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CHAPTER V WHEN OLD ZACK WENT TO
SCHOOL THIS same
week, I think, there was a
commotion throughout the town on account of exciting incidents in what
was
known as the "Mills" school district, four miles from the old
Squire's, where a "pupil" nearly sixty years old was bent on
attending school — contrary to law! For ten or
fifteen years Zachary
Lurvey had been the old Squire's rival in the lumber business. We had
had more
than one distracting contention with him. Yet we could not but feel a
certain
sympathy for him when, at the age of fifty-eight, he set out to get an
education. Old Zack
would never tell any one where
he came from, though there was a rumor that he hailed originally from
Petitcodiac, New Brunswick. When, as a boy of about twenty, he had
first
appeared in our vicinity, he could neither read nor write; apparently
he had
never seen a schoolhouse. He did not even know there was such a place
as
Boston, or New York, and had never heard of George Washington! But he had
settled and gone to work
at the place that was afterwards known as Lurvey's Mills; and he soon
began to
prosper, for he was possessed of keen mother wit and had energy and
resolution
enough for half a dozen ordinary men. For years
and years in all his many
business transactions he had to make a mark for his signature; and he
kept all
his accounts on the attic floor of his house with beans and kernels of
corn,
even after they represented thousands of dollars. Then at last a
disaster
befell him; his house burned while he was away; and from the confusion
that
resulted the disadvantages of bookkeeping in cereals was so forcibly
borne in
upon him that he suddenly resolved to learn to read, write and reckon. On the
first day of the following
winter term he appeared at the district schoolhouse with a primer, a
spelling
book, a Greenleaf's Arithmetic, a copy book, a pen and an ink bottle. The
schoolmaster was a young
sophomore from Colby College named Marcus Cobb, a stranger in the
place. When
he entered the schoolhouse that morning he was visibly astonished to
see a
large, bony, formidable-looking old man sitting there among the
children. "Don't ye
be scairt of me,
young feller," old Zack said to him. "I guess ye can teach me, for I
don't know my letters yit!" Master
Cobb called the school to
order and proceeded to ask the names and ages of his pupils. When
Zack's turn
came, the old fellow replied promptly: "Zack
Lurvey, fifty-eight
years, five months and eighteen days." "Zack?"
the master queried
in some perplexity. "Does that stand for Zachary? How do you spell
it?" "I never
spelled it," old
Zack replied with a grin. "I'm here to larn how. Fact is, I'm jest a
leetle backward." The young
master began to realize
that he was in for something extraordinary. In truth, he had the time
of his
life there that winter. Not that old Zack misbehaved; on the contrary,
he was a
model of studiousness and was very anxious to learn. But education went
hard
with him at first; he was more than a week in learning his letters and
sat by
the hour, making them on a slate, muttering them aloud, sometimes vehemently,
with painful groans. M
and W gave him constant trouble; and so did B and R. He grew so
wrathful over
his mistakes at times that he thumped the desk with his fist, and once
he
hurled his primer at the stove. "Why did
they make the measly
little things look so much alike!" he cried. He wished
to skip the letters
altogether and to learn to read by the looks of the words; but the
master
assured him that he must learn the alphabet first if he wished to learn
to
write later, and finally he prevailed with the stubborn old man. "Well, I
do want to larn,"
old Zack replied. "I'm goin' the whole hog, ef it kills me!" And
apparently it did pretty near
kill him; at any rate he perspired over his work and at times was near
shedding
tears. Certain of
the letters he drew on
paper with a lead pencil and pasted on the back of his hands, so as to
keep
them in sight. One day he tore the alphabet out of his primer and put
it into
the crown of his cap — "to see ef it wouldn't soak in," he said.
When, after a hard struggle, he was able to get three letters together
and
spell cat, c-a-t, he was so much pleased that he clapped his hands and
shouted,
"Scat!" at the top of his voice. The effect
of such performances on a
roomful of small boys and girls was not conducive to good order. It was
only
with difficulty that the young master could hear lessons or induce his
pupils
to study. Old Zack was the center of attraction for every juvenile eye.
