The Evolution of "Dodd" Part 10

It was a little thing, but it was so sudden that it "riled" "Dodd" to the very depths. Quick as a flash he returned:

"I'll go out whenever I ---- please for all of you, you ---- ---- ---- ----," and here followed a string of blasphemous words which good taste says I must not write, though the truth is, "Dodd" said them, very loudly, before a whole school full of young ladies and gentlemen, who had to hear them. But then, good taste has some rights which I am bound to respect, and I put dashes where "Dodd" put most shameful oaths.

If a thunderbolt had fallen into that still school-room it would not have produced greater consternation among the pupils than did these words of "Dodd's." He turned pale with anger, and glared at Mr.

Bright, as he, "Dodd," stood with his hand on the doork.n.o.b.

"All right;" returned Mr. Bright, "do just as the 'Other-Fellow' says about it," and he turned to his cla.s.s again.

"Dodd" stood with his hand on the doork.n.o.b for a full minute, then turned, and slowly walking to his seat, sat down! But Mr. Bright did not even look that way.

And this was all there ever was of this episode. Mr. Bright never once mentioned the occurrence to "Dodd" afterwards. He did not even reprimand him before the school nor did he speak to any pupil of what had happened. He had won, and yet the odds were so nearly against him that be felt it best to be silent. This might not have been your way, beloved, but it was Mr. Bright's way, and he was able to manage it.

Some months thereafter, he had occasion one day to reprove a rough pupil for profanity on the play-ground, and the pupil came back at him with: "You'd better talk to 'Dodd' Weaver about swearing if you are so anxious about it. He cursed you to your face and you didn't say a word." But Mr. Bright only replied: "That is my affair, but you must not swear on the play-ground. Do you understand?"

The young man concluded that he understood, and said so.

And that is how this teacher was perhaps logically inconsistent, but nevertheless just, and able to take care of his school according to the individual needs of his pupils. Happy is that teacher who can do so much!

But the machine cannot do so much, nor can the men who run the machine.

The machine is logically correct and consistent, according to the laws of the Medes and Persians. It "treats all pupils alike." Allah be praised! Yet a single man like Mr. Bright is worth whole battalions of machines. Thank G.o.d!

I must take s.p.a.ce, just here, too, to explain a phrase quoted by Mr.

Bright, just above, namely, the "Other-Fellow."

The quotation marks are there in deference to Dr. Holmes, who is responsible for the idea that Mr. Bright had made familiar in his school. That idea was as follows, when elaborated by this teacher, and was presented to his pupils on a Monday morning, a few weeks after "Dodd" had entered school. I give this as Mr. Bright paraphrased it, rather than in the words of the "Old Master" in the "Poet at the Breakfast Table," where he first came across it.

"Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes says," Mr. Bright remarked to the school, "that in every one of us there are two persons. First, there is yourself, and then there is the Other-Fellow! Now one of these is all the time doing things, and the other sits inside and tells what he thinks about the performance. Thus, I do so-and-so, act so-and-so, seem to the world so-and-so; but the Other-Fellow sits in judgment on me all the time.

"I may tell a lie, and do it so cleverly that the people may think I have done or said a great and good thing; and they may shout my praises, far and wide. But the Other-Fellow sits inside, and says, 'You lie! you lie! you're a sneak, and you know it!' I tell him to shut up, to hear what the people say about me; but he only continues to repeat, over and over again, 'You lie! you lie! you're a sneak, and you know it!'

"Or, again, I may do a really n.o.ble deed, but perhaps be misunderstood by the public, who may persecute me and say all manner of evil against me, falsely; but the Other-Fellow will sit inside, and say, 'Never mind, old boy! It's all right! stand by!'

"And I would rather hear," he used to add, "the 'well done' of the 'Other-Fellow' than the shouts of praise of the whole world; while I would a thousand times rather that the people should shout and hiss themselves hoa.r.s.e with rage and envy, than that the 'Other-Fellow'

should sit inside and say, 'You lie! you lie! you're a sneak, and you know it!'"

This was what Mr. Bright said to his pupils on a Monday morning, and it made a wonderful impression upon them. The same thought always will make an impression upon people if only it can be got to them.

After this, he let the "Other-Fellow" manage his school. You can see how effective it was, my dear, by observing what it did for "Dodd," as I have just related. It was even more powerful, if possible, with the other pupils.

I commend this "Other-Fellow" to your notice, ladies and gentlemen, and especially to yours, beloved, who are teachers of young men and women.

You can't use him to so good an advantage among the younger pupils, but if you can once get him to take control of your larger boys and girls, you have put them into most excellent hands.

For, see; he will ply the lash when it is deserved, and lay on heavily where you would hardly dare to lift a finger. Does Mary whisper too much? Quietly ask her to settle the score with the "Other-Fellow." Is John doing something that he should not do? Hand him over to the same authority. And if you can do this, and can succeed in making this personage the Absolute Monarch of your school, whose a.s.sistant you are, then be happy, and teach school just as long as you can afford to. You are a G.o.d-send to any company of young people among whom your lot is cast.

But if you are a stranger to the "Other-Fellow" yourself, don't try to introduce him to any one else. It is not well for strangers to attempt familiarities, yet I have known such attempts, even in the school room, and by those high in authority, even among the machines.

But Mr. Bright had succeeded in putting this personage into his school as head master, and he had wrought wonders, even in so hard a case as that of "Dodd" Weaver. His presence in any school will always work as it did in this case. It takes a man or a woman of character to use this power, though!

