The Jucklins. Opie Percival Read
for a time, "if you are willing to take this school and go ahead with it, all right. I am determined that the boys and girls of this community shall get an education even if they choke the creek with teachers. If I had full swing I'd raise a lot of men and go around and club the big boys. Oh, it hasn't been this way very long. We've had first-rate schools here, but those devilish Aimes boys are so full of the old Harry—but we'll fix 'em. The ground will be all right for plowin' to-morrow, and the big boys will have to work until the corn is laid by, but I reckon you'll get a pretty fair turn-out. There's enough money appropriated to have a rattlin' good school, and if you'll stick by me we'll have it."
I told him that I would stick by him. "All right," said he, "see that you do. Let me see. This is Friday. You hold yourself in readiness to begin Monday mornin', and to-morrow I will ride around the neighborhood and spread the news."
So that was settled. Briskly we drove away, and again upon nearing the house of the old General, Alf pulled the mare back into a walk. This time, though, he did not stop, but as we slowly passed he swept the house and the yard with his eager glance. The sun was down when we reached home. How long the day had been, what a stretch of time lay between the going down of the sun now and its rising, when I had shouldered my trunk at the railway station!
As I was getting down in front of the door I heard Mr. Jucklin calling me, and when I answered he came forward out of the passage and said that he wanted to see me a moment. He led the way and I followed him into the dark shadow of a tree. "I forgot to tell you not to say anything about that," said he.
"About what?" I asked.
"About wallowin' him—the old General. He requested me not to mention it, bein' so proud, and I told him that I wouldn't, and I don't know what made me speak of it to-day, but I did."
"Oh, I won't mention it," I spoke up rather sharply, for I was disappointed that he had not told me something of importance.
"All right. And I am much obleeged to you. He is one of the proudest men in the world and he don't want anybody to suspect that any feller ever wallowed him; but I want to tell you right now that I have wallowed a good many of 'em in my time. Are you goin' to teach the school?"
"Yes, the arrangements have been made, and I am to begin work Monday morning."
"Good enough. Well, we'll go on in now and eat a snack, for I reckon the women folks have got it about ready."
We went early to bed. The house was but a story and a half high, and I was to room with Alf, up close to the clap-board roof. I could not stand straight, except in the middle of the apartment, but I was comfortable, for I had a good bed, and there was plenty of air coming in through two large windows, one on each side of the chimney at the end, toward the south. While the dawn was drowsiest, just at the time when it seems that one moment of dreamy dozing is worth a whole night of soundest sleep, Alf got up to go afield to his plow, and as the joints of the stairway were creaking under him as he went down I turned over for another nap, thankful that after all the teaching of a school was not the hardest lot in life. And I was deliciously dreaming when Guinea called me to breakfast.
I spent the most of the day in my room, getting ready for my coming work. Against the chimney I built a shelf and put my books upon it; I turned a large box into a writing table, and of a barrel I fashioned an easy-chair. My surroundings were rude, but I was pleased with them; indeed, I had never found myself so pleasantly placed. And when Alf came up at night he looked about him and with a smile remarked: "You must own that lamp that we read about. Wish you would rub it again and get my corn out of the grass." He looked tired and I wondered why he did not go to bed, but he strode up and down the room, smoking his pipe. He was silent and thoughtful, refilling his pipe as soon as the tobacco was burned out; but sometimes he would talk, though what he said I felt was aimless.
"I've some heavier tobacco than that," I said.
"This will do, though it is pretty light. Raised on an old hill."
He sat down and continued to pull at his pipe, though the fire was out. He leaned with his elbow on the table; he moved as if his position were uncomfortable; he got up, went to the window, looked out, came back, resumed his seat and after looking at the floor for a few moments said that he thought that it must be going to rain.
"Perhaps so," I replied, "but that's not what you wanted to say."
He gave me a sharp glance, looked down and then asked: "How do you know?"
"I know because I can see and because I'm not a fool."
"Anybody ever call you a fool?" he asked, with a sad laugh. He leaned far back and looked up at the clapboards.
"That has nothing to do with it, Alf. Pardon me. Mr. Jucklin, I should have said. The truth is, it seems that I have known you a long time."
"And when you feel that way about a man," he quickly spoke up, "you make no mistake in accepting him as a friend. Call me Alf. What's your first name?" I told him, and he added: "And I'll call you Bill. No; the truth is I didn't care to say that I thought it was going to rain; I don't give a snap for rain, except the rain that is pouring on my heart. You remember that girl that came out upon the gallery. I know you do, for no man could forget her. You know that Guinea asked me if Millie was at home. Well, that was Millie Lundsford, the old General's daughter. We have lived close together all our lives, but I have never known her very well, and even now I wouldn't go there on a dead-set visit. She and Guinea went off to school together and are good friends. Guinea tries to plague me about her at times, not knowing that I really love her. I couldn't go off to school, didn't care any too much for education, but since that girl came home and I got better acquainted with her I have felt that I would give half my life to know books, so that I could talk to her; and since then I have been studying, with Guinea to help me. And you don't know how glad I was when I heard that you had come here to teach school, for I want to study under you. But secretly," he added. "I can't go to the school-house; I don't want her to know that I am so ignorant."
I reached over and took hold of his hand. "Alf, to teach you shall be one of my duties. But don't put yourself down as ignorant, for you are not."
He grasped my hand, and, looking straight into my eyes, said: "I wish I knew as much and was as good-looking as you. Then I wouldn't be afraid to go to her and ask her to let me win her love, if I could. To-morrow you go over to the General's, pretending that you want to get his advice about the school, and I will go with you. Hang it, Bill, you may be in love one of these days."
"Why, Alf, I don't see why either of us should be afraid to go to the General's house. Go? Of course, we will. But you make me laugh when you say that if you were only as good-looking as I am. Let me tell you something." I briefly told him the uneventful story of my life, that ridicule had found me while yet I was a toddler and had held me up as its target. "You might have grown too fast," he remarked when I had concluded, "but you have caught up with yourself. To tell you the truth, you would be picked out from among a thousand men. Where did you get all those books? I don't see how you brought them with you in that trunk, and with your other things."
"The other things didn't take up much room," I answered, and, turning to the books, I began to tell him something about them, but I soon saw that his mind was far away. "Yes, we will go over there to-morrow," said I, and his mind flew back.
"And walk right in as if we owned half the earth," said he, but I knew that he felt not this lordly courage, knew that already he was quaking. "Oh, I'll go right in with you," he said. "You lead the way and I'll be with you."
When I had gone to bed a remark that he had made was sweeping like a wind through my mind: "Hang it, Bill, you may be in love one of these days." I was already in love—in love with Guinea.
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