School Days

by Ruskin Bond

  'A new boy, young gentlemen,' said the Doctor; 'Trotwood Copperfield.'

  One Adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of his place and welcomed me. He looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but he was very affable and good-humoured; and he showed me my place, and presented me to the masters, in a gentlemanly way that would have put me at my ease, if anything could.

  It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among such boys, or among any companions of my own age, except Mick Walker and Mealy Potatoes, that I felt as strange as ever I have done in all my life. I was so conscious of having passed through scenes of which they could have no knowledge, and of having acquired experiences foreign to my age, appearance, and condition as one of them, that I half believed it was an imposture to come there as an ordinary little schoolboy.

  Seeing a light in the little round office, and immediately feeling myself attracted towards Uriah Heep, who had a sort of fascination for me, I went in there instead. I found Uriah reading a great fat book, with such demonstrative attention, that his lank forefinger followed up every line as he read, and made clammy tracks along the page (or so I fully believed) like a snail.

  'You are working late tonight, Uriah,' I say.

  'Yes, Master Copperfield,' says Uriah.

  As I was getting on the stool opposite, to talk to him more conveniently, I observed that he had not such a thing as a smile about him, and that he could only widen his mouth and make two hard creases down his cheeks, one on each side, to stand for one.

  'I am not doing office-work, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah.

  'What work, then?' I asked.

  'I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah. 'I am going through Tidd's Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr Tidd is, Master Copperfield!'

  My stool was such a tower of observation, that as I watched him reading on again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following up the lines with his forefinger, I observed that his nostrils, which were thin and pointed, with sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncomfortable way of expanding and contracting themselves; that they seemed to twinkle instead of his eyes, which hardly ever twinkled at all.

  'I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?' I said, after looking at him for some time.

  'Me, Master Copperfield?' said Uriah. 'Oh, no! I'm a very humble person.'

  It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed; for he frequently grounded the palms against each other as if to squeeze them dry and warm, besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his pocket-handkerchief.

  'I am well aware that I am the humblest person going,' said Uriah Heep, modestly; 'let the other be where he may. My mother is likewise a very humble person. We live in a humble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for. My father's former calling was humble. He was a sexton. "

  'What is he now?' I asked.

  'He is a partaker of glory at present, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah Heep. 'But we have much to be thankful for. How much have I to be thankful for in living with Mr Wickfield!'

  I asked Uriah if he had been with Mr Wickfield long?

  'I have been with him going on four year, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah; shutting up his book, after carefully marking the place where he had left off. 'Since a year after my father's death. How much have I to be thankful for, in that! How much have I to be thankful for, in Mr Wickfield's kind intention to give me my articles, which would otherwise not lay within the humble means of mother and self!"

  'Then, when your articled time is over, you'll be a regular lawyer, I suppose?' I said.

  'With the blessing of Providence, Master Copperfield,' returned Uriah.

  'Perhaps you'll be a partner in Mr Wickfield's business, one of these days,' I said, to make myself agreeable; 'and it will be Wickfield and Heep, or Heep late Wickfield.'

  'Oh, no, Master Copperfield,' returned Uriah, shaking his head, 'I am much too humble for that!'

  He certainly did look uncommonly like the carved face on the beam outside my window, as he sat, in his humility, eyeing me sideways, with his mouth widened, and the creases in his cheeks.

  'Mr Wickfield is a most excellent man, Master Copper-field,' said Uriah. 'If you have known him long, you, know it, I am sure, much better than I can inform you.'

  I replied that I was certain he was; but that I had not known him long myself, though he was a friend of my aunt's.

  'Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah. 'Your aunt is a sweet lady, Master Copperfield!'

  He had a way of writhing when he wanted to express enthusiasm, which was very ugly; and which diverted my attention from the compliment he had paid my relation, to the snaky twistings of his throat and body.

  'A sweet lady, Master Copperfield!' said Uriah Heep. 'She has a great admiration for Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield, I believe?'

  I said, 'Yes,' boldly; not that I knew anything about it, Heaven forgive me!

  'I hope you have, too, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah. 'But I am sure you must have.'