CHAPTER XIV.

I most heartily wish that I could go on with this tale without recording any further lapses on the part of its alleged hero, but I can't. The facts in the case will not warrant such a continuation.

Nor do I admit that it was "Dodd's" Methodist blood that occasioned these fallings from grace. I have known men, women and boys, and whole herds of other people besides, even those who were firm believers in the tenet "Once in grace, always in grace," who yet had their "infirmities" about them, and whose feet still clung to the miry clay, though they did think their heads were in heavenly places!

On the whole, after observing human nature pretty closely for some time, even till gray hairs are with me to stay, I am inclined to believe, with Mr. Emerson, that "Virtue itself is apt to be occasional, spotty, and not always the same clear through the piece." This may be another case where facts do not tally with logical conclusions based upon dogmatic theological reasoning. Yet if the fact is thus, my dear reader, you need not be alarmed, so far as you are concerned. Ask yourself if it isn't true, in your case, at least, that you have slipped down from the lofty places of your desire and aspiration many a time, even when you have done your best to keep in your high estate.

Human nature! That is the key to this condition. How to handle this unstable quant.i.ty so as to keep it up continually, this is a problem for the ages.

So "Dodd" slipped again, just as such boys are continually apt to do, and Mr. Bright bore with him patiently, and "worked him," as a wise teacher can and will.

The machine cannot and will not bear with boys and "work them." It "suspends" them and "expels" them.

The "Other-Fellow" held "Dodd" to his work for days and weeks, but, finally, even this power lost its grip, for a time.

It happened--as such things usually do, when the teacher is doubly busy--that "Dodd" began whittling a stick at his desk and covering the floor all about with the litter, in a most shameful and slovenly manner. Mr. Bright discovered the fact just as he was in the midst of a cla.s.s exercise in which twenty pupils were taking part, all being at the board at the same time and working together under pressure of his rapid dictation. He had no time to stop then and there to put a pupil into order. He was flushed and excited with his cla.s.s work, holding his boys and girls up to the vigorous drill he was giving them, and he scarcely paused to say to "Dodd":

"Put up that knife and go to work!"

He did not wait to see it he was obeyed. He had not time.

The next act of "Dodd's" that he was conscious of was his opening the door to leave the room. He saw at once that this move was made simply to kill time, and to get rid of study, and as "Dodd" was in the very act of closing the door behind him, Mr. Bright called out to him:

"Come back and take your seat!"

But "Dodd's" only answer was to slam the door as hard as he could and dash down stairs, three steps at a jump.

Mr. Bright rushed out after him at the top of his speed. In his haste to make time, and catch the fugitive, if possible, he revived a custom of his youth and slid down the banister, making the time of an arrow in his descent.

Then he ran out of the hall, in still further pursuit.

But he was too late. He ran around the house, but at the corner he lost the trail, and though he circled the building three times, and listened, and dodged back and forth, to surprise "Dodd" if possible, he could get no clue to his whereabouts. He went into the cellar and looked all about, peering into the furnace-room and coal-bin, but nowhere could he find the crafty object of his search. Finally he gave up and returned to the school room. He came in out of breath and perspiring, and met the inquiring eyes of his pupils as he went back to his desk.

"I could not find him," he said to the school, wiping his dripping face with his handkerchief. Then he turned to the cla.s.s on duty and resumed the exercise he had broken off so abruptly.

I do not know what would have happened if Mr. Bright and "Dodd" had met in the heat of this encounter. It is useless to speculate on what would have occurred. Some of the boys, waiting in the room they had just left, offered to bet two to one on the master if it came to business. And, indeed, there were no takers at that, for Mr. Bright had a prowess which would have stood him well in stead if he had had occasion to use it. But he did not. I am glad that he did not.

Because, it is at such times as this that men get beside themselves, and are apt to do desperate things. I have known men who had to go behind bars and stay there for many years because they did meet the man they were after, under much such circ.u.mstances as I have just detailed.

I remarked a few paragraphs above something about virtue being "occasional," and we have all need to pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

But Fate, or Foreordination, or Good Fortune, or Destiny, or Providence, or Luck, whichever one of these presided on this occasion,--suit yourselves as to this, O infidel or orthodox!

capitalize them all, since some of you will have it so--elected that these two people should not meet till they had both cooled off a little. I hope these same powers may be as kind to you if you ever have a like need of their good offices. Many a man has been made or broken by the smile or frown of one of these deities which are so entirely beyond our control, and which still make so important a part of our lives. I state facts again, without further moralizing.

Indeed, I could not moralize on this theme if I tried. I don't know any one who can, though the world is full of people who constantly try to. They all fail. The mystery is as great now as it was in the days when Eve happened to walk up to the tree where the serpent and the apples happened to be together. One should take off his hat when he speaks seriously of these things. They are stupendous!

Nor should you blame Mr. Bright too much for doing as he did. Hear the story out before you pa.s.s judgment. He was only a man. You are under the same condemnation, my self-contained critic!

I will admit without argument, however, that the machine would never have slid down a banister in pursuit of a fleeing pupil. Never! It never concerns itself enough about the doings of any individual pupil to follow him an inch for any cause whatever. The machine would have sat still and let the boy run. Then it would have suspended him the next morning and expelled him a few days later. The machine always has regular ways of doing things. It has all the rules for its movements set down in a book.