6. Music Lessons

Uniondale was only a mile north of the Wabash River which, at that point of its progress down-state, was a shallow, sandy-bottomed, lazy stream, easily fordable except during the spring and autumn rains.

I heard someone say that a stream does not deserve to call itself a river unless it is able to grind the grain that grows on its shores. This the Wabash could do a little farther down; but when it passed the vicinity of Uniondale, it was too young to be given any serious work to do. It was at the right age to entertain, on drowsy summer afternoons, the barefooted boys who came with a can full of earthworms to catch small sunfish.

Nobody tried to swim there. It was too shallow for swimming. But it was a good place to wade. Easily frightened mothers, among whom my mama rated top billing, felt quite contented to have their children visit the Wabash, and some of the happiest memories I have of my childhood relate to the idle hours I spent there, sprawled on the warm, grassy river-bank, making pictures of the white clouds which hovered so close, and wondering dreamily what was beyond the blue ceiling far away.

The school that the Uniondale children attended was only a short distance from the river. As our family had arrived about the same time that school opened, I made acquaintances promptly. We had a good teacher, a young man named Longfellow. I became very fond of him. We were happy to learn later that he had been able to graduate at the State University.

It was the little red brick schoolhouse that appears so frequently, these days, in old men’s memoirs; an ungraded school, of course, such as my parents had taught. Mr. Longfellow, at that period of his career, had not traveled; nor had he the equipment to do such a stunning job of teaching as our remarkable Mr. Auburn. But he had read everything that came to hand and was sincerely interested in education. Schoolteaching for him was more than a potboiling job.

Late in the fall, Mr. Longfellow had the usual experience of the new teacher when the big farmer boys, having finished the corn-husking, showed up at school. He was quite patient with their disorderly conduct for a couple of days. Then he went after them. He was a farmer boy himself and in excellent condition for the work he had to do. It did not take long. The corn-huskers did not gang up on him, whether from a sense of sportsmanship or because they were taken by surprise I do not know; but the battle was brief and decisive. When it was over, everybody knew who had won, and there was no necessity for any more flogging during that year.

The oldest boy in school, Charley Someone (whose other name escapes me) was eighteen. He had taken no part in the revolution. As the desks were built for the occupancy of two scholars, Mr. Longfellow asked Charley if he would sit by me, for I was a little dunce in Arithmetic. I surmise that it may have been the first time that Charley had ever been assigned to such a responsibility. He made a big thing of it. Doubtless he might have resented the task of tutoring, or even of being seen with, some fifteen-year-old lunkhead, but he had a sound, unashamed interest in the welfare of a small boy.

This same attitude is noticeable in a henhouse. You put ten hens in one chicken run and immediately the hen who is to take priority sets to work at proving it. In a day’s time, every hen knows her own relation to the others. Hen No. 1 can peck any hen in the flock. No. 2 can peck all but No. 1. No. 3 can peck all but 1 and 2.

It will be too promptly surmised that Hen No. 10 has let herself in for a very unhappy career, with all the other hens authorized to peck her. This, however, is not the case. Hen No. 1, while armed with authority to peck Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, and the others, is on excellent terms with Hen No. 10; never thinks of pecking her; will defend her if No. 8 and No. 9 are too belligerent; will sometimes call her attention to a crippled bug that she herself doesn’t fancy.

Same thing goes for the whole social structure. Mrs. Upsofar can and does peck Mrs. Gotrocks and snubs the Plush sisters, but she invites Bridget O’Hooligan, who used to be her cook, to come up to her boudoir for a dish of tea. Yes, and Mr. Upsofar coldly brushes off Mr. Comelately, who wants to talk to him in the lounge car of the nine-o’clock commuters’ train, but encourages George, the porter, to talk about his daughter Dinah’s new baby.

As I was saying, Charley took me under his wing and taught me how to figure percentages, even at the expense of giving up recess time.

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