As they came out the door Ralph rallied enough to remark: “He did attack your people, Squire.”
“Oh, yes,” said the Squire. “Didn’t you see the Sarpent inspirin’ him?”
But the long, long hours were ended and Ralph got on the clay-bank mare and rode up alongside the stile whence Miss Martha mounted. And as he went away with a heavy heart, he overheard Pete Jones call out to somebody:
“We’ll tend to his case a Christmas.” Christmas was two days off.
And Miss Martha remarked with much trepidation that poor Pearson would have to leave. She’d always been afraid that would be the end of it. It reminded her of something she heard at the East, the time she was down to Bosting.
XIII
A Struggle for the Mastery
The school had closed on Monday evening as usual. The boys had been talking in knots all day. Nothing but the bulldog in the slender, resolute young master had kept down the rising storm. A teacher who has lost moral support at home, can not long govern a school. Ralph had effectually lost his popularity in the district, and the worst of it was that he could not divine from just what quarter the ill wind came, except that he felt sure of Small’s agency in it somewhere. Even Hannah had slighted him, when he called at Means’s on Monday morning to draw the pittance of pay that was due him.
He had expected a petition for a holiday on Christmas day. Such holidays are deducted from the teacher’s time, and it is customary for the boys to “turn out” the teacher who refuses to grant them, by barring him out of the schoolhouse on Christmas and New Year’s morning. Ralph had intended to grant a holiday if it should be asked, but it was not asked. Hank Banta was the ringleader in the disaffection, and he had managed to draw the surly Bud, who was present this morning, into it. It is but fair to say that Bud was in favor of making a request before resorting to extreme measures, but he was overruled. He gave it as his solemn opinion that the master was mighty peart, and they would be beat anyhow some way, but he would lick the master fer two cents ef he warn’t so slim that he’d feel like he was fighting a baby.
And all that day things looked black. Ralph’s countenance was cold and hard as stone, and Shocky trembled where he sat. Betsey Short tittered rather more than usual. A riot or a murder would have seemed amusing to her.
School was dismissed, and Ralph, instead of returning to the Squire’s, set out for the village of Clifty, a few miles away. No one knew what he went for, and some suggested that he had “sloped.”
But Bud said “he warn’t that air kind. He was one of them air sort as died in their tracks, was Mr. Hartsook. They’d find him on the ground nex’ morning, and he lowed the master war made of that air sort of stuff as would burn the dog-on’d ole schoolhouse to ashes, or blow it into splinters, but what he’d beat. Howsumdever he’d said he was a-goin’ to help, and help he would; but all the sinno in Golier wouldn’t be no account again the cute they was in the head of the master.”
But Bud, discouraged as he was with the fear of Ralph’s “cute,” went like a martyr to the stake and took his place with the rest in the schoolhouse at nine o’clock at night. It may have been Ralph’s intention to preoccupy the schoolhouse, for at ten o’clock Hank Banta was set shaking from head to foot at seeing a face that looked like the master’s at the window. He waked up Bud and told him about it.
“Well, what are you a-tremblin’ about, you coward?” growled Bud. “He won’t shoot you; but he’ll beat you at this game, I’ll bet a hoss, and me, too, and make us both as ’shamed of ourselves as dogs with tin-kittles to their tails. You don’t know the master, though he did duck you. But he’ll larn you a good lesson this time, and me too, like as not.” And Bud soon snored again, but Hank shook with fear every time he looked at the blackness outside the windows. He was sure he heard footfalls. He would have given anything to have been at home.
When morning came, the pupils began to gather early. A few boys who were likely to prove of service in the coming siege were admitted through the window, and then everything was made fast, and a “snack” was eaten.
“How do you ’low he’ll get in?” said Hank, trying to hide his fear.
“How do I ’low?” said Bud. “I don’t ’low nothin’ about it. You might as well ax me where I ’low the nex’ shootin’ star is a-goin’ to drap. Mr. Hartsook’s mighty onsartin. But he’ll git in, though, and tan your hide fer you, you see ef he don’t. Ef he don’t blow up the schoolhouse with gunpowder!” This last was thrown in by way of alleviating the fears of the cowardly Hank, for whom Bud had a great contempt.
The time for school had almost come. The boys inside were demoralized