  'Everybody must have,' I returned.

  'Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah Heep, 'for that remark! It is so true! Humble as I am, I know it is so true! Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield!'

  He writhed himself quite off his stool in the excitement of his feelings, and, being off, began to make arrangements for going home.

  'Mother will be expecting me,' he said, referring to a pale, inexpressive-faced watch in his pocket, 'and getting uneasy; for though we are very humble, Master Copperfield, we are much attached to one another. If you would come and see us, any afternoon, and take a cup of tea at our lowly dwelling, mother would be as proud of your company as I should be.'

  I said I should be glad to come.

  'Thank you, Master Copperfield,' returned Uriah, putting his book away upon the shelf. 'I suppose you stop here, some time, Master Copperfield?'

  I said I was going to be brought up there, I believed, as long as I remained at school.

  'Oh, indeed!' exclaimed Uriah. 'I should think you would come into the business at last, Master Copperfield!' I protested that I had no views of that sort, and that no such scheme was entertained in my behalf by anybody; but Uriah insisted on blandly replying to all my assurances, 'Oh, yes, Master Copperfield, I should think you would, indeed!' and, 'Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield, I should think you would, certainly!' over and over again. Being, at last, ready to leave the office for the night, he asked me if it would suit my convenience to have the light put out; and on my answering 'Yes,' instantly extinguished it. After shaking hands with me - his hand felt like a fish, in the dark - he opened the door into the street a very little, and crept out, and shut it, leaving me to grope my way back into the house: which cost me some trouble and a fall over his stool.

  My schooldays! The silent gliding on of my existence - the unseen, unfelt progress of my life - from childhood up to youth! Let me think, as I look back upon that flowing water, now a dry channel overgrown with leaves, whether there are any marks along its course, by which I can remember how it ran.

  A moment, and I occupy my place in the Cathedral, where we all went together, every Sunday morning, assembling first at school for that purpose. The earthy smell, the sunless air, the sensation of the world being shut out, the resounding of the organ through the black and white arched galleries and aisles, are wings that take me back, and hold me hovering above those days, in a half-sleeping and half-waking dream.

  I am not the last boy in the school. I have risen, in a few months, over several heads. But the first boy seems to me a mighty creature, dwelling afar off, whose giddy height is unattainable. Agnes says 'No,' but I say 'Yes,' and tell her that she little thinks what stores of knowledge have been mastered by the wonderful Being, at whose place she thinks I, even I, weak aspirant, may arrive in time. He is not my private friend and public patron, as Steerforth was; but I hold him in a reverential respect. I chiefly wonder what he'll be, when he leaves Doctor Strong's, an
d what mankind will do to maintain any place against him.

  But who is this that breaks upon me? This is Miss Shepherd, whom I love.

  Miss Shepherd is a boarder at the Misses Nettingalls' establishment. I adore Miss Shepherd. She is a little girl, in a spencer, with a round face and curly flaxen hair. The Misses Nettingalls' young ladies come to the Cathedral too. I cannot look upon my book, for I must look upon Miss Shepherd. When the choristers chant, I hear Miss Shepherd. In the service, I mentally insert Miss Shepherd's name - I put her in among the Royal Family. At home, in my own room, I am sometimes moved to cry out, 'Oh, Miss Shepherd!' in a transport of love.

  For some time, I am doubtful of Miss Shepherd's feelings, but, at length, fate being propitious, we meet at the dancing school. I have Miss Shepherd for my partner. I touch Miss Shepherd's glove, and feel a thrill go up the right arm of my jacket, and come out at my hair. I say nothing tender to Miss Shepherd, but we understand each other. Miss Shepherd and myself live but to be united.

  Why do I secretly give Miss Shepherd twelve Brazil nuts for a present, I wonder? They are not expressive of affection, they are difficult to pack into a parcel of any regular shape, they are hard to crack, even in room-doors, and they are oily when cracked; yet I feel that they are appropriate to Miss Shepherd. Soft, seedy biscuits, also, I bestow upon Miss Shepherd; and oranges innumerable. Once, I kiss Miss Shepherd in the cloakroom. Ecstasy! What are my agony and indignation next day, when I hear a flying rumour that the Misses Nettingall has stood Miss Shepherd in the stocks for turning in her toes!

