TEN years passed quietly away after
my coming to the Scotch Settlement when an incident occurred in Colin’s
history which had some effect on his subsequent career. About this time
there came to the settlement a man who applied to the school trustees for
the position of teacher. It had been vacant for some months, owing to the
sudden marriage of "the little missus," as the former schoolteacher was
called by many of the settlers, to a young man who drifted into the
settlement selling books. "The little missus took a shine to him," and
together they "left for the States," which was at that period attracting
many young Canadians.
Nothing was known of the new
applicant beyond the fact that he gave the name of Simon Smallpiece, and
professed to have taught school for some years in the vicinity of By Town
(now Ottawa). Like many others, he drove into the settlement with John
Malcolm, the beer pedlar, who was returning from one of his periodical
trips along the Grand River. The teacher had heard from John that the
Ninth Concession school was vacant. He was not long in making terms with
the trustees, who, in view of the fact that he was a male teacher and
likely to wield a firm hand with the sturdy and often rough children,
decided to allow him thirty pounds a year,
a
sum which at that early period was deemed a very liberal salary.
Simon was a man slight in stature
and below the average in height. His head was of that elongated cast which
is sometimes mistaken for a sure sign of intelligence. His shoulders were
narrow and drooping, his mouth exceedingly large, and his upper lip was so
short that when he laughed his face appeared to be malformed. This,
however, he seldom did, except at the expense of some child who was the
object of his sarcasm.
In a back settlement like that in
which our story is laid, the schoolmaster was usually an individual of
much more than ordinary importance. By a great many people, every
expression that fell from his lips was supposed to contain nuggets of
wisdom, and there were always many ready to sit at his feet as
if
he were a veritable law-giver. Even his ordinary talk was supposed to be
intensely clever.
I never knew a teacher more ready
than Simon Small-piece to claim his prerogative in this respect, so that
it soon came to pass that he paraded about as if he held a mortgage on
every homestead.
In his relations to the children he
was guided by the financial circumstances and influence of their parents.
When prizes were distributed at Christmas, although paid for by all the
people, they were usually awarded to the sons and daughters of the
trustees or to children of influential settlers. To the minister and
elders he catered by teaching in the Sunday-school, and by a general
display of religious zeal.
The children of the poorer settlers
fared ill at his hands, and the parents were fearful of complaining either
to him or to the trustees, lest he should revenge himself upon the
youngsters. Besides, as long as Simon had the ear of the trustees, and
they could be relied upon to stand by him, complaint was likely to prove
of little avail.
Those children who, in addition to
being poor, lacked a father to defend them, were the worst off of all. He
was of course especially offensive to the Widow McNabb’s children, above
all to Colin. Colin had by this time grown to be a fine strapping lad of
fourteen. He was a manly, straightforward, truthful boy, possessing a
frankness and directness which a poor judge of human nature might mistake
for bravado.
Such a nature was sure to provoke
Simon’s antagonism, and the latter adopted every possible means to
humiliate the lad. He would even make covert references to Colin’s
antecedents, implying that he was the offspring of Wasby. To the credit of
most of the children it must be said that they had no sympathy with Simon.
Many and many a time he belaboured
Colin over his head and neck with long, seven-fingered taws, knotted and
burned on the ends. Such brutal punishment, which raised welts on the
boy’s flesh inches in length, and which sometimes terminated in abrasures
of the skin, was borne in silence by the lad.
Indeed, neither the widow nor I knew
of the length to which Simon went in his treatment of Colin. Had I been at
home he might have spoken to me of the master’s conduct to others, as well
as to himself; but it was during the winter that he went to school, and at
that time I was usually away in logging camps. The boy, too, had a sort of
pride that kept him from complaining of a "licking" or asking for
protection from future "lickings." He did not wish to distress the widow
or involve her in trouble, so he said nothing to her of his own treatment,
and he convinced Katie and the rest that they should not do so either. He
did report Simon’s treatment of some others, and a protest was made to the
trustees, but they upheld Simon. It should be remembered that at this time
a belief in the efficacy and necessity of frequent severe corporal
punishment was still strong. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" was at
that period supposed to be one of the wisest texts in the Scriptures.
