wanted to, and did not give any excuse for being
late, or for not coming at all. At last, when the teacher was driven
desperate, and got in a rod (which he said he was ashamed to use, but
they left him no hope of ruling them by reason), the big boys fought
him, and struck back when he began to whip them. This gentle soul had
not one friend among all those little savages, whom he had given no
cause to hate, but only cause to love him. None of them could have told
why they used him so ill, for nobody knew; only, the word had gone out
that you were not to mind him, but to mock him and fight him; nobody
knew where the word first came from.

Not even my boy, I grieve to say, was the poor man's friend, though he
too had received only kindness from him. One day, when the teacher had
set him his copy, and found him doing it badly as he came by, he gave
him a slight tap on his head with his penknife, and addressed him some
half-joking reproof. This fired my boy's wicked little heart with
furious resentment; he gathered up his books after school, and took them
home; a good many other boys had done it, and the school was dwindling.
He was sent back with his books the next morning, and many other parents
behaved as wisely as his. One of the leading men in the town, whose mere
presence in the schoolroom sent a thrill of awe through the fellows,
brought his son in after such an escapade, and told the teacher that he
had just given him a sound thrashing, and he hoped the teacher would
give him another. But the teacher took the hand of the snivelling
wretch, and called him affectionately by name, and said they would try
to get along without that, and sent him to his seat forgiven. It ought
to have touched a heart of stone, but in that barbarous republic of boys
there was no gratitude. Sometimes they barred the teacher out by
nailing the doors and windows; and at last he gave up the school.

But even then his persecution did not end. The word went out that you
were not to speak to him if you met him; and if he spoke to you, you
were not to say anything back. One day he came up to my boy where he sat
fishing for crawfish in the Hydraulic, with his bare legs dangling over
the edge of a culvert, and, unawed by this august figure, asked him
pleasantly what luck he had. The boy made no sign of seeing or hearing
him, and he ignored some other kindly advances. I hope the teacher
thought it merely his shyness. The boy went home and told, gleefu