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Mitch Miller, a novel by Edgar Lee Masters |
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Chapter 8 |
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_ CHAPTER VIII School interfered a good deal with huntin' treasure, but things happened now and then to let us out. The professor looked exactly like Tom Sawyer's teacher, except ours wore a beard. He seemed awful old and kind of knotty and twisty. I think he must have been near sixty, and he had been a preacher, and lost his pulpit and so turned to teachin'. We could see he was pretty rusty about a lot of things. You can't fool boys much, and you couldn't fool Mitch and me. [Illustration: Professor Taylor] The professor's name was Professor Taylor. He had a low forehead with his hair lyin' flat like a wig--and creases across his forehead where he had been worryin'. And one of his shoulders was kind of humped up and to one side, and one of his hands had a stiff thumb. He couldn't keep order in the school at all, because some of the big boys like Charley King and George Heigold kept somethin' goin' all the time. And these big boys got the rest of us into things like throwin' chalk and sometimes erasers, or all together droppin' our geographies of a sudden. Then the professor would tap the bell and say, "The tap of the bell is the voice of the teacher--who dropped their geographies, who was it?" Then things would get worse and there would be a noise like a political meetin'. Pa said he warn't fit to run a school, but the directors kept him in because he was related to the president of the board. And most every mornin' for exercises he would read the 19th psalm, which says, "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple," generally lookin' at me when he said "simple," because I couldn't learn very well. Then he would start the song with a tuning fork, "Too-do" and generally somebody would cough like he had a awful cold and so start the noise. Then lots would cough and he'd have to wait before singin' "The Shades of Night Was Falling Fast." Then he would talk to us about bein' good. And onct when Ella Stephens died over at Springfield, where she had been for some kind of a operation, you couldn't find out what, because nobody would say, he got up and said that God would forgive Ella and all of us should pray for her. Most of us cried, rememberin' Ella's red cheeks and how she used to laugh when she came in the schoolroom. She was about 16. And one mornin' school seemed to go all to pieces. This George Heigold was studyin' geometry and he came to me and says, before school took up: "When I go to the blackboard to demonstrate in geometry, I'll wink at you and then you drop your reader or somethin', Mitch will do the same, and then I'll get through, I'll show you. For I ain't studied the lesson." I said "all right." So when the geometry class was recitin', there was four in it, George and Charley King, and Bertha Whitney and Mary Pitkin, the girls bein' awful smart, and always havin' their lessons. The professor turned to George Heigold and says: "George, you may demonstrate proposition three." Then the professor gave Bertha proposition four, and Mary proposition five, and Charley proposition six. But meantime George didn't get up to draw his figure on the blackboard, though the rest did. He was lookin' in the book so he could draw it; and finally the professor said, "Did you hear me, George?" "Yes, sir," said George, "but I was tryin' to think out a different way to demonstrate this here proposition from the way the book says." And the professor says: "If you demonstrate it the way the book does, that will be very well, and I'll give you a hundred." So then George hopped right up and drew a fine figure on the board and lettered it, and was just about to set down and study the book, as I could see, because he was eyein' the professor and expectin' that some of the others would be called on first, and while the professor was watchin' somebody else demonstrate, he would study up. But it happened wrong: George was called on first. So he got up, lookin' at me to give me the wink, and he began: "Supposin' A-B is a straight line, and supposin' B-C is a straight line, and supposin' C-D is a straight line, and supposin' these here lines are all joined so as to make a triangle." Then the professor got to his side and made it so George couldn't see me to wink, and he says: "No, no, George." And George says, "Very well, I have a original demonstration." And the professor says: "Original, original--just follow the book, just follow the book." Of course, George couldn't, and so he stepped back and gave me the wink, and I dropped my reader, Mitch dropped his reader. Percy Guyer, an awful nervous boy, started like, and flung his ink well off. Then there was a lot of coughin' and some laughin', and the professor went wild and says, "What is the matter? What can be the matter now?" And he turned to George and says, in a mad way, "Take your seat." So George did, and began to study the demonstration. And after while it got quiet and the professor went on with Mary and Bertha who got a hundred. Charley King got through fair, and probably got 75. And there sat George and the class was about to be dismissed without George recitin', when George raised his hand and said: "I'll do my best to demonstrate the way you want me to. I don't want to lose my chance." So the