Pipetown Sandy/Chapter 1

by John Philip Sousa

 

PIPETOWN SANDY

 

CHAPTER I

 

IT'S ALL IN THE FINGERS

Miss Latham rapped sharply with her ruler.

"Class in arithmetic, attention, please!"

The boys recovered from their lounging positions and sat upright, awaiting further instructions from the speaker.

"Sponge your slates and sharpen your pencils."

The class at once became surprisingly active. The buzzing sound of the children's whisperings and the clatter of slates and pencils grew louder and louder.

"Less noise, please," the teacher admonished.

After quiet had been somewhat restored, Miss Latham cast her eyes carefully over the class. All the pupils, save one, were ready for the lesson. This delinquent sat with a hang-dog expression on his face and a snake-like gleam in his eyes. The sneer on his lips and his air of indifference were very annoying to the schoolmistress.

"Thomas, we are waiting!"

"I don't want to do no sums," was the reply.

"Where is your slate, Thomas?"

"In my desk," growled the boy.

"Get it immediately, and prepare to take down the figures I call off."

Shuffling his feet and moving about sullenly, the boy took his slate from the desk and let it fall with a crash.

"Thomas, how many times must I tell you not to bang your slate?"

"I didn't bang it; it banged itself!" he snapped back.

"Quiet, I say; do not talk so loudly!"

"I ain't talkin' loudly. If yer think it's loudly yer 'd better stick a bale er cotton in yer ears," and Thomas looked around for some sign of approval.

"You must behave yourself and not be impertinent," insisted the teacher, with an effort to be patient.

"'Tain't impertinent. I don't want to do no sums, an' what's more, I ain't goin' to do no sums!"—and he buried himself in his seat, with legs extended under the desk and hands thrust into his trousers pockets.

"Come here," called Miss Latham, in a manner more severe than is generally accredited to a pretty young woman of twenty-four, with a melodic voice and a sympathetic heart.

"I'll see yer scorchin' in the fi'ry furnace fust," cried the boy.

"Thomas Foley, do you hear? Obey at once!"

"I'll swing afore I do," came the swift retort.

"Then you must remain after school every day for a week, and I shall see that you do not sneak away as you did last Monday. Your mother thought you were here, when you were on the river skating. You shall not deceive her again, if I can help it. Bring me your skates, and I will keep them until you promise better behavior."

"If yer wants 'em, come an' git 'em,"—and squarely, he placed his elbows on the desk, as if to protect the skates within.

Miss Latham quietly walked toward the refractory pupil, then firmly removing his arms from the desk, raised the lid and took out the skates. The boy made a grab for them, and in the scuffle struck her a stinging blow in the face with his open hand. Grasping his coat collar, the teacher shoved him back into the seat.

"You're a mean, contemptible coward; take your books, you are dismissed!"

She returned to her desk, where she nervously wrote a note and sealed it. "Give that to your mother; it will explain why you have been sent home."

"Who cares?" he said, as he came forward to take the note, and then shambled toward the door.

With this incidental excitement over, the class once more settled to work, and slates and pencils were brought into requisition. Miss Latham rapped for attention.

"Write on your slates, for addition, the following: 4-3-6-11-8-13-9," and the musical voice of the pretty teacher intoned the figures clearly and roundly.

"As soon as any one sums them, let me know."

She had scarcely completed the sentence when a little hand, thin and almost transparent, was raised.

"Please, Miss Maisie!"

"What is it, Gilbert?" asked the schoolmistress.

"I have the answer." The boy was very pale, frail and slender, with lustrous black hair and brown eyes, and apparently not over twelve in years.

"Bring your slate here, Gilbert, and let me see it." The lad walked quickly to the desk and handed it to her.

"Correct, and very neatly written,"—and Miss Latham patted the little fellow's head approvingly.

Within a few minutes all the boys but one had mastered the example. He sat with his head resting on his left hand, his tongue projecting from the corner of his mouth, the perspiration dotting his forehead in great beads, and his eyes glued on the problem before him. His lips moved as he wrote, and figure after figure appeared on his slate only to be rubbed out. Long-drawn sighs were heard at intervals, and despair seemed pictured on his face.

"Sandy, we are waiting; all the pupils have the answer but you."

