful, wondering what his mother would say at last. The clock struck nine. It was his bedtime. He went and stood by her side once more. "You are not angry with me, mother, are you?"

"No, my son. I do not think that you deserved so severe a punishment. I am rejoiced to know that you are truthful, and that you despise a mean act. Be always as you have been to-night in telling the truth, and I never shall be angry with you."

He threw his arms around her neck, and gave way to tears, such as Cipher could not extort by his pounding. She gave him a good-night kiss,--so sweet that it seemed to lie upon his lips all through the night.

"G.o.d bless you, Paul," said the Pensioner.

Paul climbed the creaking stairs, and knelt with an overflowing heart to say his evening prayer. He spoke the words earnestly when he asked G.o.d to take care of his mother and grandfather. He was very happy. He looked out through the crevices in the walls, and saw the stars and the moon flooding the landscape with silver light. There was sweet music in the air,--the merry melody of the water murmuring by the mill, the cheerful chirping of the crickets, and the lullaby of the winds, near at hand and far away, putting him in mind of the choirs on earth and the choirs in heaven. "Don't mind it, Paul!" were the words they sung, so sweetly and tenderly that for many days they rang in his ears.

CHAPTER II.

HARD TIMES.

How lonesome the days when dear friends leave us to return no more, whom we never shall see again on earth, who will send us no message or letter of love from the far distant land whither they have gone! It tries our hearts and brings tears to our eyes to lay them in the ground. But shall we never, never see them again? Yes, when we have taken the same journey, when we have closed our eyes on earth and opened them in heaven.

As the months rolled by, the Pensioner's eyes grew dim. He became weak and feeble. "The Pensioner won't stand it long," the people said.

He did not rise one morning when breakfast was ready.

"Come, grandpa," said Paul, opening the bedroom door and calling him; but there was no reply. He lay as if asleep; but his brow was cold, and his heart had stopped beating. He had died calmly and peacefully, and was forever at rest.

It was a sad day to Paul when he followed the body of his dear old grandfather to the grave; but when he stood by his coffin, and looked for the last time upon his grandfather's face, and saw how peaceful it was and how pleasant the smile which rested upon it, as if he was beholding beautiful scenes,--when Paul remembered how good he was, he could not feel it in his soul to say, "Come back, Grandpa"; he would be content as it was. But the days were long and dreary, and so were the nights. Many the hours which Paul pa.s.sed lying awake in his bed, looking through the crevices of the poor old house, and watching the stars and the clouds as they went sailing by. So he was sailing on, and the question would come up, Whither? He listened to the water falling over the dam by the mill, and to the chirping of the crickets, and the sighing of the wind, and the church-bell tolling the hours: they were sweet, yet mournful and solemn sounds. Tears stood in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, as he thought that he and his mother were on earth, and his father and grandfather were praising G.o.d in the heavenly choirs. But he resolved to be good, to take care of his mother, and be her comfort and joy.

Hard times came on. How to live was the great question; for now that his grandfather was gone, they could have the pension no longer. The neighbors were very kind. Sometimes Mr. Middlekauf, Hans's father, who had a great farm, left a bag of meal for them when he came into the village. There was little work for Paul to do in the village; but he kept their own garden in good trim,--the onion-bed clear of weeds, and the potatoes well hilled. Very pleasant it was to work there, where the honey-bees hummed over the beds of sage, and among his mother's flowers, and where b.u.mble-bees dusted their yellow jackets in the hollyhocks.

Swallows also built their nests under the eaves of the house, and made the days pleasant with their merry twittering.

The old Pensioner had been a land surveyor. The compa.s.s which he used was a poor thing; but he had run many lines with it through the grand old forest. One day, as Paul was weeding the onions, it occurred to him that he might become a surveyor; so he went into the house, took the compa.s.s from its case, and sat down to study it. He found his grandfather's surveying-book, and began to study that. Some parts were hard and dry; but having resolved to master it, he was not the boy to give up a good resolution. It was not long before he found out how to run a line, how to set off angles, and how to ascertain the distance across a river or pond without measuring it. He went into the woods, and stripped great rolls of birch bark from the trees, carried them home, spread them out on the table, and plotted his lines with his dividers and ruler. He could not afford paper. He took great pleasure in making a sketch of the ground around the house, the garden, the orchard, the field, the road, and the river.

The people of New Hope had long been discussing the project of building a new road to Fairview, which would cross the pond above the mill. But there was no surveyor in the region to tell them how long the bridge must be which they would have to build.

"We will send up a kite, and thus get a string across the pond," said one of the citizens.

"I can ascertain the distance easier than that," said Paul.

Mr. Pimpleberry, the carpenter, who was to build the bridge, laughed, and looked with contempt upon him, Paul thought, because he was barefoot and had a patch on each knee.

"Have you ever measured it, Paul?" Judge Adams asked.

"No, sir; but I will do so just to let Mr. Pimpleberry see that I can do it."

He ran into the house, brought out the compa.s.s, went down to the edge of the pond, drove a small stake in the ground, set his compa.s.s over it, and sighted a small oak-tree upon the other side of the pond. It happened that the tree was exactly south from the stake; then he turned the sights of his compa.s.s so that they pointed exactly east and west.

Then he took Mr. Pimpleberry's ten-foot pole, and measured out fifty feet toward the west, and drove another stake. Then he set his compa.s.s there, and took another sight at the small oak-tree across the pond. It was not south now, but several degrees east of south. Then he turned his compa.s.s so that the sights would point just the same number of degrees to the east of north.

"Now, Mr. Pimpleberry," said Paul, "I want you to stand out there, and hold your ten-foot pole just where I tell you, putting yourself in range with the stake I drove first and the tree across the pond."

Mr. Pimpleberry did as he was desired.

"Drive a stake where your pole stands," said Paul.

Mr. Pimpleberry did so.

"Now measure the distance from the one you have just driven to my first stake, and that will be the distance across the pond," said Paul.

"I don't believe it," said Mr. Pimpleberry.