professor just smiled awful friendly on George and says "all right." And George got up and recited perfect, according to the book and got 100. I never saw such a boy as George Heigold; for once the professor got up an astronomy class--the whole school mostly was in it--and he was teachin' us general things about the stars and what they was made of. So one day the professor called out quick as a test of what he had told us before: "What element is found on the planet Mars that is not found anywhere else in the universe?" And George Heigold who was sittin' way back yelled out "Sapolio"--and the whole school went wild, into a roar of laugh. While the professor marched up and down flippin' his coat tails with his hands and sayin', "Who said Sapolio? Who said Sapolio?" But no one told and he couldn't find out. So on this day when George Heigold got a hundred in geometry, somethin' else happened. It was a warm day and you could hear bees outside, and the trees was beginnin' to show green. All of us was so sleepy we could hardly stay awake, and I could look out of the window and see the river and the hills on the other side, and I could even see people fishin'. Well, near noon we all began to smell somethin' like onions, and it got worse and worse, and seemed to come up from the registers, for Jas. Walker, the janitor, was keepin' a little fire yet, or had for early mornin'. And the professor got over the register and smelt and he says, "Who put asoefetida in the furnace--who did such a cowherd thing as that?" Nobody said nothin'. It was a surprise to me, and to Mitch, but we were tickled for we could see what was comin'. The smell got worse and worse, and Jas. Walker came runnin' through the room and lookin' in registers. Then everybody began to cough in earnest, only George Heigold coughed louder than a cow, and Bertha Whitney, bein' delicate, fainted and there was a lot of runnin' to her, pickin' her up and fetchin' her water. And the schoolroom went wild. The professor lost hold of everything and got white and walked back and forth flappin' his coat tails with his hands. Till finally he said, "School's dismissed for the day." Then we all got up and busted out, singing and laughing. So Mitch and me went to dinner and then hurried off to Old Salem to dig for treasure. [Illustration: Looking for Asafetida] When we got to the mill, Jim Lally was already there and was fishin' and had caught a big cat. They was bitin' good. And he says: "How did you boys like the asoefetida?" We said "pretty well." And then he said, "If anybody says I did that and you tell it, I'll lick you both, so you can't stand up." Jim was 16 or 17 and big and we knew he meant it. But Mitch laughed and said: "Why would we tell it? Ain't we off for the afternoon the same as you?" So we went up and dug, but didn't find nothin'. And finally while we was diggin' away, all of a sudden I saw a big snake in the weeds, all coiled, and Mitch didn't see it at first. For all of a sudden it kind of sprang out like a spring you let loose and bit Mitch on the hand. Mitch gave an awful cry and began to suck the place where the snake bit him. I says, "Don't do that, Mitch, you have a tooth out, and the pisen will get in you there. What's the use of takin' it out one place and puttin' it in another?" I grabbed a stick then and killed the snake. Mitch got pale and began to be sickish and I was scared to death. And we ran down to the road as fast as we could. Just then a wagon came along, and I hollered to the man; so he came over and lifted Mitch into the wagon and laid him down, and we put the snake into the wagon too, for I had carried it along; and the man whipped up his horses fast so as to get into town for a doctor. Mitch's hand didn't swell, but he kept gettin' sicker and sicker, and was moanin' and about to die; and the man drove faster and faster, for he said the snake was one of the most pisen. When we got to the square, Mr. Miller happened to be walkin' along. And the man drew up and said to Mr. Miller, "Here's your boy, bit by a snake." "What kind?" says Mr. Miller, all excited. "Here he is," said the man, and held up the snake. Mr. Miller says: "Oh, fiddlesticks! That's a blue racer, as harmless as the peck of a chicken." Then he took hold of Mitch and shook him and says: "Here, Mitch, this is all foolishness--you're just scart; that snake ain't pisen. He can't hurt you more than a chicken." So Mitch sat right up and looked at his hand which wasn't swelled. And he says: "I am pisened, I'm sick." "Oh, shucks," said Mr. Miller. "It's just imagination. Come into the drug store and get a soda." Mitch climbed out of the wagon, kind of pale yet, but more sheepish and went in and drank his soda and began to laugh. And Mr. Miller said, "Where was you?" And Mitch said, "Down by the mill." And Mr. Miller said, "Now, listen; you've had a scare, but there is only two snakes around here that is pisen. One is the copperhead. You can tell him by his bright copper-colored head and his strawberry body; the other is the rattlesnake. You can tell him by his rattle. But if you don't be careful foolin' around in the woods and dreamin' and not watchin' what you're doin', one of them will bite you. Now look here, you go home and get in the wood and help around the house." So Mitch says, "Come on, Skeet, and help me, and for company." So I went and helped Mitch with his work. _ |
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