  Miss Shepherd being the one pervading theme and vision of my life, how do I ever come to break with her? I can't conceive. And yet a coolness grows between Miss Shepherd and myself. Whispers reach me of Miss Shepherd having said she wished I wouldn't stare so, and having avowed a preference for Master Jones - for Jones! A boy of no merit whatever! The gulf between me and Miss Shepherd widens. At last, one day, I meet the Misses Nettingalls' establishment out walking. Miss Shepherd makes a face as she goes by, and laughs to her companion. All is over. The devotion of a life - it seems a life, it is all the same - is at an end; Miss Shepherd comes out of the morning service, and the Royal Family know her no more.

  I am higher in the school, and no one breaks my peace. I am not at all polite, now, to the Misses Nettingalls' young ladies, and shouldn't dote on any of them, if they were twice as many and twenty times as beautiful. I think the dancing school a tiresome affair, and wonder why the girls can't dance by themselves and leave us alone. I am growing great in Latin verses, and neglect the laces of my boots. Doctor Strong refers to me in public as a promising young scholar. Mr Dick is wild with joy, and my aunt remits me a guinea by the next post.

  The shade of a young butcher rises, like the apparition of an armed head in Macbeth. Who is this young butcher? He is the terror of the youth of Canterbury. There is a vague belief abroad, that the beef suet with which he anoints his hair gives him unnatural strength, and that he is a match for a man. He is a broad-faced, bull-necked young butcher, with rough red cheeks, an ill-conditioned mind, and an injurious tongue. His main use of this tongue is to disparage Doctor Strong's young gentlemen. He says, publicly, that if they want anything he'll give it 'em. He names individuals among them (myself included), whom he could undertake to settle with one hand, and the other tied behind him. He waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected heads, and calls challenges after me in the open streets. For these sufficient reasons I resolve to fight the butcher.

  It is a summer evening, down in a green hollow, at the corner of a wall. I meet the butcher by appointment. I am attended by a select body of our boys; the butcher, by two other butchers, a young publican, and a sweep. The preliminaries are adjusted, and the butcher and myself stand face to face. In a moment, the butcher lights ten thousand candles out of my left eyebrow. In another moment, I don't know where the wall is, or where I am, or where anybody is. I hardly know which is myself and which the butcher, we are always in such a tangle and tussle, knocking about upon the trodden grass. Sometimes I see the butcher, bloody but confident; sometimes I see nothing, and sit gasping on my second's knee; sometimes I go in at the butcher madly, and cut my knuckles open against his face, without appearing to discompose him at all. At last I awake, very queer about the head, as from a giddy sleep, and see the butcher walking off, congratulated by the two other butchers and the sweep and publican, and putting on his coat as he goes; from which I augur, justly, that the victory is his.

  I am taken home in a sad plight, and I have beef-steaks put to my eyes, and am rubbed with vinegar and brandy, and find a great white puffy place bursting out on my upper lip, which swells immoderately. For three or four days I remain at home, a very ill-looking subject, with a green shade over my eyes; and I should be very dull, but that Agnes is a sister to me, and condoles with me, and reads to me, and makes the time light and happy. Agnes has my confidence completely, always; I tell her all about the butcher, and the wrongs he has heaped upon me; and she thinks I couldn't have done otherwise than fight the butcher, while she shrinks and trembles at my having fought him.

  Time has stolen on unobserved, for Adams is not the head-boy in the days that are come now, nor has he been this many and many a day. Adams has left the school so long, that when he comes back, on a visit to Doctor Strong, there are not many there, besides myself, who know him. Adams is going to be called to the bar almost directly, and is to be an advocate, and to wear a wig. I am surprised to find him a meeker man than I had thought, and less imposing in appearance. He has not staggered the world yet, either; for it goes on (as well as I can make out) pretty much the same as if he had never joined it.

