Half a Dozen Boys/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV.
PHIL’S FIGHT.
The first of September found the boys all at home again, after their summer fun and wanderings. Phil had been visiting his grandmother in Vermont; Sam had gone with his family to Newport, where his boyish soul was greatly tried by their attempts to live in a truly fashionable manner; Bert had been in Western New York, visiting some farmer friends, who feasted him on milk and honey, and let him go fishing and ride the horses bareback, to his heart’s content; while poor Ted was left to pine at home. But every joy has its accompanying sorrow, and glad as they were to be together once more, the immediate prospect of school was a cause for mourning. To Fred, it seemed strange to hear the other five boys bemoaning their fate, when he so wished he could go back into school again, and he could scarcely realize that only lately he had shared their feelings. He needed no urging to return to his pleasant lessons with Bess; but the others, who had so many more resources, were by no means reconciled, and the first Monday in September saw them walking slowly, very slowly, towards the schoolhouse, with their books in their hands and rage in their hearts.
All of us who have been boys know how hard it is to leave all the frolics and idle enjoyment of the long vacation, to sit for five hours a day in a close room, amid the buzz of voices, and, with warm, sticky hands, turn over the leaves of the books that never before seemed half so prosy and dull—since last September. How all the out-door sounds that come in at the open windows, the notes of the birds, the hum of the passing voices, the distant bark of our own Nep Or Rover, even the whir of a mowing machine in the next yard, tempt us to throw aside the lessons, and, braving the whipping that we know must certainly follow, to run out at the door, down the stairs, and into the clear yellow sunshine that was surely created for boys to enjoy themselves in! And how all the memories of the summer fun will come into our minds, replacing the War of 1812 with a boat-race, and making the puzzling mysteries of the binomial theorem give place to an imaginary brook and a fish-line! Well, well! It is only what comes to us grown-up children, when we have taken a day, or a week, or a month from our business, and then have to settle down to work again.
One afternoon about two weeks after the opening of school, as Bess was coming in from some errands, she found five excited boys sitting on her front steps, eagerly waiting to see her. As she approached, she heard Rob saying,—
“I didn’t think Phil had so much grit. If it had been you, Bert, or Sam”—
“Well, my boys,” said Bess, as she sat down in the midst of them, and took off her hat, “what is the occasion of this call? You look as if something were the matter.”
“Matter enough!” said Sam. “That Miss Witherspoon hadn’t ought to teach school anyway!” And he scowled darkly on the unconscious Fred, who chanced to be in range of his glance.
“Sam! Sam!” remonstrated Bess.
“It’s a fact, Miss Bessie,” said Bert. “She’s too old and cross for anything! Just think, she’s going to keep Phil after school and whip him!”
“Yes,” put in Ted, “and it isn’t fair.”
“Phil!” said Bess incredulously. “You don’t mean that Phil Cameron has to be whipped in school! What has he done?”
“He hasn’t,” said Rob. “I don’t think he did it at all, only she doesn’t know who did, and so she is going to whip Phil.”
“Jiminy!” said Ted, rolling off the steps to the ground, in his excitement. “I’d like to go for her! It’s a burning shame to whip Phil. There isn’t a better lad in all the school, and she likes him herself, when she isn’t mad.”
From these remarks, however emphatic and lucid they might seem to the boys who were in the secret, Bess had gathered but the one fact, that Phil was in disgrace at school and was to be whipped. To her mind, corporal punishment in schools was degrading and brutalizing, and the idea of its being employed on a refined, gentle boy, like Phil, shocked her and roused her indignation, for she knew the lad well enough to be sure that he had done nothing to justify such extreme measures.
“I’ll tell you about it, Miss Bess,” said Bert. “You see, Phil has been feeling funny all day, and when we marched round to get the dumbbells, he just turned his toes square in, and waddled along, so,” and Bert illustrated the proceeding for Bessie’s benefit. “We fellows all laughed, and that rattled Miss Witherspoon awfully, and started her down on him. I guess she didn’t feel just right to-day, perhaps. Well, by and by, when we were studying, all of a sudden somebody snapped a great agate up the aisle, right bang against Miss Witherspoon’s desk. It astonished her and made her jump, but she picked it up and only said, ‘If this happens again, I shall whip the boy that does it,’ and then went on with her class. Pretty soon another one went rolling along, but she wasn’t quick enough to catch the boy, so she began asking us all if we knew who did it. We were all the other side of the room but Phil, and he was the only one in the room that said he did know. Miss Witherspoon asked him who it was, but he just shut his mouth. Then she asked if he did it, and he just said ‘No.’ And then she told him she’d whip him unless he told, but he just wouldn’t, and I say, Good for him!”
“Hurrah for Phil!” said Ted, turning a somersault on the turf.