It was
when the old fellow first
began to write his name, or try to, in his copy book, that he caused
the
greatest commotion. Only with the most painful efforts did his wholly
untrained
fingers trace the copy that the master had set. His mouth, too,
followed the
struggles of his fingers; and the facial grimaces that resulted set the
school
into a gale of laughter. In fact, the master — a good deal amused
himself — was
wholly unable to calm the room so long as old Zack continued his
exercise in
writing. The
children of course carried home
accounts of what went on at school; and certain of the parents
complained to
the school agent that their children were not learning properly. The
complaints
continued, and finally the agent — his name was Moss — visited the
school-room
and informed old Zack that he must leave. "I don't
think you have any
right to be here," Moss said to him. "And you're giving trouble; you
raise such a disturbance that the children can't attend to their
studies."
Old Zack
appealed to Master Cobb.
"Have I broken any of your rules?" he asked. The master could not say
that he had, intentionally. "Haven't I
studied?" old
Zack asked. "You
certainly have," the
master admitted, laughing. But the
school agent was firm.
"You'll have to leave!" he exclaimed. "You're too old and too
big to come here!" "All the
same, I'm comin'
here," said old Zack. "We'll see
about that!"
cried Moss angrily. "The law is on my side!" That was
the beginning of what is
still remembered as "the war at the Mills schoolhouse." The agent
appealed to the school board of the town, which consisted of three
members, —
two clergymen and a lawyer, — and the following day the board appeared
at the
schoolhouse. After conferring with the master, they proceeded formally
to expel
old Zack Lurvey from school. Old Zack,
however, hotly defended
his right to get an education, and a wordy combat ensued. "You're
too old to draw school
money," the lawyer informed him. "No money comes to you for schooling
after you are twenty-one, and you look to be three times as old as
that!" Thereupon
old Zack drew out his
pocketbook and laid down twenty dollars. "There is your money," said
he. "I can pay my way." "But you
are too old to attend
a district school," the lawyer insisted. "You can't go after you are
twenty-one." "But I
have never been,"
old Zack argued. "I never used up my right to go. I oughter have it
now!" "That
isn't the point,"
declared the lawyer. "You're too old to go. Besides, we are informed
that
you are keeping the lawful pupils from properly attending to their
studies. You
must pick up your books and leave the schoolhouse." Old Zack
eyed him in silence.
"I'm goin' to school, and I'm goin' here," he said at last. That was
defiance of the board's
authority, and the lawyer — a young man — threw off his coat and tried
to eject
the unruly pupil from the room; but to his chagrin he was himself
ejected, with
considerable damage to his legal raiment. Returning from the door, old
Zack
offered opportunity for battle to the reverend gentlemen — which they
prudently
declined. The lawyer re-entered, covered with snow, for old Zack had
dropped
him into a drift outside. Summoning
his two colleagues and the
schoolmaster to assist him in sustaining the constituted authority, the
lawyer
once more advanced upon old Zack, who retreated to the far corner of
the room
and bade them come on. Many of
the smaller pupils were now
crying from fright; and the two clergymen, probably feeling that the
proceedings had become scandalous, persuaded their colleague to cease
hostilities; and in the end the board contented itself with putting a
formal
order of expulsion into writing. School was then dismissed for that
afternoon,
and they all went away, leaving old Zack backed into the corner of the
room.
But, regardless of his "expulsion," the next morning he came to
school again and resumed his arduous studies. The story
had gone abroad, and the
whole community was waiting to see what would follow. The school board
appealed
to the sheriff, who offered to arrest old Zack if the board would
provide him
with a warrant. It seemed simple enough, at first, to draw a warrant
for old
Zack's arrest, but legal difficulties arose. He could not well be taken
for
assault, for it was the lawyer that had attacked him; or for wanton
mischief,
for his intent in going to school was not mischievous; or yet for
trespass, for
he had offered to pay for his schooling. There was
no doubt that on account
of his age he had no business in the school and that the board had the
right to
refuse him schooling; yet it was not easy to word his offense in such a
way
that it constituted a misdemeanor that could properly be stated in a
warrant
for his arrest. Several warrants were drawn, all of which, on the
ground that
they were legally dubious, the resident justice of the peace refused to
sign. "I am not
going to get the town
mixed up in a lawsuit for damages," said the justice. "Lurvey is a
doughty fighter at law, as well as physically, and he has got the money
to
fight with." The
proceedings hung fire for a week
or more. The school board sent an order to the master not to hear old
Zack's
lessons or to give him any instructions whatever. But the old fellow
came to
school just the same, and poor Cobb had to get along with him as best
he could.
