True Stories From History and Biography (9 page)

The martyrdom of these guiltless persons seemed only to increase the
madness. The afflicted now grew bolder in their accusations. Many people
of rank and wealth were either thrown into prison, or compelled to flee
for their lives. Among these were two sons of old Simon Bradstreet, the
last of the Puritan governors. Mr. Willard, a pious minister of Boston,
was cried out upon as a wizard, in open court. Mrs. Hale, the wife of the
minister of Beverly, was likewise accused. Philip English, a rich merchant
of Salem, found it necessary to take flight, leaving his property and
business in confusion. But a short time afterwards, the Salem people were
glad to invite him back.

"The boldest thing that the accusers did," continued Grandfather, "was to
cry out against the governor's own beloved wife. Yes; the lady of Sir
William Phips was accused of being a witch, and of flying through the air
to attend witch meetings. When the governor heard this, he probably
trembled, so that our great chair shook beneath him."

"Dear Grandfather," cried little Alice, clinging closer to his knee, "is
it true that witches ever come in the night-time to frighten little
children?"

"No, no, dear little Alice," replied Grandfather. "Even if there were any
witches, they would flee away from the presence of a pure-hearted child.
But there are none; and our forefathers soon became convinced, that they
had been led into a terrible delusion. All the prisoners on account of
witchcraft were set free. But the innocent dead could not be restored to
life; and the hill where they were executed, will always remind people of
the saddest and most humiliating passage in our history."

Grandfather then said, that the next remarkable event, while Sir William
Phips remained in the chair, was the arrival at Boston of an English
fleet, in 1693. It brought an army, which was intended for the conquest of
Canada. But a malignant disease, more fatal than the small-pox, broke out
among the soldiers and sailors, and destroyed the greater part of them.
The infection spread into the town of Boston, and made much havoc there.
This dreadful sickness caused the governor, and Sir Francis Wheeler, who
was commander of the British forces, to give up all thoughts of attacking
Canada.

"Soon after this," said Grandfather, "Sir William Phips quarrelled with
the captain of an English frigate, and also with the Collector of Boston.
Being a man of violent temper, he gave each of them a sound beating with
his cane."

"He was a bold fellow," observed Charley, who was himself somewhat
addicted to a similar mode of settling disputes.

"More bold than wise," replied Grandfather; "for complaints were carried
to the king, and Sir William Phips was summoned to England, to make the
best answer he could. Accordingly he went to London, where, in 1695, he
was seized with a malignant fever, of which he died. Had he lived longer,
he would probably have gone again in search of sunken treasure. He had
heard of a Spanish ship, which was cast away in 1502, during the lifetime
of Columbus. Bovadilla, Roldan, and many other Spaniards, were lost in
her, together with the immense wealth of which they had robbed the South
American kings."

"Why, Grandfather," exclaimed Laurence, "what magnificent ideas the
governor had! Only think of recovering all that old treasure, which had
lain almost two centuries under the sea! Me thinks Sir William Phips ought
to have been buried in the ocean, when he died; so that he might have gone
down among the sunken ships, and cargoes of treasure, which he was always
dreaming about in his lifetime."

"He was buried in one of the crowded cemeteries of London," said
Grandfather. "As he left no children, his estate was inherited by his
nephew, from whom is descended the present Marquis of Normandy. The noble
Marquis is not aware, perhaps, that the prosperity of his family
originated in the successful enterprise of a New England ship carpenter."

"At the death of Sir William Phips," proceeded Grandfather, "our chair was
bequeathed to Mr. Ezekiel Cheever, a famous school-master in Boston. This
old gentleman came from London in 1637, and had been teaching school ever
since; so that there were now aged men, grandfathers like myself, to whom
Master Cheever had taught their alphabet. He was a person of venerable
aspect, and wore a long white beard.

"Was the chair placed in his school?" asked Charley.

"Yes, in his school," answered Grandfather; "and we may safely say that it
had never before been regarded with such awful reverence—no, not even when
the old governors of Massachusetts sat in it. Even you, Charley, my boy,
would have felt some respect for the chair, if you had seen it occupied by
this famous school-master."

