Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel], September 15, 1907, Image 35

About Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911

Image provided by: University of California, Riverside; Riverside, CA

                
Los Angeles Herald.
BOYS AND GIRLS MAGAZINE SECTION
' A l —>N > the school at : , Whilomville 'it ; was
Ml T the habit, when children had pro
3.1 * l grossed to a certain class, to have
&jnctth them devote Friday afternoon to
X&?~i what was called elocution. This
was in the belief that orators were
thus made. By process of school law, un
fortunate boys and girls were dragged up to
address their fellow-scholars in the literature
of the mid-century. Probably the children
who -were most capable of expressing them
selves, the children who were most sensitive
to the power of speech, suffered the most
wrong. Little blockheads who oould learn
right lines of conventional poetry, and could
get up and spin it rapidly at their class
mates, did not undergo a single pang. The
plan operated mainly to agonize many chil
dren permanently against arising to speak
I heir thought to fellow-creatures.
Jimmie Trescott had an idea that by exhi
bition of undue ignorance he could escape
from being promoted into the first class room
which exacted such penalty from its inmates.
He preferred to dwe.i in a less classic shade
rather than venture into a domain where he
was obliged to perform a certain duty which
struck him as being worse than death. How
every, willy-nilly, he was somehow sent ahead
into the place of torture.
Every Friday at least ten of the little chil
dren had to mount the stage beside the
teacher's desk and babble something which
none of them understood. This was to make
them orators. If it bad been ordered that
they should croak like frogs, it would have
advanced most of them just as far towards
oratory.
Alpuabetically Jimmie Trescott was near
the end of the list of victims, but his time
was none the less inevitable. "Tanner, Tim
mens, Trass. Trescott — " He saw his down
fall approaching.
He was passive of the teacher while ahe
drove into his mind the incomprehensible
lines of "The Charge of the Light Brigade":
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward —
He had 110 conception of a league. If in
the ordinary course of life somebody had told
him that he was half a league from home,
he might have been frightened that half a
league was fifty miles; but he struggled man
fully with the valley of death ana a mys
tic six hundred, who were performing some
thing there which was very fine, he had been
told. He learned all the verses.
But as his own Friday afternoon approach
ed he was moved to make known to his fam
ily that a dreadful disease wns upon him, and
waa likely at any time to prevent him from
going to his beloved school.
On the great Friday when the children of
is initials were to speak their pieces, Dr.
Trescott was away from home, and the moth
er of the hoy was alarmed beyond measure
at Jimmies curious illness, which caused him
to lie on the rug -» front of the fire and
groan cavernously.
She bathed his feet in hot mustard water
until they were lobsteiv-red. She also placed a
mustard plaster on his chest.
He announced that these remedies did him
not good at all — no good at all. With an air
of martyrdom he endured a perfect downpour
of /motherly attention all that day. Thus the
first Friday was passed in safety.
With singular patience he sat before th.c
fire in the dining room and looked at picture
books, only complaining of pain when he sus
pected his mother of thinking that he was
getting better.
The next day being Saturday and a holiday,
he was miraculously delivered from the arms
of disease, and went forth to play, a blatant
ly healthy boy.
He i.~ no further attack until Thursday
night of the next week, when he announced
that he felt very, very poorly. The mother
was already chronically alarmed over the con
dition of her son, but Dr. Trescott asked him
questions which denoted some incredulity.
On the third Friday Jimmie was dropped at
the door of the school from the doctor's
buggy. The other children, notably those
who had already passed over the mountain
of distress, looked at him with glee, seeing in
him another lamb brought to butchery. Seat
ed at his desk in the school room, Jimmie
sometimes remembered with dreadful dis
tinctness every line of "The Charge of the
Light Brigade," and at other times his mind
was utterly empty of it. Geography, arith
metic and spellintf^-usuaUy great tasks — quite
rolled off him. His mind was dwelling with
terror upon the time when his name should
be called and he was obliged to go up to the
platform, turn, bow and recite his message
to his fellow-men.
Desperate expedients for delay came to him.
If he could have engaged the services of a
real pain, he would have been glad. But
steadily, inexorably, the minutes marched on
towards his great crisis, and all his plans for
escape blended into a mere panic fear.
The maples outside were defeating the
weakening rays of the afternoon sun, and in
the shadowed school room had come a still
ness, in which, nevertheless, one could feel
the comnlaccnce of the little pupils who had
already passed through the flames. They
were calmly prepared to recognize as a spec
tacle the torture of others.
Little Johnnie Tanner opened the cere
mony. He stamped heavly up to the plat
