Читать книгу Reminiscences of a Raconteur, Between the '40s and the '20s - George H. Ham - Страница 7

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There were stricter teachers in the late fifties and early sixties than there are to-day and the “ruler” was more frequently and generously applied. I got my full share. One day I was unmercifully punished, and for a wonder, I didn’t deserve it. In my wrathful indignation, I told the teacher, a Mr. Dundas, a fine, scholarly Scotchman of the best old type, that I was only a boy, but that when I grew up I was going to kill him. That threat didn’t go with him, and he again vigorously applied the ruler to different parts of my aching anatomy. I dared not go home and tell of this, or I would have run the chance of another whipping—for there were no curled darlings then who could successfully work upon the mistaken sympathies of indulgent but foolish parents. When I had grown up and returned on a visit to Whitby, I met my good old stern teacher and reminded him of my threat. He had not forgotten it. But I told him I wished he would, for he had not thrashed me half as much as I deserved, generally speaking. I put my arms around him, and the tears that flowed down his furrowed cheeks told me I was forgiven. We had veal pot-pie for dinner that night.

I didn’t succeed as well in another episode, when a pupil at the Grammar School, the principal of which was the lamented Mr. William McCabe, afterwards manager of the North American Life Assurance Company in Toronto. We used to call it “playing hookey” in those days when a pupil absented himself from school to loaf around the swimming hole at Lynde’s creek and ecstatically swim and fish the whole day. A note from one’s parents was always a good excuse and my beloved mother, in the kindness of her heart, never failed to provide me with one. But Mr. McCabe got a little leery of these numerous maternal excuses, and insisted I should get a note from my father, which placed me in an uncomfortable fix. It was either expulsion or a paternal note. I explained to father as plausibly as I could and got the note—which was, it struck me, altogether too freely given. Fortunately I could read it by placing it against the light, and it briefly but unmistakably read:

“William McCabe, Esq.—

Please lick the bearer, (sgd.) John V. Ham.”

I had rather an uncomfortable quarter of an hour wending my way to school, when a short distance from that place of learning, I saw a brother scholar, Paddy Hyland, coming up another street. Before he caught up to me, I was limping like a lame duck. Poor Paddy, in the goodness of his great Irish heart, sympathetically asked me what was my trouble, and without a qualm of conscience, I tersely but mendaciously told him:

“Sprained my ankle.”

“Poor old fellow,” said Paddy, and he carefully and gently helped me along to school. “Can I do anything for you?” he asked in great distress at my supposed misfortune.

“You can, Paddy. Just take this note to Mr. McCabe.”

On reaching school I sank into my seat at the rear of the room. Paddy promptly presented the note, and I eagerly awaited the outcome of the interview. Mr. McCabe had a keen sense of humor, and I saw a smile come over his face as he read the note. Then he called to me:

“Here, you, come up here.”

I hobbled up. He tried to look sternly at me and said:

“It’s all right this time, but don’t you try it on me again.”

My sprained ankle miraculously improved immediately.

Any old-timer will tell that the scholars of half-a-century ago could, generally speaking, spell words in the English language better than those of to-day. It is my experience anyway, after trying out a hundred or more applicants for positions as stenographers when the result was that over fifty per cent. couldn’t spell any better than the once-famous Josh Billings, the American humorist. The reason why? The old-fashioned “spelling down” that occupied a large portion of Friday afternoon exercises has been abolished. That reminds me that in other schools—one at Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, some years ago, one exercise was for the teacher to call a letter of the alphabet, and the pupils pointed to would respond by naming a city whose initial letter was the one mentioned; thus “A” would be Almonte or Albany; “B” Battleford or Buffalo or Bowmanville; “C” Calgary; and so it went down the list until “F” was called, and a young hopeful who afterwards became an M.P., shouted “Filadelphia”. That closed the afternoon’s exercises.

As we grew up, we youngsters loafed around the street corners or gathered at some store or other convenient meeting place in the evening as boys in other towns did. Later on I spent my nights in the library of the Mechanics’ Institute when, with good old Hugh Fraser and J. E. Farewell, now county attorney, and a full-fledged colonel, we discussed all sorts of social problems and political matters until the cocks began to crow. Then we trudged home in the early dawn, each one perfectly content that he had mastered the others in the discussion, or at any rate had settled many disturbing questions finally and for good, though I am afraid many of them are alive still. My nightly association with these two old friends, both some years my senior and with a few other friends, was of great advantage to me in after life. For one thing, it taught me to be tolerant of other persons’ opinions, that there are always two sides to a question, and that there is nobody alive who can be cocksure of everything like the chap who was absolutely positive that there was only one word in the English language commencing with “su” that was pronounced “shu” and that was “sugar”, but wasn’t so confoundedly certain when quietly asked if he was “sure” of his assertion.