Cy Whittaker's Place Part 20

"Edwards boy! Do you mean to compare that--that young rip of a Ben Edwards with a girl like Bos'n? I never heard--"

"I'm not comparing anybody. I'm trying to be fair to every scholar in this room. And, so long as Emily behaves herself, she shall be treated accordingly. When she doesn't, she shall be punished. You must understand that."

"But Ben Edwards! Why, he's a wooden-head, same as his dad was a fore him! And Emmie's the smartest scholar in this town."

"Oh, no, she isn't! She's a good scholar, but there are others just as good and even quicker to learn."

This was piling one insult upon another. Other children as brilliant as Bos'n! Captain Cy was bursting with righteous indignation.

"Well!" he exclaimed. "Well! for a teacher that we've called to--"

"And that's another thing," broke in Miss Dawes quickly. "I've been told that you, Cap'n Whittaker, are the one directly responsible for my being chosen for this place. I don't say that you are presuming on that, but--"

"I ain't! I never thought of such a thing!"

"But if you are you mustn't, that's all. I didn't ask for the position and, now that I've got it, I shall try to fill it without regard to one person more than another. Emily stays here until her lines are written.

I don't think we need to say any more. Good day."

She opened the door. Captain Cy picked up his hat, swallowed hard, and stepped across the threshold. Then Miss Phoebe added one more remark.

"Cap'n," she said, "when you were in command of a ship did you allow outsiders to tell you how to treat the sailors?"

The captain opened his mouth to reply. He wanted to reply very much, but somehow he couldn't find a satisfying answer to that question.

"Ma'am," he said, "all I can say is that if you'd been in South America, same as I have, and seen the way them half-breed young ones act, you'd--"

The teacher smiled, in spite of an apparent effort not to.

"Perhaps so," she said, "but this is Ma.s.sachusetts. And--well, Emily isn't a half-breed."

Captain Cy strode through the vestibule. Just before the door closed behind him he heard a stifled sob from poor Bos'n.

The Board of Strategy was waiting at the end of the yard. Its members were filled with curiosity.

"Did you give it to her good?" demanded Asaph. "Did you let her understand we wouldn't put up with such cruelizin'?"

"Where's Bos'n?" asked Mr. Bangs.

Their friend's answers were brief and tantalizingly incomplete. He walked homeward at a gait which caused plump little Bailey to puff in his efforts to keep up, and he would say almost nothing about the interview in the schoolroom.

"Well," said Mr. Tidditt, when they reached the Whittaker gate, "I guess she knows her place now; hey, Cy? I cal'late she'll be careful who she keeps after school from now on."

"Didn't use no profane language, did you, Cy?" asked Bailey. "I hope not, 'cause she might have you took up just out of spite. Did she ask your pardon for her actions?"

"No!" roared the captain savagely. Then, banging the gate behind him, he strode up the yard and into the house.

Bos'n came home a half hour later. Captain Cy was alone in the sitting room, seated in his favorite rocker and moodily staring at nothing in particular. The girl gazed at him for a moment and then climbed into his lap.

"I wrote my fifty lines, Uncle Cyrus," she said. "Teacher said I'd done them very nicely, too."

The captain grunted.

"Uncle Cy," whispered Bos'n, putting her arms around his neck, "I'm awful sorry I was so bad."

"Bad? Who--you? You couldn't be bad if you wanted to. Don't talk that way or I'll say somethin' I hadn't ought to."

"Yes, I could be bad, too. I was bad. I whispered."

"Whispered! What of it? That ain't nothin'. When I was a young one in school I used to whis-- . . . Hum! Well, anyhow, don't you think any more about it. 'Tain't worth while."

They rocked quietly for a time. Then Bos'n said:

"Uncle Cyrus, don't you like teacher?"

"Hey? LIKE her? Well, if that ain't a question? Yes, I like her about as well as Lonesome likes Eben Salter's dog."

"I'm sorry. I like her ever so much."

"You DO? Go 'long! After the way she treated you, poor little thing!"

"She didn't treat me any worse than she does the other girls and boys when they're naughty. And I did know the rule about whispering."

"Well, that's different. Comparin' you with that Bennie Edwards--the idea! And then makin' you cry!"

"She didn't make me cry."

"Did, too. I heard you."

The child looked up at him and then hid her face in his waistcoat.

"I wasn't crying about her," she whispered. "It was you."

"ME!" The captain gasped. "Good land!" he muttered. "It's just as I expected. She's studied too hard and it's touchin' her brain."

"No, sir, it isn't. It isn't truly. I did cry about you because I didn't like to hear you talk so. And I was so sorry to have you come there."

"You WAS!"

"Yes, sir. Other children's folks don't come when they're bad. And I kept feeling so sort of ashamed of you."

"Ashamed of ME?"

Bos'n nodded vigorously.

"Yes, sir. Everything teacher said sounded so right, and what you said didn't. And I like to have you always right."

"Do, hey? Hum!" Captain Cy didn't speak again for some few minutes, but he held the little girl very tight in his arms. At length he drew a long breath.