Sandy looked up with an apologetic air, and drawled: "It's mighty tough on ev'rybody havin' ter wait on me, Miss Maisie, but I ain't quite got the hang of it yet,"—slowly shaking his head and heaving another hopeless sigh.

Gilbert looked across the aisle and observed the other boy. It was Gilbert's first day at school, and he had been so engrossed with his studies and the exciting incident of the day, that he had paid little attention to his companions, save in the most desultory way. Sandy, the boy who was struggling with the problem, was fairly tall, raw-boned, much freckled, with a little stubby nose, and hair that was very red.

"Homely as a hedge fence," was the general description of him, but with all his plainness there was a look of sincerity in his face, and through the merry twinkle of the bluest of blue eyes shone a soul fearless and brave. Gilbert was attracted to him immediately.

Sandy, still intent on his task, sighed again, then raised his hand slowly, and said: "Mebbe I've got the right answer, Miss Maisie." He arose, half reluctantly, and tiptoed toward the teacher.

Miss Latham glanced at the slate, and, with a slight touch of asperity, said: "Sandy! Sandy! will you ever learn? Your answer is all wrong." Her foot tapped impatiently on the floor, and then looking in the direction of Gilbert, she said: "Take your slate and sit down by the little fellow. Perhaps Gilbert can explain to you how easy this sum in addition really is."

Sandy slowly retraced his steps down the aisle, and, crossing over, sat down by the side of Gilbert, who took the older boy's slate to see how the example was written out.

With a good-humored smile at the odd twisting of the figures, Gilbert turned, and, placing his hand on the other's arm, with assurance and sympathy, began:

"My father says there have been some awfully smart people high up in the world, who were not worth shucks in doing sums in arithmetic."

"When did yer father say that?" doubtingly asked Sandy.

"Oh, lots of times. He says one of the great Roman generals had to have some one around to count up for him, and you know great Roman generals were away up, and no mistake," said little Gilbert impressively.

"Yes, I seen one in the theater onct, actin', but he didn't git 'way up, 'cause he couldn't do no sums," and the older boy dubiously shook his head.

Without apparent notice of the interruption, Gilbert continued with a mighty, philosophic air:

"The Roman general wasn't half so much interested in sums as he was in war; if he had been, he would have learned them all right!"

"I ain't a-sayin' nuthin' 'bout what a Roman gen'ral would or wouldn't 'a' done, but I know my pore old mother would be mighty glad if somebody squirted some book-l'arnin' into my noddle. Folks all tells her I won't never amount to nuthin' in school, an' I'm beginnin' to believe it myself, fer I'm fifteen years old."

Gilbert, looking at the dejected boy, carefully sponged out Sandy's incorrect work and put the figures of his example across the top of the slate—4-3-6-11-8-13-9.

"Now, let's take the figure 4 for a starter, and then add 3. We do that by taking three of your fingers and adding them to the four; four, five, six, seven," counting on Sandy's upraised and outstretched hand, and turning down each finger until seven was reached.

"That's right," said Sandy. "Lemme try it alone." Slowly he told off three of his fingers. "Yes, that comes out two times runnin', an' I see jest how it's done."

The boy's face seemed illumined by a new light.

"We take the next figure, 6," said Gilbert, his manner a laborious copy of his teacher's. "We already have seven, and now we add the six, by counting all the fingers on one hand, and one on the other; thus seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. Now you try it." After some hesitation on Sandy's part he succeeded in the addition.

"Then we will add the next, eleven."

"'Leven's a whopper !" exclaimed the older boy.

"Hold up both hands," said Gilbert. "Eleven uses up all your fingers and thumbs, and one of mine. That makes thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, and my finger, twenty-four. Take eight more fingers," counting them off, "that makes thirty-two; the thirteen, all yours and three of mine, summing up forty-five, to which we add nine fingers, making a total of fifty-four, which is the answer. Now, you try it from the beginning; you can do it all right," said the smaller boy, carefully concealing his pride in his superior knowledge.

Slowly, but with confidence, and occasionally prompted by his little preceptor, Sandy successfully and triumphantly did the example. A great happiness crept into his heart, as, for the first time in his life, he added figures with certainty. He gazed on Gilbert with unmistakable admiration.

The little fellow had led him out of the maze of puzzling addition. At last he knew why 11 and 4 were 15, and not 51, when placed underneath each other. He laid his hand lightly on the shoulder of his new-found friend and said:

"Hope-I-may-die, but ye're the cutiest little codger I ever seen."

