Читать книгу Forgive Us Our Trespasses - Lloyd C. Douglas - Страница 9

Table of Contents

FOR the first time in the history of the Schrofe School it was being taught without benefit of whips and dunce-caps.

The innovation caused some stir. Discipline had been much less savage in recent years under a succession of female teachers, but the present policy of complete disarmament was viewed with anxiety.

"Fer the girl's own sake," agreed the younger mothers, whose support of her had been swiftly won by the affectionate interest bestowed on their little tots, "them bigger boys oughta be kept in hand. They'll run her out afore Thanksgivin'."

Ham Ditzler, who had put in six exciting winters behind that desk, more than a decade earlier, and now divided his time between odd jobs of plasterin', paperin', paintin', an' butcherin', in the employ of his erstwhile pupils—("danged degradin' work")—offered to bet (amount of wager unspecified) that the Miller girl would never finish out her term, a prediction which came true, though not for lack of firmness in her schoolroom.

Abner Schrofe, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, when joined in his barn by the four other members, one rainy Sunday forenoon in early October, silently shucked corn during their recital of the public's apprehension based on criticisms offered by the veteran pedagogue.

Upon the conclusion of their remarks, Chairman Schrofe listed heavily to starboard and deftly poured a considerable quantity of tobacco-juice down a convenient rat-hole, thus setting himself at liberty to express the opinion—conciliatorily phrased in terms consonant with the dignity of his office—that Ham Ditzler was nothin' but a damned old sore-head.

Encountering no opposition to this statement, not even from Zeke Trumbull, Ham's son-in-law, with whom he made his home, Abner further deposed that there was more brains in Julia Miller's little finger than Ham Ditzler had in his hull body, adding that he would respectfully entertain a motion a-sayin' it to be th' sense of this here board, duly and properly assembled, that Miss Miller's services was "sadisfactory."

Hez Brumbaugh said he would so move, and suggested that the Chairman inform Miss Miller of their action.

Jake Waters, who since last spring had owed Abner the final Eight Dollars on a Guernsey heifer, 'lowed that Ham Ditzler—after all's said and done, and a-takin' him by and large—was purty much of a gol-darned old blatherskike whose idears wasn't wuth hell-room.

At Zeke's suggestion, this was taken by consent. He modestly demurred, however, when delegated to convey this sentiment to his father-in-law, feeling that it would have "more weight" coming from someone else. The decorum of the board being slightly disturbed by this remark, it grinningly adjourned to the hog-pen to inspect the new "Poland-Chiny" sow that Abner had purchased at the recent Whitley County Fair.

"Please, Mr. Schrofe," pleaded Julia, next morning, after Abner, delightedly to have an official errand at the schoolhouse, had told her he was on his way to settle Mr. Ditzler's hash, "leave him to me. Don't hurt him. I'll think of some way to accomplish the same thing without humiliating him."

Ham, already silenced by a hint from Zeke to the effect that if he knowed which side his bread was buttered on he would let up on the Miller girl, bewilderedly accepted her invitation to make a little talk to the school on the afternoon of Columbus Day, on which occasion he astounded himself and the assembled mothers by confessing the difficulty that an old-timer has in a-keepin' up with th' march o' progress.

An able craftsman of home-made philosophy, Ham spent many meditative hours evolving what he thought was a brand-new theory for the achievement of this here thing they calls success, chattering so volubly about his discovery that it became a community joke.

His convictions on this subject were never better expressed than on the late afternoon of an eventful day in May when, riding home from a service at the Oak Grove Baptist Church in company with Zeke and Lola and their swollen-eyed little daughter Goldie, Ham observed:

"It all goes fer t' show that this here thing they calls success is the fruit of self-confydence.

"If yuh know yer bigger 'n' yer job, and c'n drop the dang thing whenever yuh like and do somethin' better, the people yer a-workin' fer seems t' know it without yer a-tellin' 'em. They take orders as if they was a-spoke by Jehovah, so long as they know yuh know there's sumethin' in prospec' fer yuh a dang sight more important than a-foolin' away yer time with the likes o' them!

"If a teacher, f'rinstance, thinks he's got about all that's a-comin' to him, and has to mind his p's and q's er the Board'll set on him, he just natcherly has t' whale hell outa the brats to make 'em behave.

"If he c'n get along without rules er whips er threatenin's, it's because th' scholars knows that he don't have t' care a tinker's damn whether he keeps his job er not, seein' he c'n leave 'em, if they don't like it, and do somethin' better.... And I bet that's the secret o' success in all th' walks o' life, in ev'ry day an' generation."

Ham leaned far out of the open surrey, where he shared the back seat with Goldie, and improved his impaired articulation by relieving himself of a large quid of tobacco, wiped his stubbly lips with the back of a brown hand, and continued:

"You take this here parson, over in Wayne, what's been a-sayin' lately that th' story about Jonah ain't so, d'yuh reckon they'd let him stay there and be as honest as that if they didn't know the hull town knows as how he's had an invite to a big church in Chicago? Not by a dang sight! They just grin when he goes after the Old Testyment fer a-sayin' that th' Lord God drownded all them heathens fer spite... 'cause they know that if they holler he'll tell 'em t' take their danged ol' church b' th' bell-clapper, 'n' go t' hell!"

"Sh!—Pap!" admonished Lola, without turning. "What kinda talk... right afore little Goldie, too!"

"Well—I wisht I'd a-heared some talk like that when I was about her size," muttered Ham, remorsefully. "Mebby I'd amounted to somethin'."

"I wonder," inquired Zeke, "why didn't this here smart preacher in Wayne take that there bigger job in Chi?"

Ham was fidgety with eagerness to explain.

"Now yer a-gettin' to it! That just goes fer t' show how smart this feller is! If he went to Chicago, where mebby he'd be exac'ly the size of his job, er mebby a little smaller, he wouldn't be able t' tell 'em where t' get off at. He likes a-bein' where he c'n tell 'em, if they object t' his preachin', that they c'n take their danged ol' church b' th' bell-clapper, 'n'—"

"Pap—that'll do now!" snapped Lola, adding, growlingly, "Can't we never talk about nothin' else but things as riles Pap and makes him swear, right afore little Goldie?"

"All the same," finished Ham, doggedly reverting to his original proposition, "if Julia Miller hadn't 'lowed, all th' time she was a-teachin', that she was a-goin' away purty soon t' be a rich man's wife, I bet she'd a-had t' larn them sassy young rake-hells all over th' schoolhouse, five times a day!"

Little Goldie wept noisily.

"Shet up, Pap!" commanded Lola. "Hain't yuh got no proper feelin's at all?"