132 
The RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
January 25, 1010 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
The Tin Soldier 
The time is soon coming when the men 
without some sort of a military record 
Avill have to sit in the shadow for a while. 
I hope the men and boys who stayed at 
home and fought against weeds and frost 
and drought and flood to win the harvest 
will be counted as equal to those who 
marched over the Rhine—or were willing 
to do so. I remember how, after the Civil 
War, men who never got within sound of 
battle suddenly developed into heroes with 
a most sanguinary record. As I recall it, 
those who did the least actual lighting did 
the most talking, and the more they talked 
the more they convinced themselves that 
they were great men. 1 suppose the only 
great men in the world are those who do 
not realize how large they are. I have 
known men whose word could not secure 
for them a pound of meat or eoal or gro¬ 
ceries, yet by pouring words into their 
military record they fattened it tremen¬ 
dously. My children know that I once 
lived in the Rocky Mountain region, but 
their ideal of a “mighty hunter” is badly 
shattered when they know that all I did 
out there was to milk vows, while jack 
rabbits represented my largest game! 
When it comes, to a military record the 
children expect something, but all 1 can 
muster up is the time I led those tiu sol¬ 
diers into battle. The following is a fair 
statement, of it. allowing for the small 
license given to all military heroes: 
Years and years ago—that’s the way a 
man talks when he gets to be past 50—-I 
taught a district school in a Western 
State. This will be read by a lot of old 
fellow’s who will say at once, “me too.” 
Now. 1 never was a teacher—never pre¬ 
tended to be one—and never was cut out 
for one. Honestly, I took that school for 
the “.$25 a month and board around” 
that it represented. I needed the $100 to 
help me through college, and 1 needed the 
“boarding around” experience to square 
up a knowledge of human nature. Some 
people come and tell me that they taught 
school impelled by their great love of hu¬ 
manity and desire to uplift the rural citi¬ 
zen. I might claim that wdien I was “out 
West” I killed several grizzly bears. I 
think I could get away with the claim to 
my children, but the fact is jack rabbits 
and prairie dogs w r ere my limit. 1 gave 
that school district the best I had of mind 
and muscle, but I was no great educator 
or rural uplifter. I should not care to 
have my children taught by one who 
claimed that he was sacrificing his life to 
uplift them ! I w'ould have more confi¬ 
dence in him if he said frankly that he 
needed the money and would try to earn 
it. 
$ * * * # 
In those days such a character would 
have had a frosty time in that district. 
It was a noted danger spot. After I 
started in I learned that the last five 
teachers had been taken out by the big 
boys and dumped in the snow. The sec¬ 
ond week of my hoarding ’round, the 
farmer brought out a handful of long hair 
which he Said his son had pulled out of the 
teacher’s beard. That convinced me that 
teachers and prize-fighters should use a 
razor. Those were the happy days when 
there were no laws against physical pun¬ 
ishment in the school room. The whip 
went with writing, the rod with reading, 
and the shingle with spelling. The direc¬ 
tor of the district walked into the school 
on the first day and handed me a box of 
chalk, a new dictionary and a bundle of 
oak sticks about the size of your thumb. 
“Show them how to figure, show them 
how to spell, and lick them if they Avon’t 
do it.” 
Perhaps if they had let me alone I 
might have done better, but everyone in 
the district was waiting for events to 
happen after corn husking was done. The 
big boys and young men did not come to 
school until the corn was in the crib. I 
saw them at work in the field as I passed 
by and often they played the part of big 
brother as I went from home to home in 
boarding around. They sent messages by 
the smaller children which went all one 
way. 
"When snow falls we’re coming to lick 
the teacher!” 
When I put the case to my friend the 
director, that philosopher gave the local 
point of view: 
“I guess you’ll have to fight. For two 
generations the big boys in this district 
have run the school, and it’s got to be a 
habit. I’d like to see it broken up, but I 
don’t know Iioav to do it. After corn 
busking these big fellers will come here 
like a prodigal son Avho has doubled the 
old man’s money and come back to eat up 
the fatted calf, You’re the fatted calf. 
It’s up to you to say whether you’re ten¬ 
der or tough.” 
* * * * * 
That advice sunk into me, and 1 Avent 
around thinking about it. At one place 
where I boarded a childless couple had 
taken a little boy to “bring up.” They 
meant well, but they knew nothing of 
children, and could not by any possibility 
analyze the mind of a child—and how 
can anyone teach or preach or practice 
rightly unless they can do that? These 
Avorthy people thought that if they put 
clothing on this little boy and put food 
and drink into his mouth and sent him to 
the district school, nature or some other 
mysterious power would do the rest. As 
for love and sympathy and childish vision, 
they probably never thought of them, and 
yet these were the things which Johnnie 
Benson craved. When I saw that lonely 
little felloAV watching me with his big 
eyes, or following me about as I walked 
back and forth from school, I began to be 
ashamed to think that the chief interest I 
had in that group of children was the 
money to spend for my own advancement. 