Bess looked perplexed. She knew Miss Witherspoon too well, a veteran teacher who had grown hard in the service, a nervous old maid who ruled her children with an iron rod, and then went home and wept bitter tears because they did not love her, conscientious to a fault, and at heart anxious for the good of her pupils, although no consideration would make her take back a hasty word, or lighten a punishment ordered in a moment of anger. This was the first time that one of the I. I.’s had been publicly punished in this way, and each one of them felt the disgrace as keenly as if it had been his own, while with one consent they had come to Bess for advice and consolation.
“There comes Phil, now!” exclaimed Rob.
Bess gave one look at the small figure coming along the street, with his hat pulled down 
“No, he’ll never tell.”—Page 256.
“I don’t believe he will feel like seeing you boys now,” said she. “I want to have a little talk with him, and you had better keep away.”
The boys obediently retired through the back gate before Phil had a chance to see them. He was going directly past the house, when Bess called him,—
“Come in a minute, Phil.”
The boy stopped doubtfully for a moment. Then he turned and came up to where she stood waiting. Taking his hand, all red and puffed up with the blows, she led him into the house.
“Now, Phil, my boy,” she said gently, “tell me all about it.”
Phil’s face grew red, and his lips twitched. Then he answered abruptly,—
“There’s not much to tell, only Miss Witherspoon whipped me because I wouldn’t tell on one of the boys, and she isn’t going to let me go back to school until I tell who did it. She’ll just have to wait, then, that’s all.”
Bess looked anxious. This was worse than she expected.
“But, Phil,” she said, “isn’t the boy manly enough to confess, rather than see you suffer for him?”
Phil shook his head.
“No, he’ll never tell.”
“And you really had nothing to do with it?”
The boy had been sitting with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, gazing at the floor; but at this question he threw up his head proudly, and looked straight into Bessie’s eyes.
“Miss Bess,” he said simply, “I told Miss Witherspoon I didn’t, upon my honor, and did you ever know me to lie?”
“No, Phil, I never did.”
“I think she might believe me, too, then,” muttered Phil, as he settled back after his momentary flash. “She thinks I did it, and won’t believe me when I say I didn’t. Oh, how I hate to tell my father!” And he started up to go.
“Will you tell me, Phil, who it was?” asked Bess, as she followed him to the door.
Phil shook his head again.
"But I might be able to straighten the matter out. You mustn't lose your school."
"I'll lose it always, rather than be a tell-tale."
The boys were loud in their exclamations when they heard, the next morning, that Phil was suspended from school. One after another, they coaxed, wheedled, begged, and stormed by turns, but Phil could not be induced to tell them his secret, although one word would have put him back in his classes again. At Bessie's suggestion, Fred urged Phil to tell him, as long as he was outside the school set, but it did no more good than Bessie's call did on Miss Witherspoon.
"Yes, I am sorry," that worthy woman confessed; "I was tired that day, and I think I was hasty, for I don't think Philip is a bad boy at heart. It was a little thing to punish so severely, but, if I give in now, I shall lose all my control for the future. Let the boys once feel that they can make me yield, and I might as well give up teaching."
Poor Miss Witherspoon! After all her years of teaching, she had yet to learn how quickly all pupils respect a teacher who can make herself as a little child in acknowledging a mistake, and making what reparation for it she can.
But a week had passed, and Phil was as obstinate on one side as his teacher was determined on the other. In vain his father and mother urged and commanded. Angry and smarting from the injustice done him, this seemed a different Phil from the pleasant, happy-go-lucky lad they used to know. At length, Mr. and Mrs. Cameron, at their wits’ end, begged Bessie to take Phil in hand.
“Oh, dear!” Bess said to her mother, on the evening after this remarkable request. “I do wish people would discipline their own children. The idea of expecting me to succeed where they fail I It is too absurd.”
However, Phil was invited to dine at the Carters’, whither he went somewhat suspiciously, for he regarded this as only a new plot to entrap him into telling what he had made up his mind to keep to himself. But Bess was wily. Dinner-time came and went, and no word of the dreaded subject, until Phil began to think that his had been a false alarm. But by and by Mrs. Carter bad gone out of the room, and Fred went away in search of Fuzz. Then Bess moved a chair up before the open fire, and pulled a low stool to its side.
“Come, Phil, I want to talk.”
Phil obediently settled himself at Bessie’s feet, and prepared for the worst; but Bess only began to talk about the boys and the club. The child was just congratulating himself on his continued escape, when she suddenly asked,—
“What do you think I have started the club for?”
“I don’t know. Fun, I suppose.”
“Partly for that, but, still more, to improve us in all sorts of ways. And yet I find I have failed to teach you the very first lesson of all.”
“What’s that?” asked Phil curiously.
“Obedience, Phil. Your father and mother wish you to tell Miss Witherspoon who threw that marble, and you refuse to obey them.”
“I’m not going to tell tales,” said Phil sullenly.
Bess rested her hand lightly on the smooth brown head.
“Phil, the first duty you have now is to be guided by your father and mother. They know so much better than you what is right for you. I can see how hard it is for you to give in, in this case. But while a sneak and a tell-tale is the meanest of boys, you would not be either, under these circumstances.”
