Bound to Rise | Page 7

town office, and I never wanted no more
schoolin'. My father took me away from school when I was thirteen."
"It wouldn't hurt you if you knew a little more," thought Hiram, who
remembered very well the squire's deficiencies when serving on the
town school committee.
"I believe in learning," he said. "My father used to say, 'Live and learn.'
That's a good motto, to my thinking."
"It may be carried too far. When a boy's got to be of the age of your
boy, he'd ought to be thinking of workin.' His time is too valuable to
spend in the schoolroom."
"I can't agree with you, squire. I think no time is better spent than the
time that's spent in learning. I wish I could afford to send my boy to
college."
"It would cost a mint of money; and wouldn't pay. Better put him to
some good business."
That was the way he treated his own son, and for this and other reasons,
as soon as he arrived at man's estate, he left home, which had never had
any pleasant associations with him. His father wanted to convert him

into a money-making machine--a mere drudge, working him hard, and
denying him, as long as he could, even the common recreations of
boyhood--for the squire had an idea that the time devoted in play was
foolishly spent, inasmuch as it brought him in no pecuniary return. He
was willfully blind to the faults and defects of his system, and their
utter failure in the case of his own son, and would, if could, have all the
boys in town brought up after severely practical method. But,
fortunately for Harry, Mr. Walton had very different notions. He was
compelled to keep his son home the greater part of the summer, but it
was against his desire.
"No wonder he's a poor man," thought the squire, after his visitor
returned home. "He ain't got no practical idees. Live and learn! that's all
nonsense. His boy looks strong and able to work, and it's foolish
sendin' him school any longer. That wa'n't my way, and see where I
am," he concluded, with complacent remembrance of bonds and
mortgages and money out at interest. "That was a pooty good cow
trade," he concluded. "I didn't calc' late for to get more'n thirty-five
dollars for the critter; but then neighbor Walton had to have a cow, and
had to pay my price."
Now for Hiram Walton's reflections.
"I'm a poor man," he said to himself, as he walked slowly homeward,
"but I wouldn't be as mean as Tom Green for all the money he's worth.
He's made a hard bargain with me, but there was no help for it."
CHAPTER IV
A SUM IN ARITHMETIC

Harry kept on his way to school, and arrived just the bell rang. Many of
my readers have seen a country schoolhouse, and will not be surprised
to learn that the one in which our hero obtained his education was far
from stately or ornamental, architecturally speaking. It was a one-story
structure, about thirty feet square, showing traces of having been

painted once, but standing greatly in need of another coat. Within were
sixty desks, ranged in pairs, with aisles running between them. On one
side sat the girls, on the other the boys. These were of all ages from five
to sixteen. The boys' desks had suffered bad usage, having been
whittled and hacked, and marked with the initials of the temporary
occupants, with scarcely an exception. I never knew a Yankee boy who
was not the possessor of a knife of some kind, nor one who could resist
the temptation of using it for such unlawful purposes. Even our hero
shared the common weakness, and his desk was distinguished from the
rest by "H. W." rudely carved in a conspicuous place.
The teacher of the school for the present session was Nathan Burbank,
a country teacher of good repute, who usually taught six months in a
year, and devoted the balance of the year to surveying land, whenever
he could get employment in that line, and the cultivation of half a
dozen acres of land, which kept him in vegetables, and enabled him to
keep a cow. Altogether he succeeded in making a fair living, though his
entire income would seem very small to many of my readers. He was
not deeply learned, but his education was sufficient to meet the limited
requirements of a country school.
This was the summer term, and it is the usual custom in New England
that the summer schools should be taught by females. But in this
particular school the experiment had been tried, and didn't work. It was
found that the scholars were too unruly to be kept in subjection by