The farmer and his Avife did not believe 
in giving presents to children. 
“This little feller Avent to town and soav 
in a store window a box of little tin sol¬ 
diers. Why. the most foolish things to 
waste money on. yet that little feller beg¬ 
ged and begged me to buy them. Just 
cried when I wouldn’t do it. I ain’t got 
any 50 cents to spend on tin soldiers. 
What are they good for?” 
And Johnnie sat listening with that 
Avistful. hunted look in his eyes Avhieh 
the farmer could not understand. You 
see, some ancestor far back beaind him 
Avas whispering to Johnnie about soldiers 
and Avar, and the farmer could not under¬ 
stand his message, printed in Johnnie’s 
eyes. After the boy Avent to bed I asked 
the farmer if lie had any objection to my 
buying the soldiers. • 
“Why, no; only it’s a foolish thing, 
and you can’t afford to throw aAvay 50 
cents!” 
So the next Saturday I walked to 
town and bought the famous soldiers. 
They were poor little cheap things Avith 
gaudy paint and that foolish expression , 
you always find on a tin faee! As I 
walked along the country road with that 
box in my pocket I had my one and only 
experience in commanding a squad of sol¬ 
diers. At that time I did not know tin 
soldiers can fight. It was worth 50 cents 
and very much more to see that boy 
spread out his soldiers and sit looking at 
them. When time came for his chores he 
put two soldiers in his pocket, and I think 
lie carried at least one of them wherever 
he went for years. It. is good to have a 
military guard, and these soldiers stood 
for something better than war. 
* * * * * 
On Monday morning I found half a 
dozen more or less husky young felloAA’s 
at school. I use the Avord husky after de¬ 
liberation. These young fellows had been 
husking corn for six weeks, and I do not 
know of anything better calculated to 
harden the hands and toughen the muscles 
and temper than pulling off husks in the 
frost and wind. I could not help thinking 
what beautiful specimens of young man¬ 
hood they Avere and what they could do 
for the district if local history had handed 
doAvn to them some higher ambition than 
that of licking the teacher. I well re¬ 
member standing on the little platform 
that morning and facing the school. Avell 
knowing that I had only two friends in 
the room avIio would fight for me—John¬ 
nie Benson and the little tin soldier which 
he had in his hand. 
I am told that most great battles in the 
world’s history have really been started 
out of the scheduled time by some minor 
incident. It is said that Napoleon once 
ordered an attack upon the enemy just to 
gratify a Avoman who wanted to see a bat¬ 
tle. It deA’eloped into a great attack. I 
did not expect my struggle would be start¬ 
ed by a song, but you never can tell. At 
the noon recess there came a group of 
young women to practice a few songs for 
an entertainment. So I called up the 
larger girls and we started in. As I re¬ 
call it, AA r e were singing “Murmuring 
Sea.” I was the only one of that group 
who had ever seen the ocean, and I should 
haA'e knoAvn enough to try to “murmur” 
when it came to my part—hut I fear I 
let out a few high notes. As a result 
there came from the back of the room a 
voice, rough and clear: 
“Give that calf more rope!” 
There was no denying the fact that the 
challenge to battle had come, for the 
largest of the buskers pushed up to the 
front and repeated: 
“Give that calf more rope.” 
After it was all over I thought of a 
dozen things I might have said or done, 
but there were tin* pretty young women 
and girls, and there Avere the jeering 
buskers—and if the male of the species 
has any fight in him at all it will break 
out at such a time. I do not think my 
singing could ever be fairly defended, but 
before I knew it the fatted calf Avas out 
on the floor deciding whether he was ten¬ 
der or tough. 
People have told me in all seriousness 
that literary studies are of no value in 
practical life. Take poetry, they say; 
when the real combat comes, what is it 
good for? I am not so sure about that. 
As I jumped oil that platform there came 
into my mind a foolish doggerel Avhicb has 
been attributed to Mark Twain in the 
days of the old horse cars: 
“Punch, brothers; punch with care. 
Punch in the presence of the passenjaire, 
A blue trip slip for a five-eent fare, 
A pink strip slip for an eight-ccnt fare, 
Punch brothers, punch brothers, punch 
with care.” 
It is a strange thing, but that silly 
verse repeated itself over and over in my 
mind, and I did my best, to beat time to 
the refrain. It must have been a good 
performance. Fortune and the desks fa¬ 
vored me, and most of those buskers fell 
over their own feet., and I got credit for 
it. The first I really remembered was 
seeing a row of these young fellows lying 
around me, and the biggest of the lot. 
strong and fresh, coming at me like a 
(Continued on page 155) 
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