“I will—I will—I will,” he repeated over and over. “I’ll begin to-morrow—I’ll learn as fast as the teacher can teach me! I’ll get out of here! I’ll not stay! I’ll do what that man says. Don’t you think you can go on licking me, Grandma, for you can’t! I’m going away!” As by the reiteration of a prayer he was soothed and fell asleep.
CHAPTER III
“LAZY SHAW MANIFOLD,” the teacher of the country school, Miss McKay, had sometimes called him. “You are lazy,” she had said, “because you have plenty of brains but you don’t use them. You’d sooner play than prepare yourself for the future. You’ll be sorry some day. You’ll be coming to me and saying, ‘Oh, Miss McKay, why didn’t you make me work?’ ”
“And what will you say?” he had asked, interested.
“I’ll say that I couldn’t make you study and that it serves you right to be ignorant and poor.”
“How old will you be then?” he had asked, to draw attention from himself.
“That has nothing to do with it,” she had answered sharply. “I am talking about how idle you are.”
As he trudged along the country road on this Monday morning his face was set in a mask of seriousness almost ridiculous so imposed on its childish curves. Even his walk was different, with his chest pressed forward in resolution and his feet planted in a direct line toward the school, not straying after everything that caught his eye.
Ahead of him on the road he saw Louie Adams, a girl two years older than himself but half a head shorter. She was the pupil of whom the teacher was most proud, for she was not only intelligent but worked very hard. Already her ambition pointed, with the hard sharpness of a slate pencil, toward becoming a schoolteacher herself. Louie was very poor; the dress on her back had once been Elspeth Blair’s, her shoes were patched, her hair hung in drab uneven locks about her wizened little face.
She was an unpleasing sight to Shaw. He had always avoided looking at her. Her relentless industry, combined with her drab looks, had repelled him. But now he looked at her with acute interest. She was two classes ahead of him and he was calculating how long it would take him to catch her up, to pass her.
He began to run and was soon at her side. She started and gave him a look of suspicion.
“Hullo!” he said.
“Hullo,” she returned curtly.
“You’re in good time for school, aren’t you, Louie?” he said companionably.
“Am I ever late?” she answered tartly.
“Oh no, you’re never late, Louie. You’re almost always first there. And you’re at the top of your class, too, aren’t you?”
Again she gave him a suspicious look and moved to the other side of the road. The two pairs of stubby boots plodded through the dust.
“What would you say if I was to pass the entrance as soon as you, Louie?”
She gave a contemptuous snort. “Hoo! You! Why, you’re only nine! And you’re no good at your books. You’ll not pass for years and years!”
He smiled at her enigmatically. “You wait and see. You just wait and see if I’m not in your class by Easter. And then wait a little longer and you’ll see me pass the entrance exam ahead of you.”
She was furious. She did not believe in his threat but it stirred her to her depths. She began to run toward the school as fast as she could. Shaw let her run a little way ahead, then he bounded after her. “I’m after you, Louie!” he called. “I’m catching up!”
She ran frantically, her schoolbag bouncing on her thin shoulder blades, her black-stockinged legs like the legs of a scurrying ant.
“I’m catching up!” he shouted. “I’m right on your heels, Louie! I’m here!” In his triumph he threw both arms about her, clutching her close. Her books fell to the ground. She burst into tears. How skinny she was! He wanted to crumple her to bits!
He heard the thud of horse’s hoofs, the rattle of wheels. The Reverend Mr. Blair drew in his horse and turned his piercing glance on Shaw. Ian and Elspeth were in the buggy beside him.
“Shaw Manifold,” he commanded, “drop that girl and look at me! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You behave like a rowdy—yesterday you laughed out loud in church. This morning you ill-treat an innocent little girl on her way to school. But you shall be sorry for it! What did your grandfather say to you about your behavior in church?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing, sir!”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Or your grandmother?”
“Nothing.”
“Sir!”
“Sir.”
“Well, if they have no authority over you, I must see what I can do. Get into the buggy! Louie, get in, my child! Give me your hand.”
Grasping Louie’s bony little hand, he heaved her over the step and sat her on his knee, where she hiccuped and sobbed to the jolting of the buggy. Shaw clambered up and squeezed himself between Ian and Elspeth. He wondered what was going to happen to him.
He felt Ian’s fingers creeping up his side, Ian’s fingers feeling for the tenderest spots between his ribs. He grasped Ian’s wrist and held it. Elspeth’s little face was full of anxiety for Shaw. She did not much like Louie, and she resented the sight of Louie snuggled weeping on her father’s knee. She looked up into his face pleadingly. Would he tell the teacher of Shaw? Would the teacher punish Shaw?
Mr. Blair saw her upturned face out of the corner of his eye. She was his favorite child and his firm Calvinistic lips softened. He bent his head to hers and whispered—“Supposing it had been you whom Shaw was clutching so rudely on the way to school. What would you have said to that?”
“I’d have liked it,” said Elspeth.
Mr. Blair flicked his horse sharply with the whip. Elspeth’s answer had startled and shocked him. He frowned, wondering if he had been too lax with her, wondering if she might grow up into one of these modern women he had read of with such distaste. His profile was grim as they sped along the country road, with the fields spread lavishly on either side and the birds darting in quest of food for their young.
A stream of clumsily dressed children was trickling into the school when the buggy stopped before it. Ian was out first. Mr. Blair lifted Louie gently in his hands and turned her, with an encouraging smile, toward the door. He then set his Elspeth on her feet, but more firmly, and laid a heavy hand on Shaw’s shoulder.
“Now, my boy,” he said, “we’ll find your teacher.” He steered him through the door, followed by the little girls. Ian detached himself from the group and was absorbed by the other boys.
Miss McKay came forward, anxiety making her plain face still plainer. She was afflicted by pimples, and she had a habit of covering the more conspicuous of them with her hand. Her hands were singularly beautiful. Mr. Blair’s mind was suddenly jolted from its mission and he caught himself thinking—“What a face! What hands! If only she could always cover it with them! Truly the whims of Nature are astonishing!”
Resolutely he put his mind into the designed channel and said, in an impressive, ministerial voice—“I have brought Shaw Manifold to you, Miss McKay, for punishment. You must choose what form it is to take. I found him on the road treating Louie Adams very roughly. Her schoolbag was in the dust and she was crying. I am sorry to say that he misbehaved in church yesterday. You know