The Purple Heights | Page 4

hopelessness began when he went to school, but it
didn't end there. He really was somewhat of a trial to an average
school-teacher, who very often knows less of the human nature of a
child than any other created being. Peter used the carelessly
good-and-easy English one inherits in the South, but he couldn't
understand the written rules of grammar to save his life; he was totally
indifferent as to which states bounded and bordered which; and he had
been known to spell "physician" with an f and two z's. But it was when
confronted by a sum that Peter stood revealed in his true colors of a
dunce!
"A boy buys chestnuts at one dollar and sixty cents the bushel and sells
them at ten cents the quart, liquid measure.--Peter Champneys, what
does he get?"
Peter Champneys stood up, and reflected.
"It all depends on the judge, and whether the boy's a white boy or a
nigger," he decided. "It's against the law to use liquid measure, you
know. But I should think he'd get about thirty days, if he's a nigger."
Whereupon Peter Champneys went to the principal with a note, and
received what was coming to him. When he returned to his seat, which
was decidedly not comfortable just then, the teacher smiled a real,
sure-enough schoolma'am smile, and remarked that she hoped our
brilliant scholar, Mister Champneys, knew now what the boy got for
his chestnuts. The class laughed as good scholars are expected to laugh
on such occasions. Peter came to the conclusion that Herod, Nero,
Bluebeard, and The Cruel Stepmother all probably began their bright

careers as school-teachers.
Peter was a friendly child who didn't have the useful art of making
friends. He used to watch more gifted children wistfully. He would so
much have liked to play familiarly with the pretty, impertinent,
pigtailed little girls, the bright, noisy, cock-sure little boys; but he didn't
know how to set about it, and they didn't in the least encourage him to
try. Children aren't by any means angels to one another. They are, as
often as not, quite the reverse. Peter was loath to assert himself, and he
was shoved aside as the gentle and the just usually are.
Being a loving child, he fell back upon the lesser creatures, and
discovered that the Little Brothers do not judge one upon hearsay, or
clothes, or personal appearance. Theirs is the infallible test: one must
be kind if one wishes to gain and to hold their love.
Martin Luther helped teach Peter that. Peter discovered Martin Luther,
a shivering gray midget, in the cold dusk of a November evening, on
the Riverton Road. The little beast rubbed against his legs, stuck up a
ridiculous tail, and mewed hopefully. Peter, who needed friendliness
himself, was unable to resist that appeal. He buttoned the forlorn kitten
inside his old jacket, and, feeling the grateful warmth of his body, it
cuddled and purred. The wise little cat didn't care the tip of a mouse's
tail whether or not Peter was the congenital dunce his teacher had
declared him to be, only that morning. The kitten knew he was just the
sort of boy to show compassion to lost kittens, and trusted and loved
him at sight.
His mother was doubtful as to the wisdom of adopting a third member
into a family which could barely feed two without one going half
hungry. Also, she disliked cats intensely. She was most horribly afraid
of cats. She was just about to say that he'd have to give the kitten to
somebody better able to care for it, but seeing the resigned and hopeless
expression that crept into Peter's face, she said, instead, that she
reckoned they could manage to feed the little wretch, provided he kept
it out of her room. Peter joyfully agreed, washed the cat in his own
basin, fed it with a part of his own supper, and took it to bed with him,
where it purred itself to sleep. Thus came Martin Luther to the house of

Champneys.
When Peter had chores to do the cat scampered about him with,
sidewise leapings and gambolings, and made his labor easier by
seasoning it with harmless amusement. When he wrestled with his
lessons Martin Luther sat sedately on the table and watched him, every
now and then rubbing a sympathetic head against him. When he woke
up at night in the shed room, he liked to put out his hand and touch the
warm, soft, silky body near him. Peter adored his cat, which was to him
a friend.
And then Martin Luther took to disappearing, mysteriously, for longer
and longer intervals. Peter was filled with apprehensions, for Martin
Luther wasn't a democratic soul; aside from his affection for Peter, the