The Bondage of Ballinger | Page 3

quiet and not disagreeable persistence, which amused the celebrities with whom he came in contact. He could say with truth as well as pride that he had walked and talked with Mr. Emerson rather timidly perhaps and had assisted that great man in minor duties of a domestic nature. He had plucked the hem of Miss Fuller's gown, and on more than one occasion had paid himself the compliment of carrying her parcels. For such distinguished services he had several pages of manuscript, duly signed, to show. He had permitted Mr. Thoreau to accept him as a companion on certain notable excursions, and had discussed with him various topics of natural history. He had formed the acquaintance of Mr. Channing, with difficulty, but contrived to profit by such association in the customary channels. He had tapped maple-trees with Mr. Alcott, and indulged in polite but fragmentary discourse with the abstracted Mr. Hawthorne through the picket fence. He had stood on the bridge, and at sundry other places, with Mr. Longfellow, run on occasional errands for Mr. Lowell, and acquired an almost convivial familiarity with Dr. Holmes. He knew the gentle Mr. Whittier and loved him, was the devoted boyish champion of Lucy Larcom, and would have buffeted the waves far across to the Isles of Shoals had it been necessary in order to reach Celia Thaxter.
In all these youthful adventures he never forgot the paternal advice, and as he was a bright-faced boy, with an alert mind, and a shrewd but respectful insistence, he soon added materially to his library and to the value of his possessions. The young collector was happily not content with the mere pleasure of acquisition, but eagerly devoured every book that came into his possession with an interest considerably sharpened by his personal acquaintance with its author. In this he soon verified the predictions of the father. But if Thomas Ballinger was a student, he gave very little indication of the practical benefit of his reading, for in all the busy circle of shrewd, restless, energetic inhabitants of the New England village, none was so incapable of action as the schoolmaster's son. If sent on an errand, he might he found thirty minutes later curled up in a corner of the fence, reading the book he surreptitiously carried in his pocket or inside his shirt. If sent to drive home the cow, the cow, weary of waiting, came home without him. Had he been told to run for the doctor he would have considered his mission accomplished if he ran toward the doctor's. Any incidental diversion or distraction of a literary nature was enough to obliterate the object in view. The schoolmaster himself was obliged to confess that, so far as indications served, Thomas was cut out for a failure, while the townspeople ranked him in the list of impossibilities, and held him up to their own children as a terrifying example of shiftlessness.
As the smallness of the family purse demanded that there should be no gentleman bcarder in the household, Master Tom was informed that he was now at an age when he must contribute to the general fund, and it was furthermore hinted that he might choose among the various means of livelihood in the village. And as any kind of hard manual labor was repugnant to his disposition, he expressed an unwillingness to decide so important a question for himself; accordingly he was apprenticed to the blacksmith, and he lasted two days. In turn, and with amazing celerity, he was unloaded on the apothecary, the grocer, the carpenter, the wheelwright, and every trade functionary in the township, but in each case the beneficiary reported with equal promptness that he "guessed Tom M better try suthin' else." Then in a glimmer of hope that he might be able to impart to others some of the book knowledge he appeared to be constantly acquiring, the schoolmaster procured his appointment to the pedagogue's chair in a district school. But the scholars soon perceived his weakness, and cunningly drawing him into controversies on literary topics, so disposed of the school hours that the curriculum was practically neglected. And one day, when he had failed to report at nine o'clock, and the hours crept on to ten, and then to eleven, two of the older scholars were sent to investigate, and they found Master Tom comfortably propped up in bed, his nose dipping into a book and his mind revelling in flights wholly unconnected with his paid professional duties. This was too much for the board of trustees sitting on Tom as a delinquent, and he was dismissed with as much disgrace as so preoccupied a culprit could take upon himself. So in desperation the father laid the case before the young man, reviewed the circumstances leading