form, and bowed in nuoh a manner that he
almost fell down. He blurted out that it
would ill befit him to sit silent while the
name of his fair Ireland was being reproach
ed, and he appealed to the gallant soldier be
.Wanted a Change
A Vermont boy who has been the possessor
of cats of several colors and sizes, felt like
having a change, and so remarked to his
mother the other day, as he stroked the cat he
held in his lap:
"/Mamma, I hope the next cat I have will
be a dog!"
fore him if every British battlefield was not
sown with the bones of sons or the Bknerald
Isle. He was also heard to say that he had
listened with deepening surprise and scorn to
the insinuation of the honorable member from
North Glenmorganahire that the loyalty of
the Irish regiments in her Majesty's service
could be questioned. To what purpose, then.
he asked, nad the blood of Irishmen flowed
on a hundred fields To what purpose had
Irishmen gone to their death with bravery
and devotion in every part of the, world
where the victorious flag of England had been
carried? If the honorable member for North
Glenmorganshire insisted upon construing a
mere pothouse row between soldiers in Dub
lin into a grand treachery to the colors and
to her Majesty's uniform, then it was time
for Ireland to think bitterly of her dead
sons, whose graves now marked every step of-
England's progress, and yet who could have
their honors stripped from them so easily by
the honorable member for North Glenmor
ganshire. Furthermore, the honorable mem
ber for North Glenmorganshire —
It ia needless to say that litlte Johnnie
Tanner's language made it exceedingly hot
for the honorable hjember for North Glen
morganshire. But Johnnie was not angry.
He was ogly in haste.' He finished the hon
orable member for North Glenmorganshire in
what might be called a gallop.
Susie Timmons then went to the platform,
and with a face as pale as death whispering
]y reiterated that she 'would be (Jueen of
the May. The child represented there a per
fect picture of unnecessary suffering. Her
small lips were quite blue, and her eyes,
opened wide, stared with a look of horror at
The phlegmatic Trass boy, with his moon
face only expressing peasant parentage, calmly
spoke some undeniably true words concerning
destiny. V
In his seat Jimmie Trescott was going half
blind with fear of his approaching doom. He
wished that the Trass boy would talk forever
about destiny. If the school house had taken
fire he thought that he would have felt sim
ply relief. Anything was better. Death amid
the flames was preferable to a recital of "The
Charge of the Light Brigade."
But the Trass boy finished his remarks
about destiny in a very short time. Jimmie
heard the teacher call his name, and he felt
the whole world look at him. He did not
know how he made his way to the v stage.
Parts of him seemed to be of lead, and at
the same time parts of him seemed to be light
as air, detached. His face had rrone as pale
as had been the face of Susie Timmens. He
Quite 80
Little Boston Boy (who. with bis mamma,
is visiting New York)— Oh, mamma, what a
little sliver of a moon they have here! Why,
in Boston it's a great big round moon!"
Mamma (complacently) — Yes, Waldo; but
you must remember that New York ia a very
different place from Boston.
SUNDAY SEFTW\BO{IS.'.iiMiT.
Making
an
Orator
Stephen
Crane
ti<3r>pep JbroS'
was simply a child in torment; that is all
there is to be said specifically about it; and
to intelligent peopli the exhibition would
hare been not more edifying than a dog
ngnt.
, He bowed precariously, choked, made an
inarticulate sound, and then he suddenly
said,
"Half a leg-"
"League," said the teacher, coolly.
"Half a leg-"
( League," said the teacher.
League," repeated Jimmie, wildly.
" Hal / ,. a feae 116 . half a league, half a league
onward.
He paused here and looked wretchedly at
the teacher.
"Half a league," he muttered— "half a
league —
He seemed likely to keep continuing thi»
phrase indefinitely, so after a time the teach
er (( said, "Well, go on."
"Half a league," responded Jimmie.
The teacher had the opened book before her
and she read from it:
"All in the valley of Death
Rode the—
Go on," she concluded.
Jimmie said,
"All in the valley of Death
Rode the— the— the— "
He east a glance of supreme appeal upon
the teacher, and breathlessly whispered,
"Roue the what?"
The young woman flushed with indignation
to the roots of her hair.
"Rode the six hundred."
she snapped at him.
The class was arustle with delight at thi»
cruel display. They were no better than a
Roman populace in Nero's time.
Jimmie started off again:
"Half a leg— league, half a league, half a
league onward,
All in the valley of death rode the six hun
dred.
Forward — forward — forward — "
"The light Brigade," suggested the teacher
sharply.
"The Light Brigade," said . Jimmie. He
was about to die of the ignoble pain of his
position.
As for Tennyson's lines, they had all gone
grandly out of his mind, leaving it a whited
wall.
The teacher's indication was still rampant
She looked at the miserable wretch before her
with an angry stare.
"You stay in after school and learn all
that over again," she commanded. "And be
prepared to speak it next Friday. I am as
tonished at you, Jimmie. Go to your seat.*
Jimmie fled to his seat amid the gibes of
his school mates. He gave no thought to the
terrors of the next Friday to come. The evila
of the day had been sufficient.