Read Ebook: The Ark of 1803: A Story of Louisiana Purchase Times by Stephens C A Charles Asbury Burgess H Illustrator

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Ebook has 1094 lines and 54120 words, and 22 pages

Jonas Sparks, the veteran shipwright, had come down from Marietta to oversee the work. Even Gaffir Hoyt was working there, and Uncle Amasa Claiborne, half of whose scalp the Indians had taken thirty years before.

And Louis Gist had told Jimmy that Marion would not let him go. Jimmy knew why. They were gradually coming to distrust him. He and Kenton and MacAfee were one party in the Fish Creek school; Moses and Lewis and Louis Gist another.

He wanted to go to New Orleans. He was entitled to. All winter long he had planned it. Marion Royce would not dare refuse. But Louis' unconsidered speech rankled in his bitter heart. He would have been glad to escape into the woods, but he sat sullenly plucking his turkey for the barbecue, entrenched behind his knowledge that he had as much right in the schoolhouse as any of the others who chattered around him.

Free public schools had not yet been established in Ohio, but the pioneer families maintained a "subscription school" for their children in primitive schoolhouses of logs afterwards widely known as "Brush College." Here masters of greater or less merit taught school six days in a week, with no holidays. Not a few, indeed, of the early schoolmasters of this new region were men whom certain weaknesses of character or appetite had exiled from the older walks of civilization. Except for such infirmities many of them were instructors of remarkable ability.

Master Hempstead's foible was the all too common one of a fond and apparently ungovernable liking for beverages which inebriate. On a number of occasions he had dismissed school in the middle of the forenoon, and after touching homilies to his pupils, had walked out and not been seen again for several days. He had then reappeared, visibly the "worse for wear."

Marietta, then a vigorous young colony of farmers and shipwrights from New England, was the Mecca to which Master Hempstead's erratic pilgrimages were directed; and it was from one of these, after an absence of four days, that he was returning, in no very pleasant humor, on the morning of our story.

In the meantime his little kingdom had run riot and tasted the sweets of self-government. An exuberant hilarity indeed was in the air during these first years of the century just past. Moreover, Ohio had become a state that month, and daring schemes for capturing New Orleans from the Spanish were on foot.

On every day of Master Hempstead's absence his pupils, numbering nineteen, of various ages, had assembled, in expectation of his reappearance. They played "gool," "I spy" and "hide-and-seek" in the underbrush about the stumpy clearing. Of more interest still was a trap for wild turkeys which the boys had constructed at a distance in the woods.

This trap was a covered pen of stakes and brush, into which a "tunnel" led from the outside. This subway, as well as the pen, was baited with corn, and wild turkeys, which abounded in the forest, were thus allured to enter. The two turkeys which the boys were plucking this morning had been caught in this way.

It was the custom at these early subscription schools of Ohio for the master to "stand a treat" on New Year's Day, and provide, at his own expense, a bushel of hickory nuts and ten pounds of candy. This coveted festival Master Hempstead had ignored, much to the dissatisfaction of his pupils; and now they determined to bring him to terms.

To guard against a surprise they had closed the door and barricaded it with their benches, which consisted merely of rough "puncheons," each having four wooden pins for legs; and Moses Ayer, Lewis Hoyt and Molly Royce had prepared a species of "round robin," containing the demands of the school, written laboriously on a large, smooth chip.

Such was the state of affairs when, at about ten in the forenoon, the instructor entered the clearing where the schoolhouse stood, and was promptly espied by more than one pair of sharp eyes at the one small, four-pane window.

Beyond doubt the man was in bad plight. His indiscretions were heavy upon him; a raging headache and many other aches oppressed him sorely; his coonskin cap was pulled low over watery eyes. He noted the smoke from the rock chimney and strode to the door.

But the latch-string, that ancient token of hospitality, had disappeared within its hole, and the door itself was fast shut. He thundered at it with his fist, but obtained no response, unless an ambiguous and irritating snicker from within could be thus construed.

"Open the door! It is I, the master! Open this door!" he shouted.

Still no response; but now the window was pushed slowly aside, and out through the hole there came a long stick, to the end of which was tied a huge, fresh, white-walnut chip; on the smoothed side of this the master at length noticed there was a black, coarse scrawl.

"What's this?" exclaimed the irate pedagogue, starting backward as they dangled the chip under his nose.

"Read it, master!" yelled a chorus of wild voices from within the dark hole. "Read it, master! Ye can't come in till ye do."

With a snarl of disdain Master Hempstead snatched at the chip.

