A Spoil of Office Part 6

"Well, if that ain't the sickest old joke! You'll go without any pie if you get off such a thing again."

But as dinner-time drew on he felt more and more unwilling to go into the kitchen.

He heard her whistle, but he remained at the saw-horse. It would do in the country, but not here. He had no right to go in there and eat.

There was a note of impatience in her voice when she looked over the fence and said, "Why don't you come?"

"I da.s.sant!"

"Oh, bother! What y' 'fraid of?"

"What business have I got to eat your dinner? This aint your wood-pile."

"Say, if you don't come in I'll--I dunno what!"

"Bring it out here, it's warm."

"I won't do it; you've got to come in; the old man's gone up town and mother won't throw you out. There isn't anybody in the kitchen. Come on now," she pleaded.

Bradley followed her into the house, feeling a good deal like a very large dog, very hungry, who had followed a child's invitation into the parlor, and felt out of place.

He sat down by the fire, and silently ate what she placed before him, while she chattered away in high glee. When Mrs. Russell came in, Nettie did not take the trouble to introduce him to her mother, who moved about the room in a wordless way, smiling a little about the eyes. She was entirely subject to her daughter. She heard them discussing lessons and concluded they were cla.s.smates.

Bradley went back to his wood-sawing and soon finished the job. As he shouldered his saw and saw-buck, Nettie came out and peered over the fence again.

"Say, goin' to attend the social Monday?"

"Guess not. I ain't much on such things."

"It's lots o' fun; we spin the platter and all kinds o' things. I'm goin'," she looked archly inviting.

Bradley colored. He was not astute, but hints like this were not far from kicks. He looked down at his saw as he said, "I guess I won't go, I've got to study."

"Well, good-by," she said without mortification. She was so much of a child yet that she could be jilted without keen pain. "See y' Monday,"

she said as she ran into the house.

Someway Bradley's life was lightened by that day's experience. He went home to his bleak little room in a resolute mood. He sat down at his table upon which lay his algebra, determined to prepare Monday's lessons, but the pencil fell from his hand, his head sank down and lay upon the open page before him. Wood sawing had worn him down and algebra had made him sleep.

V.

BRADLEY RISES TO ADDRESS THE CARTHAGINIANS.

He was now facing another terror, the Friday afternoon recitals, in which alternate sections of the pupils were obliged to appear before the public in the chapel to recite or read an essay. It was an ordeal that tried the souls of the bravest of them all.

Unquestionably it kept many pupils away. Nothing could be more terrible to a shrinking awkward boy or girl from a farm than this requirement, to stand upon a raised platform with nothing to break the effect of sheer crucifixion. It was appalling. It was a pillory, a stake, a burning, and yet there was a fearful fascination about it, and it was doubtful if a majority of the students would have voted for its abolition. The preps and juniors saw the seniors winning electrical applause from the audience and fancied the same prize was within their reach. There was no surer or more instant success to be won than that which followed a splendid oratorical effort on the platform. It was worth the cost.

Each new-comer dreaded it for weeks and talked about it constantly.

Bradley, like all the rest before him, could not eat a thing on the morning preceding his trial, and in fact had suffered a distinct loss of appet.i.te from the middle of the week.

Mary Barber, a tall, awkward, badly-dressed girl, met him as he was going up the steps after the first bell.

"Say, how you feelin'! I've shook all the mornin'. I don't know what I'm goin' to do. I'm just sick."

"Why don't you say so an' get off?" Bradley suggested.

"Because that's what I did last time, and it won't work any more." The poor girl's teeth were chattering with her fright. She laughed at herself in an hysterical way, and wrung her hands, as if with cold, and dropped back into the broadest kind of dialect. "Oh, I feel 'sif my stomach was all gone."

Nettie Russell regarded it all as merely another disagreeable duty to be shirked. Nothing troubled her very much. "You just wait and see how I get out of it," she said, as she pa.s.sed by. At two o'clock the princ.i.p.al came in, and removed even the small pulpit, so that nothing should stand between the shrinking young orators and the keen derisive eyes below.