He held up his left hand and slowly counted. "Yes, he's right; it's all in the fingers. An' to think I never had 'nough gumption to see it afore this little codger showed me." Then he took the slate to Miss Latham, who praised him for accomplishing the task.

"It's dead easy; I never knowed afore, 'cause yer never told me nuthin' 'bout fingers; 'deed yer didn't, Miss Maisie. Yer said a lot 'bout numerals, an' sich like, but nuthin' 'bout fingers."

"It's all in the fingers," soliloquized Sandy, as he returned to his seat. "It's all in the fingers, an' I never knowed it afore."

The recess bell rang and the boys filed out. No sooner had Sandy passed through the door than a complete metamorphosis took place. With a long-drawn Indian war-whoop, ending in a "dare yer to foller," he executed a series of cartwheels and handsprings, winding up by standing on his head, and then turning a number of somersaults.

It was a transformation indeed, from the slow-going pupil of the school-room to the quick active boy outside, all life and spirits. In truth, there was no one in Pipetown to approach Sandy as an all-around athlete.

Gilbert had spent much of his life in the sick-room, and like most frail boys had always been fascinated with sports that demand skill and muscle. In Sandy he saw the embodiment of the youthful hero. Sandy was coming on with a hop-skip-and-jump, and, turning at least ten successive handsprings around his new-found admirer, he said:

"Say, little feller, don't yer know how to do these 'ere things?" and he turned another handspring.

"I never was allowed to try," said Gilbert, and then, apologetically: "You see, I have been sick nearly all the time since I was five."

"Gosh, that's tough!" said the older gravely. "But if yer wants to try one, I'll show yer the hang of it. They're as easy as dirt when yer git useter 'em,"—and by way of illustration he executed a dozen backward and forward.

"Golly, that's great!" gasped the little fellow.

"Jest try it onct, I won't let yer hurt yerself."

"I'll try it, but I'm sure I can't do it," said the younger boy, although anxious to follow Sandy's instructions.

"Git down on all fours; now put yer hands flat on the ground like a monkey. Give me yer feet; that's all right; I'll hold yer up by the legs an' rock yer, while yer git useter the rush o' blood in yer noddle."

After Sandy had swayed Gilbert for a minute, he exclaimed, "How's that?"

"All right, I guess," pantingly replied the little one, the exertion proving almost too much for him. Sandy, realizing this, helped him to his feet.

"That's bully good. Yer've got sand in yer craw, an' as soon as yer gits a little muscle, yer'll do 'em as slick as yer please."

Before the recess was over, Gilbert had almost succeeded in accomplishing a handspring, with but slight assistance from his athletic companion. Then, as Sandy and he walked into the school-room together, the older boy patted him on the back and remarked: "Yer've got lots 'er sand and ye're all right."

"Do you think you can teach me?" queried the younger.

"'Tain't no teachin' in it 't all, it's jest sand an' gittin' the hang of it, that's all. Why, if I don't have yer doin' cartwheels in a week, yer can call me a liar, an' my name ain't Sandy Coggles."

The little fellow's eyes sparkled with a sudden joy. Was it a dream, he thought, or would he really do a cartwheel in a week?

"O Sandy, you don't mean it!" he exclaimed.

"In course I do," said Sandy with absolute assurance. "Yer see, everythin' is everythin' in this 'ere world. If yer ain't got it yer might as well cave in. In handsprings an' sich, sand is everythin'. In 'rithmetic an' numerals, it's fingers. All yer have to have, is to have it, an' there ye are! Yer'll be doin' cartwheels in a week, hope-I-may-die if yer don't."

The boys went back into the school-room and resumed their seats.

The class in geography was called, and the members stood in the aisles next to the wall. The first boy was about to name the states forming the northern part of the Union, when a sharp knock was heard at the door, and almost immediately Tom Foley's mother rushed in, holding her unruly son by the collar, and literally dragging him after her. The woman was so angry that she did not notice how at every stride she ran the boy against some obstruction. First it was the door, then the hat-rack, and finally the chairs loosely placed about the teacher's platform. Each separate bump brought a cry from the boy, but the excited woman grasped his collar more tightly, and shouted: "I'll teach you to bring disgrace on your hard-working mother!"