The school board was not eager again to try putting him out by force,
and it
seemed that nothing less than the state militia could oust him from the
schoolhouse; and that would need an order from the governor of the
state! On
the whole, public opinion rather favored his being allowed to pay his
tuition
and to go to school if he felt the need of it. At any
rate, he went to school there
all winter and made remarkable progress. In the course of ten weeks he
could
read slowly, and he knew most of the short words in his primer and
second
reader by sight. Longer words he would not try to pronounce, but called
them,
each and all, "jackass" as fast as he came to them. In
consequence his reading aloud was
highly ambiguous. He could write his name slowly and with many
grimaces. Figures,
for some reason, came much
easier to him than the alphabet. He learned the numerals in a few days,
and by
the fifth or sixth week of school he could add and subtract on his
slate. But
the multiplication table gave him serious trouble. The only way he
succeeded in
learning it at all was by singing it. After he began to do sums in
multiplication on his slate, he was likely to burst forth singing in
school
hours: "Seven times
eight are fifty-six
— and carry five. Seven times nine are sixty-three — and carry seven. No, no, no, no, carry six!" "But, Mr.
Lurvey, you must keep
quiet in school!" the afflicted master remonstrated for the hundredth
time. "No one else can study." "But I
can't!" old Zack
would reply. "'Twouldn't come to me 'less I sung it!" Toward the
last weeks of the term he
was able to multiply with considerable accuracy and to divide in short
division.
Long division he did not attempt, but he rapidly learned to cast
interest at
six per cent. He had had a way of arriving at that with beans, before
he came
to school; and no one had ever succeeded in cheating him. He knew about
interest money, he said, by "sense of feeling." Grammar he
saw no use for, and did
not bother himself with it; but, curiously enough, he was delighted
with
geography and toward the end of the term bought a copy of Cornell's
text-book,
which was then used in Maine schools. What most
interested him was to
trace rivers on the maps and to learn their names. Cities he cared
nothing for;
but he loved to learn about the mountain ranges where pine and spruce
grew. "What
places them would be for
sawmills!" he exclaimed. Much as he
liked his new geography,
however, he had grown violently angry over the first lesson and
declared with
strong language that it was all a lie! The master had read aloud to him
the
first lesson, which describes the earth as one of the planets that
revolve round
the sun, and which says that it is a globe or sphere, turning on its
axis once
in twenty-four hours and so causing day and night. Old Zack
listened incredulously.
"I don't believe a word of that!" he declared flatly. The master
labored with him for some
time, trying to convince him that the earth is round and moves, but it
was
quite in vain. "No such
thing!" old Zack
exclaimed. "I know better! That's the biggest lie that ever was
told!" He quite
took it to heart and
continued talking about it after school. He really seemed to believe
that a
great and dangerous delusion had gone abroad. "It's
wrong," he said,
"puttin' sich stuff as that into young ones' heads. It didn't oughter
be
'lowed!" What old
Zack was saying about the
earth spread abroad and caused a great deal of amusement. Certain
waggish
persons began to "josh" him and others tried to argue with him, but
all such attempts merely roused his native obstinacy. One Sunday
evening he
gave a somewhat
wrong direction to the
weekly prayer meeting by rising to warn the people that their children
were
being taught a pack of lies; and such was his vehemence that the
regular
Sabbath service resolved itself into a heated debate on the contour of
the
earth. Perhaps
old Zack believed that, as a
recently educated man, it had become his duty to set things right in
the public
mind. The day
before school closed he went
to his late antagonist, the lawyer on the school board, and again
offered to
pay the twenty dollars for his tuition. After formally expelling him
from
school, however, the board did not dare to accept the money, and old
Zack gave
it to the long-suffering Master Cobb. |