“Yes, I should,” answered Phil. “It’s a mean thing to do, and the fellows would all be down on me.”
“Suppose they were?” replied Bess. “Is it your parents or ‘the fellows’ that you want to please? I will tell you what one trouble is, Phil; you have read too many stories where the hero nobly bears the punishment for another boy, and is only cleared on the last half-page. Isn’t it true?”
Phil laughed, in spite of himself.
“That would be all very well if you had no duty to any one but yourself; but, back of that, you owe obedience to your father and mother, and if they think that you ought to go back into school, that is what you should do. You are too young, my boy, to decide these things for yourself. And it is because we have so many hopes and plans for your future that we want you to do right now, every day. It will be hard for you to go back, but, even if it is, we all want you to go. Will you promise?”
Phil’s face had softened at her last words.
“I won’t promise. Miss Bess, for then I should have to, anyway, and I’m not sure yet, till I think it all over. I’ll tell you to- morrow.”
Bess patted his shoulder approvingly, for this was a concession at least. Then she went on, after a little pause,—
“Phil, dear, ever so long ago, Fred and I took for our motto a verse from your All Saints’ Hymn,—‘Oh, may thy soldiers,’ and we are trying to win our ‘victor’s crown.’ Why not take it for your motto, too? You boys all have a good deal of the stuff that makes heroes and fighters. Just now you are forgetting that a soldier’s first duty is to obey his superior officer, and that any disobedience, even a slight one, may ruin the whole campaign. Will this small soldier join our company, and fight with us, ‘faithful, true, and bold’?”
“Ye-es, I s’pose so.”
“Even when you remember that your first step must be to yield your idea of right to your father’s?”
Ye-e-es.”
It was a long-drawn yes, and it told of a whole battle, and a victory. As Bessie bent over the boy for a moment, she saw that the lashes over the gray eyes were a little damp, and the lips were quivering. But there was no time for Phil to have so much as a tear, for just then the door opened and Ted rushed in, capering like a mad creature, while Fred stood beaming in the doorway.
“Why, Ted, what is the matter?” exclaimed Bess in wonder, as Ted rushed up to Phil, shook both hands furiously, and then backed out into the middle of the room, where he executed a sort of clog-dance, to the rage of Fuzz, who barked himself hoarse, from the shelter of his basket, whither he had retired for safety.
“Jack Bradley fired that marble!” said Ted, interrupting his antics for a moment, and then resuming them again more vehemently than ever, while Fuzz leaped from his basket and rushed distractedly this way and that, adding his voice to the general confusion.
“How do you know?” asked Bess, although a glance at Phil’s face was enough to assure her that Ted’s statement was true.
“I’ll tell you,” said Ted, composing himself as well as he could on such short notice, while Fred deliberately seated himself in the place lately vacated by Phil.
“You see,” he began, “we boys have all been mad about Phil’s scrape, and we have just formed a regular league of detectives. This is the way I went to work. That marble came out of Phil’s aisle. Well, it came up out of it sort of cornerwise, and bounced off the other way. That showed the direction, so I was pretty sure which side of the aisle it started from. Then, half-way down the aisle is where that little milksop of a Jimmy Harris sits. He never could tell a lie, just like Washington—don’t believe he knows enough! But he’s always looking round, and would have seen who fired it, if it had been anybody in front of him, so I made up my mind ’twasn’t. Then I knew it must have been one of three boys, so I went to work. I kind of suspected ’twas Jack; he’s a mean lad, anyhow. So yesterday I began to talk about Phil to him, and he was very talky, said ’twas a mean shame and all that, but he never once looked me in the eye. Thinks I, ‘I don’t believe you.’ Then I asked Miss Witherspoon to let me see the agate. It was a queer one, and after school I went the rounds of the stores, looking for some like it. I found a whole lot at Smith’s, and they told me they had just come in new last week. I said I thought I would take one or two, and get the start of all the boys; but the clerk said I was too late, for Jack had bought some the other day. That clinched the matter, for they were different from any I ever saw. I don’t believe Jack knew he had that one in his hand, or he wouldn’t have fired it. He’s too stingy. Well, to-night after school, I asked him if he wanted to swap marbles. He looked rather uncomfortable, and said he hadn’t had any since last spring. I asked him how about the ones he had just bought of Smith. He just turned all colors, and begged me not to tell, for he’d get a whipping, and another at home. Great baby! But I didn’t tell. I just gripped my arms round him, and hauled him up to Miss Witherspoon, and told her to ask him about Phil and the marbles; that’s all. I had to carry the milk, so I couldn’t go to Phil’s till just now, and, when I found he was here, I came right after him. And he can go into school in the morning and— Oh, jiminy—scratch!”
There was a crash. Ted, always in perpetual motion, in his present excitement had seated himself sideways in a low rocking-chair, and with one hand on the back, the other clutching the edge of the seat, he had been rocking furiously to and fro, till at this point he went a little too far, and, losing his balance, he landed in an ignominious pile on the floor, amid the shouts of the other two boys.