And here Grandfather endeavored to give his auditors an idea how matters
were managed in schools above a hundred years ago. As this will probably
be an interesting subject to our readers, we shall make a separate sketch
of it, and call it

Now imagine yourselves, my children, in Master Ezekiel Cheever's
school-room. It is a large, dingy room, with a sanded floor, and is
lighted by windows that turn on hinges, and have little diamond shaped
panes of glass. The scholars sit on long benches, with desks before them.
At one end of the room is a great fire-place, so very spacious, that there
is room enough for three or four boys to stand in each of the chimney
corners. This was the good old fashion of fire-places, when there was wood
enough in the forests to keep people warm, without their digging into the
bowels of the earth for coal.

It is a winter's day when we take our peep into the school-room. See what
great logs of wood have been rolled into the fire-place, and what a broad,
bright blaze goes leaping up the chimney! And every few moments, a vast
cloud of smoke is puffed into the room, which sails slowly over the heads
of the scholars, until it gradually settles upon the walls and ceiling.
They are blackened with the smoke of many years already.

Next, look at our old historic chair! It is placed, you perceive, in the
most comfortable part of the room, where the generous glow of the fire is
sufficiently felt, without being too intensely hot. How stately the old
chair looks, as if it remembered its many famous occupants, but yet were
conscious that a greater man is sitting in it now! Do you see the
venerable school-master, severe in aspect, with a black scull-cap on his
head, like an ancient Puritan, and the snow of his white beard drifting
down to his very girdle? What boy would dare to play, or whisper, or even
glance aside from his book, while Master Cheever is on the look-out,
behind his spectacles! For such offenders, if any such there be, a rod of
birch is hanging over the fire-place, and a heavy ferule lies on the
master's desk.

And now school is begun. What a murmur of multitudinous tongues, like the
whispering leaves of a wind-stirred oak, as the scholars con over their
various tasks! Buz, buz, buz! Amid just such a murmur has Master Cheever
spent above sixty years: and long habit has made it as pleasant to him as
the hum of a bee-hive, when the insects are busy in the sunshine.

Now a class in Latin is called to recite. Forth steps a row of
queer-looking little fellows, wearing square-skirted coats, and small
clothes, with buttons at the knee. They look like so many grandfathers in
their second childhood. These lads are to be sent to Cambridge, and
educated for the learned professions. Old Master Cheever has lived so
long, and seen so many generations of school-boys grow up to be men, that
now he can almost prophesy what sort of a man each boy will be. One urchin
shall hereafter be a doctor, and administer pills and potions, and stalk
gravely through life, perfumed with assaf[oe]tida. Another shall wrangle
at the bar, and fight his way to wealth and honors, and in his declining
age, shall be a worshipful member of his Majesty's council. A third—and he
is the Master's favorite—shall be a worthy successor to the old Puritan
ministers, now in their graves; he shall preach with great unction and
effect, and leave volumes of sermons, in print and manuscript, for the
benefit of future generations.

But, as they are merely school-boys now, their business is to construe
Virgil. Poor Virgil, whose verses, which he took so much pains to polish,
have been mis-scanned, and mis-parsed, and mis-interpreted, by so many
generations of idle school-boys! There, sit down, ye Latinists. Two or
three of you, I fear, are doomed to feel the master's ferule.

Next comes a class in Arithmetic. These boys are to be the merchants,
shop-keepers, and mechanics, of a future period. Hitherto, they have
traded only in marbles and apples. Hereafter, some will send vessels to
England for broadcloths and all sorts of manufactured wares, and to the
West Indies for sugar, and rum, and coffee. Others will stand behind
counters, and measure tape, and ribbon, and cambric, by the yard. Others
will upheave the blacksmith's hammer, or drive the plane over the
carpenter's bench, or take the lapstone and the awl, and learn the trade
of shoe-making. Many will follow the sea, and become bold, rough
sea-captains.

This class of boys, in short, must supply the world with those active,
skilful hands, and clear, sagacious heads, without which the affairs of
life would be thrown into confusion, by the theories of studious and
visionary men. Wherefore, teach them their multiplication table, good
Master Cheever, and whip them well, when they deserve it; for much of the
country's welfare depends on these boys!

