Growth of a Man. Mazo de la Roche
was flustered and could only say:—
“Oh, I’m very sorry, Mr. Blair! I’m very, very sorry.”
“You may well be sorry,” he returned. “I am sure that we are all sorry.” His fine grey eyes swept over the assembled children, including them all in the general sorrowing.
His son, safe in the back row, murmured, “Amen, brother Blair, so be it,” sending the other boys into a state approaching suffocation.
“Why do you think Shaw behaved so to you, Louie?” asked Miss McKay, concealing, in her anxiety, only the less important pimples.
“I dunno, teacher,” answered Louie. “He just came along and told me he was going to get to the top of the class and then he began to chase me.”
“Why, he is not even in your class!” exclaimed Miss McKay. “He is even below little Elspeth. What made you say and do such things, Shaw?” She spoke kindly and his head drooped.
“Explain!” ordered the minister.
“Well,” said Shaw, “I made up my mind last night to be head of the highest class, and when I saw Louie on the road I remembered she was head and I chased her.”
“He is a truthful boy,” said Miss McKay.
“That doesn’t excuse his conduct. What are you going to do about that, Miss McKay?”
“Whatever you suggest,” she answered meekly.
“Then I suggest six on each hand with the strap. If you don’t object, I shall remain while the punishment is administered. It may have more effect.”
Miss McKay began to tremble. “You may take your seat, Louie.” She opened her desk and produced the strap.
“Remember, Shaw,” said Mr. Blair, “that this is being done for your good.”
“A-men, brother,” murmured his son. “So be it. Hit him hard, teacher! He’ll thank you for it!”
“Hold out your hand,” said Miss McKay.
Shaw held his broad-palmed, well-shaped hand on a level with his shoulder. Down came the strap, six times on each hand, stinging with Miss McKay’s flurry, her fear of being thought incompetent. Shaw turned pale. He felt that Mr. Blair’s eyes were boring into him, rejoicing in his pain. He kept his own eyes fixed on Miss McKay’s face, seeing how the pimples were left uncovered, how, with each blow, a fresh wave of color flooded her pale face. His own hands seemed somehow detached from him; he watched their suffering, ashamed for their humiliation.
“Now,” said Mr. Blair, “go to your seat and let this be the last time you ever behave in this ruffianly way, especially to a little girl whom we should all try to help.” He looked at his large gold watch, exchanged a few words with Miss McKay, and, after a long, compelling look at the assembled children, creaked out. They heard the wheels of his buggy rattle on the gravel.
For a while Shaw sat motionless, nursing his hands, seeing nothing, the rise and fall of Miss McKay’s voice going in and out of his head without meaning. She spared him any questions.
Presently a boy behind him poked him in the back and passed a note under his arm. It was from Ian and it read:—
First spit on them—then blow on them—it takes the smart out.
The Minister’s Son,
IAN
Shaw grinned. Surreptitiously he spat and blew. He made Ian’s note into a pellet and flicked it at Louie’s face. She gave him a look of hate and slowly the ebb of his self-respect turned. It began to flow in on him. It filled his veins with warmth. He raised his heavy eyes and began to listen to what the teacher was saying.
He went on listening. He never took those heavy eyes from her face. She became uncomfortable. She could not forget him for a moment. At the recess she kept him in.
“This is not a punishment, Shaw,” she said. “I simply want to know why you sat staring so. You made me feel queer. Aren’t you well?”
“I’m all right,” he answered gruffly.
“Very well, then—you may go out and play.”
He moved toward the door, then turned back.
“I stared,” he said slowly, “because I didn’t want to miss a word you said. What Louie told you is true. I’m going to be head of her class. I’m going to pass the entrance exam next year.”
“But, Shaw,” she cried, “you can’t! You can’t possibly do it! You don’t know what you’re saying! Whatever put such an idea in your head?” She was worried. Something had happened to the boy. He looked ill. She asked:—
“Where is your mother? I believe I heard that she has gone away.”
“Yes. She’s got a situation as a housekeeper. She’s got to work hard and—so have I. I’m going to pass the entrance first of the school. You’ll see!”
She was touched. She put her beautiful hand to her face. “I’ll help you all I can,” she said, but she thought that the poor boy was attempting the impossible.
Yet by the time the summer holidays came it did not seem quite so impossible. Shaw showed a stubbornness, a resolve, that almost disconcerted her. His homework was always prepared. He not only listened to what she was teaching his class but she caught him drinking in what was going on in the class above. She saw him form with his lips the answers to unanswered questions. At the end of the term he was easily at the top of his class.
Now that Shaw was in his tenth year his grandfather was determined that he should be more useful on the farm. The holidays were here and consequently he was free for the busiest season. He was set at hoeing. Hour after hour, day after day, week in, week out, he stood in the potato field or among the turnips and swedes, hoeing out the weeds.
It was a hot, humid summer. Even Roger Gower admitted that he had never before seen such a growth of weeds. At first Shaw hoed manfully, even hoping for a word of commendation, but the weeds were too much for him. Uproot them as he would, their fellows, their successors, thrust up, brandished their tough blooms, shook out their down with a million seeds attached, jeered at him above the smothered swedes.
Invariably Luke or Mark came to help him out. Those were the days that filled him with despair. The effort to keep up with the dogged relentless hoeing of these two left him too tired for sleep. He would toss on his little bed the hot night through. But at dawn, when his sleep was suddenly deep and peaceful, Beaty would come pounding up the stairs and wake him.
“Get up, lazybones! My, what a lazy lump you are!”
He would lie stupefied, staring through the small-paned window, pretending that he would not get up. “I won’t get up!” he would mutter. “Don’t you think you can make me, you mean old Beaty! I’ll lie here resting all day long and you’ll carry my meals up to me. You’ll carry them up on a golden tray with fine white linen, you mean old pig, Beaty!”
Then below, out of the jungle of his grandfather’s beard, would come a roar of—“Shaw!”
He would spring up frightened and hastily pull on his clothes, the muscles of his back and arms cruelly sore, and stumble down the stairs.
The best thing on these mornings was the drink of ice-cold spring water from the tin dipper. He would press his dry lips to the dipper and drink as though he would never get his fill. Into this icy liquid the stiff hot porridge fell in a solid lump that his stomach was incapable of digesting. It lay heavy for a long time, then suddenly he was ravenously hungry, yearning for the pork and potatoes and pie of dinner. He became hollow-eyed, pasty-skinned with a thick yellowish tan. The palms of his hands were ridged by calluses. His hair was harsh and dry. He walked to his dinner bent like a little old man.
Even a day of pouring rain or electric storm did not save him from toil. Stables were to be cleaned or wood to be piled. Only Sunday came as a respite, as a