"'Read it!'" he muttered. "That's more than you could do yourselves, I warrant. What blockhead of ye wrote this? What ignoramus of ye spelled it?" In truth the spelling was not above reproach. But those were pioneer days. The chip read as follows:

We the undersined Scollars of Fish Creke want and are determined to have a Hollerday. You didn't give us one at New Yere's. You can't kepe school here again til you do. Ohio is a State. We want to cellarbrate it. We dimmand that you get a bushel of hickerry nuts, or wallnuts ten ponds of Candy and five ponds of Raizeans. Say you will or you cant come in. Sine your name at the bottom of this with your led pensel to let us know you mene it and all will yit be wel. If you dont you cant never come in here again for you are a bad-drinking Old Fellar.

Moses Ayer Lewis Hoyt Molly Royce James Claiborne Louis Gist And all the rest of us.

This, as must be confessed, was hardly respectful or complimentary, but these were rough times and these children had much to learn. Master Hempstead was accustomed to the utmost consideration. The man of learning had then, as now, the highest place in the regard of the community, and his anger seethed, as, with the hastily adjusted aid of his horn-bowed glasses, he perused this gage of rebellion.

"Numskulls!" he shouted. "After all I have taught ye, to spell like that! Y-e-r-e, year! R-a-i-z-e-a-n-s, raisins! T-i-l, till! P-o-n-d-s, pounds! S-i-n-e, sign! O you young ignoramuses! You will go out into the world and disgrace me!"

"Sign your name, master!" shrilled the unfeeling chorus inside.

"Sign it, master! You got to sign it! H-i-l-l-e-l H-e-m-p-s-t-e-a-d, Hillel Hempstead. Sign it!" still yelled the dissonant chorus within.

"Ingrates! Thankless cubs! Good instruction has been wasted on ye! Open the door, that I may flog it out of ye!"

"No--no--no, master, you can't come in!" retorted the young rebels. "You have got to sign that, and promise not to whip us!"

"Compacts with a mob! Truces with rebels! Never!" shouted the wordy old schoolmaster.

"Parley is at an end. Prepare to suffer. You shall have your deserts."

Master Hempstead hurled the walnut chip back in at the window--where it caused lively dodging of youthful heads--and made ready for active operations.

At the wood-pile hard by lay a small hickory log, some ten feet in length and four or five inches in diameter. Heaving this up in his arms, he ran with it full tilt against the door, delivering a blow which made the whole house tremble and started the latch-bar in its socket.

"Hear that, ungrateful hearts!" he vociferated. "I am now illustrating to ye the principle of the battering-ram, which played so noble a part in the wars of antiquity. Vespasian and Titus employed it against the gates of stiff-necked Jerusalem. And thus do I batter in the gate of this stronghold of young deviltry!"

Yet again the doughty pedagogue drew back, and panting hard, made another staggering rush with his improvised ram. This time the shock was so forceful that everything gave way, so suddenly that both master and "ram" fell in headlong at the doorway.

The "principle," indeed, was well illustrated; but Master Hempstead had still to deal, hand to hand, with his youthful rebels.

Lewis, Moses and the others were athletic youngsters, and the master, owing perhaps to his many "vacations" at Marietta, was at best somewhat tottery.

The battle went sorely against him. With shouts of triumph they dragged him forth into the yard, and holding him down in the snow, clamored loud for his signature. Still, with reproaches, he refused it, calling down upon them the vengeance of all known powers of good and evil.

But now an interruption occurred. Milly Ayer, who had thus far sat quietly in the back row, now donned her hood in haste, and slipping forth in the midst of the m?l?e, ran down to the creek bank, where the ark was being built, to summon aid.

"Help! help!" she cried, then waved her red hood to attract attention, for her cries were drowned in the din of hammers below.

Young Captain Royce was the first to see and hear. Between Milly and himself there had long existed a warm friendship.

"What is it, Milly? What's happened?" he shouted, and all the hammers stopped short.

"O Marion, come quick!" cried Milly. "They are fighting at the schoolhouse!"

The young captain was half-way up the bluff before these words were all spoken. The others followed him; even old Jonas Sparks, Gaffir Hoyt and Uncle Amasa Claiborne hurried stiffly to the schoolhouse in the wake of Marion Royce and Milly.

But the most sedate of them could but smile at the spectacle which was there presented. Moses Ayer and Lewis Hoyt were holding Master Hempstead fast with his back to a tree trunk, while Louis Gist was trying to bind him to it with green hazel withes. The smaller boys, equally excited, were endeavoring to bear a hand, and yelled like young redskins; while Molly Royce and the other girls looked on with something akin to enthusiasm.

"Here, here, boys! Do you know what you are doing?" the young captain exclaimed.

"What's the trouble?"

"He's got to sign it!" shouted Moses, hotly.

"Yes, he's got to!" yelled Lewis.

"Yes, Mack, help us make him sign it!" chimed in Molly Royce.

"Be quiet, Molly!" replied Marion, putting his impetuous young sister aside with one hand as he strode nearer. "We will see about this. Let go, Lewis! Let go, Mose! Master Hempstead, what's the matter here?"

The master, who had been kicking hard and hitting right and left at his assailants, recovered his dignity and struck an attitude.

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