  A blank through which the warriors of poetry and history march on in stately hosts that seem to have no end - and what comes next! I am the head-boy now; and look down on the line of boys below me, with a condescending interest in such of them as bring to my mind the boy I was myself, when I first came there. That little fellow seems to be no part of me; I remember him as something left behind upon the road of life - as something I have passed, rather than have actually been - and almost think of him as of someone else.

  Charles Dickens: David Copperfield (1850)

  Little Jack

  Anton Chekhov

  This touching story illustrates the great writer's ability to inhabit his characters and identify with them. As a result, Little Jack continues to exist beyond the confines of the story. . . .

  JACK JUKOFF WAS A LITTLE BOY OF NINE WHO, THREE MONTHS AGO, had been apprenticed to Aliakin, the shoemaker. On Christmas Eve he did not go to bed. He waited until his master and the foreman had gone out to church, and then fetched a bottle of ink and a rusty pen from his master's cupboard, spread out a crumpled sheet of paper before him, and began to write. Before he had formed the first letter he had more than once looked fearfully round at the door, glanced at the icon, on each side of which were ranged shelves laden with boot-lasts, and sighed deeply. The paper lay spread on the bench, and before it knelt Little Jack.

  Dear Grandpapa - Constantine Makaritch (he wrote), I am writing you a letter. I wish you a merry Christmas and I hope God will give you all sorts of good things. I have no papa or mamma, and you are all I have.

  Little Jack turned his eyes to the dark window, on which shone the reflection of the candle, and vividly pictured to himself his grandfather, Constantine Makaritch: a small, thin, but extraordinarily active old man of sixty-five, with bleary eyes and a perpetually smiling face; by day sleeping in the kitchen or teasing the cook; by night, muffled in a huge sheepskin coat, walking about the garden beating his watchman's rattle. Behind him, hanging their heads, pace the dogs Kashtanka and The Eel, so called because he is black and his body is long like a weasel's. The Eel is uncommonly respectful and affectionate; he gazes with impartial fondness upon strangers and friends alike; but his credit, in spite of this, is bad. Beneath the disguise of a humble and deferential manner he conceals the most Jesuitical perfidy. No
body knows better than he how to steal up and grab you by the leg, how to make his way into the ice-house, or filch a hen from a peasant. His hind legs have been broken more than once; twice he has been hung, and every week he is thrashed within an inch of his life; but he always recovers.

  At this moment, no doubt, grandfather is standing at the gate blinking at the glowing red windows of the village church, stamping his felt boots, and teasing the servants. His rattle hangs at his belt. He beats his arms and hugs himself with cold, and giggling after the manner of old men, pinches first the maid, then the cook.

  'Let's have some snuff!' he says, handing the women his snuff-box.

  The women take snuff and sneeze. Grandfather goes off into indescribable ecstasies, breaks into shouts of laughter, and cries:

  'Wipe it off! It's freezing on!'

  Then they give the dogs snuff. Kashtanka sneezes and wrinkles her nose; her feelings are hurt, and she walks away. The Eel refrains from sneezing out of respect and wags his tail. The weather is glorious. The night is dark, but the whole village is visible; the white roofs, the columns of smoke rising from the chimneys, the trees, silvery with frost, and the snowdrifts. The sky is strewn with gaily twinkling stars, and the milky way is as bright as if it had been washed and scrubbed with snow for the holiday.

  Little Jack sighed, dipped his pen in the ink, and went on:

  I had a dragging yesterday. My master dragged me into the yard by my hair and beat me with a stirrup because I went to sleep without meaning to while I was rocking the baby. Last week my mistress told me to clean some herrings, and I began cleaning one from the tail, and she took it and poked its head into my face. The foreman laughs at me and sends me for vodka, makes me steal the cucumbers, and then my master beats me with whatever comes handy. And I have nothing to eat. I get bread in the morning, and porridge for dinner, and bread for supper. My master and mistress drink up all the tea and the soup. And they make me sleep in the hall, and when the baby cries I don't sleep at all because I have to rock the cradle. Dear grandpa, please take me away from here, home to the village. I can't stand it. I beg you on my knees; I will pray to God for you all my life. Take me away from here, or else I shall die. . . .