"I ain't doin' nuthin'," came with the yells from her son.

"Please do contain yourself, Mrs. Foley," implored the teacher.

The irate woman, in appearance almost too young to have a son of fourteen, her handsome face flushed with excitement, her eyes flashing with anger, brought up suddenly in front of the desk. Plumping the terrified boy firmly on his feet, with her hand still on his collar, she addressed the schoolmistress.

"Maisie Latham, this is the third time this brat has been sent home this month. Do I pay you to suspend him, or to eddicate him? Answer me that! You get fifty cents a month in advance for teachin' him, and I'm not a-payin' for nothin'. I've brought that paper-backed book you sent me before this boy came to your school, to remind you what I'm payin' for."

She took from her pocket a small pamphlet, and read slowly and emphatically: "'The object of Miss Maisie Latham's school for boys, is: First: To arouse the mentality of the pupil and to awaken his power to think. Second: To foster a sturdy moral nature and develop the scholar's individuality. Third: To perfect the student in those general studies that lead to a preparatory course.'

"Now, that's the object of your school, as you say right here in black and white. 'Tain't nothin' 'bout suspensions, and bein' incorrigible, as I can decipher,"—and triumphantly she closed the book and waited for the teacher's reply.

"Mrs. Foley," said the young schoolmistress, "I feel that your anger is justified. My own patience with Thomas is exhausted, for I have tried over and over to make him see the error of his ways."

"See the error of his ways!" said the mother, accentuating her words by shaking the boy. "See the error of his ways!" she shouted still louder; "'tain't no good tryin' to make him see the error of his ways; make him feel 'em. Ouch!" she cried, as the boy suddenly grasped her arm and bit until the blood came.

"You imp of darkness, I'll whip you within an inch of your life for that." In an instant she had seated herself in a chair, and, pulling him over her lap, she gave him a thrashing that remained in the memory of every boy present as the most thorough dressing-down he had ever beheld.

When Mrs. Foley, breathing heavily, had finished punishing her son, she stood him on his feet until his lamentations changed from ear-piercing shrieks to subdued sniffling. Then she said, almost coaxingly:

"Now, Maisie, take him back, if it's only to keep him out of the street. He won't do a blessed stroke of work about the house, and if he don't go to school, he'll go to the dogs sooner than he would anyway."

"All right, Mrs. Foley," said the teacher, "I'll take Thomas back, and I trust he will be a good boy in the future, and give us no further trouble."

"Thank you, Maisie, I do hope you'll excuse me. That boy cuts me up so I lose myself, and jest bile over." Turning to her son: "Go back to your seat and behave yourself. If you're sent home again, I'll skin you alive. Your daddy was a loafer, and I'll kill you afore I'll let you foller in his steps."

She shook hands cordially with Miss Latham, and walked toward the door with the parting shot: "If you're sent home again, I'll bury you so deep the Lord won't find you!" And she was gone.

Tom walked sullenly to his seat, ever and anon rubbing his nose with his sleeve. Dink Dabney, who was next to Curley Harris, whispered:

"If I knows what I'm talkin' about, I spec' Tom would be powerful more comf'table if he wuz standin'." Whereat Curley laughed, and the teacher rapped to start anew the interrupted lesson.

Gilbert, being the newest scholar, was placed at the foot of the class. The system permitting the pupil correctly answering a missed question to "move up one," or two or more, according to the number of failures, was in vogue at Miss Latham's school.

Before the lesson was over, Gilbert, by leaps of fives, and tens, and twelves, was at the head of the class. Sandy, who had been solidly intrenched at the foot since the opening day of school, became once more a fixture there.

"Sandy, name one of the Northern States," said Miss Latham.

"Did yer say one of the Northern States, Miss Maisie?" echoed Sandy, sparring for time, and scratching his head.

"Yes, that is my question."

"Lemme see,"—drawling this slowly, stroking his forehead, and looking perplexed.

"Hurry, Sandy, we can not wait all day," said the teacher a little impatiently.

"I'm awful sorry, Miss Maisie," replied Sandy, "but jest now I disremember whether Lou'siana will do fer an answer; but if it don't how would Georgyfit?"

"Sandy, Sandy, will you ever comprehend? When the class go to their seats, you sit down by Gilbert Franklin and let him teach you the names of the Northern States. He might be able to get them through your head; I despair of doing so."

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