The chapel was a very imposing structure to Bradley. It was square and papered in grey-white with fluted columns of the Corinthian order of architecture, and that touch of history and romance did not fail of its effect on the country boys fresh from the barn-yard and the corn-rows.

It added to their fear and self-abas.e.m.e.nt, as they rolled their slow eyes around and upward. The audience consisted mainly of the pupils arranged according to cla.s.ses, the girls on the left and the boys on the right. In addition, some of the towns-people, who loved oratory, or were specially interested in the speakers of the day, were often present to add to the terror of the occasion.

Radbourn came in with Lily Graham, talking earnestly. He was in the same section with Bradley, a fact which did not cheer Bradley at all.

Jack Carver came in with a jaunty air. His cuffs and collar were linen, and his trousers were tailor-made, which was distinction enough for him. He had no scruples, therefore, in shirking the speaking with the same indifference Nettie Russell showed.

Milton, who came in the first section, was joking the rest upon their nervousness.

"Say, when did you eat y'r last meal?" he whispered to Bradley.

"Yesterday morning," Bradley replied, unable to smile.

All the week the members of the last section had been prancing up and down the various rooms in boarding-houses, to the deep disgust of their fellow students, who mixed harsh comments throughout their practice, as they shouted in thunder tones:

"I came not here to talk. ('Then why don't you shut up?') You know too well the story of our thraldom. ('You bet we do, we've heard it all the week.') The beams of the setting sun fall upon a slave. ('Would a beam of some sort would fall on you.') O Rome! Rome!"--('Oh, go roam the wild wood.')"

All the week the boarding-house mistresses had pounded on the stove-pipe to bring the appeal of "Spartacus to the Romans" down to a key that would not also include all the people in the block. All to no purpose. Spartacus was aroused, and nothing but a glaive or a battle-axe could bring him to silence and submission. The first section now sat smiling grimly. Their revenge was coming.

After the choir had sung, the princ.i.p.al of oratory, note-book in hand, came down among the pupils, and began the fateful roll-call.

The first name called was Alice Masters, an ambitious, but terribly plain and awkward girl. She had not eaten anything since the middle of the week, and was weak and nervous with fright. She sprang out of her seat, white as a dead person, and rushed up the aisle. As she stepped upon the platform she struck her toe and nearly fell. The rest laughed, some hysterically, the most of them in thoughtless derision. The blood rushed into her face and when she turned, she seemed to be masked in scarlet. She began, stammeringly, her fingers playing nervously with the seams of her dress.

"Beside his block the sculptor--

"Beside his block--

"Beside, the sculptor stood beside"--

She could not think of another word, not one, and she fell into a horrible silence, wringing her hands piteously. It was impossible for her to go on, and impossible for her to leave the floor till the word of release came.

"That will do," said the princ.i.p.al in calm unconcern, and she rushed from the room, and the next name was called. At length Nettie Russell faced the audience, a saucy smile on her lips, and a defiant tilt to her nose. She spoke a verse of "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," to the vast delight of the preps, who had dared her to do it. The princ.i.p.al scowled darkly, and put a very emphatic black mark opposite her name.

As name after name was called, Bradley's chill deepened, and the cold sweat broke out upon his body. There was a terrible weakness and nausea at his stomach, and he drew long, shivering inspirations like a man facing an icy river, into which he must plunge. His hands shook till he was forced to grasp the desk to hide his tremor.

He was saved from utter flight by Radbourn, who came before him.

Whatever nervousness the big senior had ever felt, he was well over now, for he walked calmly up the aisle, and took his place with easy dignity. He scorned to address the Romans, or the men of England. He was always contemporaneous. He usually gave orations on political topics, or astounded his teachers by giving a revolutionary opinion of some cla.s.sic. No matter what subject he dealt with, he interested and held his audience. His earnest face and deep-set eyes had something compelling in them, and his dignity and self-possession in themselves fascinated the poor fellows, who sat there in deathly sickness, shaking with terror.