514 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



Oct. 



him, and on my feet. Several were partly 

 out on the floor. 



" To your seats !" I thundered, " or I will 

 not be responsible for your lives.'' 



They wavered a second, but doubtless 

 thinking it would be folly to be frightened 

 by one little man, a boy of only 18, and they 

 a half-dozen all about me, they hesuated. At 

 this crisis the man under my feet called to 

 them again to come on, and 1 knew I was a 

 prisoner unless I secured obedience by one 

 bold stroke. I raised my heel, and planted 

 it in his face ; and as the blood flew I yelled 

 to them to take their seats again. 



This is terrible, and it pains me much to 

 write it ; but it convinced the boys I was 

 terribly in earnest, and they huddled back 

 to their seats like a lot of frightened sheep. 

 One of them ventured the suggestion that 

 this would be the last day i ever taught 

 school there. 



" It may be, sir, but as it is pretty certain 1 

 shall be master here until four o'clock, the 

 time to dismiss, I would ask you not to 

 make any further remarks, at least of such 

 a nature, without permission." 



Lysander washed his face, and, if I am 

 correct, we tied up a wound on his face, and 

 then I permitted him to go home ; but the 

 rest of the scholars I obliged to remain until 

 school was out. The next day the directors 

 and many of the parents assembled to see 

 what was to be done with me. It was the 

 opinion of many I should be prosecuted for 

 assault and battery ; and from the evidence 

 given in by the boys who were massed 

 against me, it looked pretty bad. Cross- 

 questioning, however, showed that their ev- 

 idence was prejudiced, and Anally, by the 

 advice of an old judge, who lived near, they 

 accepted the statement of a little girl, who 

 told it every time alike, and could not be 

 made to state any part ditt'erently. The 

 judge then, in a short speech, recommended 

 the trustees to engage me for another month 

 longer after my time was out, because I was 

 the first man they had found for some time 

 who was up with the times, and couldn't be 

 put out of doors by the boys. This seemed 

 to turn public sentiment in my favor, and I 

 had a very quiet and pleasant time during 

 the remainder of the school.* 



Now, friends, I have told this story all 

 through, and I have tried hard to tell it 

 truthfully. I have told it a good many 

 times, to illustrate how it is, that sometimes 

 nothing but brute force will answer. I have 

 told it recently in the same way, and it is 

 within only a few days that it has occurred 

 to me that there is a sequel to that story 

 that has never been told. You will notice, 

 and may have noticed in going over it, that 

 I have all the way througfl placed myself in 

 the light of having been all in the right- 

 yes, almost a hero, while the Black-Swamp 

 boys were all in the wrong. Now, I by no 

 means mean to justify putting schoolmas- 

 ters out of doors ; but in a sequel to this lit- 

 tle story, I wish to say something in behalf 

 of these boys. Was our civil war a necessi- 



* The real ringleaders in this little rebellion were 

 the two boys mentioned in the last of Our Homes, 

 Part II., who stole the watches. It occurred shortly 

 after the incident above. 



ty, and was my fight with the boys in the 

 schoolroom a necessity V In talking with 

 one of the best school-teachers I ever knew, 

 in regard to the matter, he said that, while 

 it might b-? that neither he nor I could have 

 taken that school and got along without such 

 a crisis, he thought there were men and wo- 

 men who would have so managed that no 

 brute force would ever have been needed. I 

 did not quite agree with him tlien, but 1 do 

 now. 



Here is the sequel : I told you I had a 

 habit of being quite familiar with my schol- 

 ars. Had 1 said with the older girls, I 

 should have been nearer the truth. Had I 

 taken the same pains to help the young men 

 of that school with their lesions that I did 

 the young women, some few of them, and 

 been steady and true to both, and to the di- 

 rectors who placed me there, right along 

 week after week, I do not think I would 

 ever have been disobeyed. You may think 

 I have a way of speaking of my sins, some 

 of them, in a more severe way than they de- 

 serve. You may say it is a common occur- 

 rence for teachers to be a little partial to the 

 opposite sex. More, then, is the need of a 

 reform. Before the winter was half over, it 

 was remarked, and in my hearing too, that 

 the schoolmaster was very willing to assist 

 certain girls with their examples in arithme- 

 tic. So far was this true, tliat one young 

 lady complained to her father, because I 

 was making myself too familiar. The father 

 (and he was the kind old judge who took my 

 part so faithfully at the school trial) re- 

 proved me right before tlie family circle one 

 morning, while I was bo;irdiug there. May 

 God bless him for his kindness, even to one 

 who deserved a sharp, severe reproof ! As 

 we came around the fire, he said,— 



" Mr. Hoot, there has just been a new law 

 passed." 



" Has there V" said I ; " what is it ?" 



" It is," said he (and his eye ftdl of kind- 

 ness rested on me so fully that I could not 

 mistake his meaning), "it is to the effect, 

 that any man, either married or single, who 

 willfully trijies with the att'ections of any 

 girl under age, is liable to State prison for a 

 term not exceeding three years." 



Of course, I replied in a strain of pleasant- 

 ry, but the reproof went home, and I respect- 

 ed both him and the daughter all the more 

 for it ever afterward. 



Oh that all girls wereon such intimate terms 

 with their father, that they could go to him 

 as freely and promptly as did this one. I 

 was effectually cured in this one direction ; 

 but as this incident was but a little before 

 the outbreak, my reformation made but lit- 

 tle difference. Think of it, my friends ; I, a 

 young man of fair education and ability, 

 good connections and i)arentage, was em- 

 ployed to instruct and teach good morals to 

 a neighborhood of boys and girls. JSly em- 

 ployers, relying on my sense of honor and 

 uprightness, did not think of it being neces- 

 sary to keep an eye on me, but paid me my 

 wages, good wages too, for going there day 

 by day and using those precious moments in 

 — to put it very mildly — foolish trifling. If 

 a boy or girl in my employ should do the 

 same thing now that I did then, I should 



