“There’s no use talking to you boys. I’m going to sleep,” and Brush turned over.
One by one, sleep overcame these boys. Brush made a peculiar noise as he breathed, and Lester puffed away like a steamboat.
A whippoorwill sang in one of the cottonwood-trees near the corner of the house. Fainter and fainter grew the sound, and so the day passed into yesterday, and the morrow began to dawn.
VIII
Fraudulent Holidays
“Third Reader,” called Graybeard, and some ten or twelve boys and girls marched to the place of recitation, and put their toes on a straight crack in the floor. The reading lesson was some verses on “Summer,” prettily illustrated with a picture of a boy and a dog, the lad racing over a meadow, and the dog frisking at his side.
“Now, Robert, begin!” said Graybeard to little Bob, who in some unaccountable way had reached the head of the class.
The boy put his index finger on the first word, and slid it along as he read, in a low, singsong tone, “Come, come, come, the Summer now is here.”
“Read that over again,” said Graybeard. “Read it loud, as though you were out of doors at play.”
Bob read again, but in the same manner, and had hardly gone through half the line when the sharp crack of Graybeard’s ruler on the desk made us all jump.
“That’s not the way to read it!” he exclaimed with some impatience; and he repeated the lines to show how they should be given. “Now, begin again.”
Bob began, but in the same lifeless tone, never taking his finger from the words.
“Next!” interrupted Graybeard. “The same verse; read as though you were wide awake and calling to your playmates, not as if you were going to sleep.”
The boy addressed straightened himself up and shouted out:
“Come, come, come, the Summer now is here!” going through the verse without a break, then he glanced proudly toward the girls, only to see them giggling behind their books.
“Silence!” cried Graybeard, striking his desk. “That was well done!”
The door slowly opened, and the farmer entered, hat in hand, and addressed Graybeard, “I want to transfer a sow with a litter of pigs from one pen to another, and I’ve come to ask if you could let me have the help of some of the boys?”
When permission had been granted, a number of willing hands went up, and as many faces turned with eager expectancy to the farmer, who looked around, and then said, “Brush, Frank, Lester, and Warren will do.”
We followed the farmer to the pen, and at once jumped in, each one seizing a little pig; but, before we could turn, the sow made such an onslaught upon us that we dropped the pigs and scrambled over the fence; but Lester, who was last, left a piece of his trousers in the jaws of the angry beast. After this exciting experience, at which the farmer could hardly stop laughing, we held a consultation with him, and agreed upon a plan which we immediately proceeded to carry out.
We threatened the sow with our hats; she retreated into a corner with her young; then Brush slyly went up, and, reaching his hand through the fence, caught one of the little pigs by the legs and held it fast; it squealed lustily, and the infuriated mother made savage attacks upon the fence. Then Lester, Warren, the farmer, and I sprang into the pen, caught the frightened little pigs, and ran with them to the new pen. Brush released his prisoner, and the cry of the transported little ones brought the mother to the pen, where she was secured.
While the farmer was fastening the gate, we boys walked around the hog-yard; Warren, who was ahead, discovered a weak place in the fence, and beckoned excitedly for us to hasten.
There were times when the pupils became very tired of their books, and longed to take a run over the prairies or through the woods. When this longing came upon them, they sought for ways and means by which to have the school closed, and secure a holiday. I remember once, it was in the fall, the members of the Big Seven loosened the joints of the long stovepipe during recess. When school opened in the afternoon, and their class was called, they marched to the place of recitation, keeping step and jarring the room so that the sections of the pipe fell rattling to the floor, filling the room with smoke, and covering floor and desks with soot. As it would take some time for the pipe to cool and be put up again, and the room cleaned, the school was dismissed, giving us a half holiday.
Now, in the weakness of the hog fence, there was a chance for an afternoon out of school, and Warren saw it. He told us his plan, and the rest of us fell in with the scheme. After dinner we took some corn and scattered it outside of the fence at the weak place; then we went to the schoolroom, where Graybeard, when he came to ring the bell to summon the scholars, found us hard at work on our arithmetic lessons.
The geography class was up, and Brush was describing the rivers of South America, when the door was thrown open by the superintendent, who exclaimed, “Hurry, boys! The pigs are out and going to the Indians’ cornfield!”
We did not wait to be ordered a second time; but, snatching our hats from the pegs in the hall, we ran down the hill with wild shouts and cries. All the afternoon we chased pigs, and had a glorious time, while the girls had to stay in school and be banged at by Graybeard.
It was almost suppertime when we finally drove the pigs into the yard and repaired the weak places in the fence. Flushed with our exciting chase we entered the dining-room when the bell rang, and took our places at the table