But, alas! while we have been thinking of other matters, Master Cheever's
watchful eye has caught two boys at play. Now we shall see awful times!
The two malefactors are summoned before the master's chair, wherein he
sits, with the terror of a judge upon his brow. Our old chair is now a
judgment-seat. Ah, Master Cheever has taken down that terrible birch-rod!
Short is the trial—the sentence quickly passed—and now the judge prepares
to execute it in person. Thwack! thwack! thwack! In those good old times,
a school-master's blows were well laid on.

See! the birch-rod has lost several of its twigs, and will hardly serve
for another execution. Mercy on us, what a bellowing the urchins make! My
ears are almost deafened, though the clamor comes through the far length
of a hundred and fifty years. There, go to your seats, poor boys; and do
not cry, sweet little Alice; for they have ceased to feel the pain, a long
time since.

And thus the forenoon passes away. Now it is twelve o'clock. The master
looks at his great silver watch, and then with tiresome deliberation, puts
the ferule into his desk. The little multitude await the word of
dismissal, with almost irrepressible impatience.

"You are dismissed," says Master Cheever.

The boys retire, treading softly until they have passed the threshold;
but, fairly out of the school-room, lo, what a joyous shout!—what a
scampering and trampling of feet!—what a sense of recovered freedom,
expressed in the merry uproar of all their voices! What care they for the
ferule and birch-rod now? Were boys created merely to study Latin and
Arithmetic? No; the better purposes of their being are to sport, to leap,
to run, to shout, to slide upon the ice, to snow-ball!

Happy boys! Enjoy your play-time now, and come again to study, and to feel
the birch-rod and the ferule, to-morrow; not till to-morrow, for to-day is
Thursday-lecture; and ever since the settlement of Massachusetts, there
has been no school on Thursday afternoons. Therefore, sport, boys, while
you may; for the morrow cometh, with the birch-rod and the ferule; and
after that, another Morrow, with troubles of its own.

Now the master has set every thing to rights, and is ready to go home to
dinner. Yet he goes reluctantly. The old man has spent so much of his life
in the smoky, noisy, buzzing school-room, that, when he has a holiday, he
feels as if his place were lost, and himself a stranger in the world. But,
forth he goes; and there stands our old chair, vacant and solitary, till
good Master Cheever resumes his seat in it to-morrow morning.

"Grandfather," said Charley, "I wonder whether the boys did not use to
upset the old chair, when the school-master was out?"

"There is a tradition," replied Grandfather, "that one of its arms was
dislocated, in some such manner. But I cannot believe that any school-boy
would behave so naughtily."

As it was now later than little Alice's usual bedtime, Grandfather broke
off his narrative, promising to talk more about Master Cheever and his
scholars, some other evening.

Accordingly the next evening, Grandfather resumed the history of his
beloved chair.

"Master Ezekiel Cheever," said he, "died in 1707, after having taught
school about seventy years. It would require a pretty good scholar in
arithmetic to tell how many stripes he had inflicted, and how many
birch-rods he had worn out, during all that time, in his fatherly
tenderness for his pupils. Almost all the great men of that period, and
for many years back, had been whipt into eminence by Master Cheever.
Moreover, he had written a Latin Accidence, which was used in schools more
than half a century after his death; so that the good old man, even in his
grave, was still the cause of trouble and stripes to idle school-boys."

Grandfather proceeded to say, that, when Master Cheever died, he
bequeathed the chair to the most learned man that was educated at his
school, or that had ever been born in America. This was the renowned
Cotton Mather, minister of the Old North Church in Boston.

"And author of the Magnalia, Grandfather, which we sometimes see you
reading," said Laurence.

"Yes, Laurence," replied Grandfather. "The Magnalia is a strange, pedantic
history, in which true events and real personages move before the reader,
with the dreamy aspect which they wore in Cotton Mather's singular mind.
This huge volume, however, was written and published before our chair came
into his possession. But, as he was the author of more books than there
are days in the year, we may conclude that he wrote a great deal, while
sitting in this chair."