"Is that your full name?" asked the master.

"No, sir," piped the strange little creature.

"Give your full name," said Mr. Ball, sternly.

"My name is Christopher Columbus George Washington Marquis de Lafayette Risdale." The poor lad was the victim of that mania which some people have for "naming after" great men. His little shrunken body and high, piping voice made his name seem so incongruous that all the school t.i.ttered, and many laughed outright. But the dignified and eccentric little fellow did not observe it.

"Can you read?"

"Yes, sir," squeaked the lad, more shrilly than ever.

"Umph," said the master, with a look of doubt on his face. "In the first reader?"

"No, sir; in the fourth reader."

Even the master could not conceal his look of astonishment at this claim. At that day, the fourth reader cla.s.s was the highest in the school, and contained only the largest scholars. The school laughed at the bare notion of little Christopher Columbus reading in the fourth reader, and the little fellow looked around the room, puzzled to guess the cause of the merriment.

"We'll try you," said the master, with suspicion. When the fourth-reader cla.s.s was called, and Harvey Collins and Susie Lanham and some others of the nearly grown-up pupils came forward, with Jack Dudley as quite the youngest of the cla.s.s, the great-eyed, emaciated little Columbus Risdale picked himself up on his pipe-stems and took his place at the end of this row.

It was too funny for anything!

Will Riley and Pewee and other large scholars, who were yet reading in that old McGuffey's Third Reader, which had a solitary picture of Bonaparte crossing the Alps, looked with no kindly eyes on this preposterous infant in the cla.s.s ahead of them.

The piece to be read was the poem of Mrs. Hemans's called "The Better Land." Poems like this one are rather out of fashion nowadays, and people are inclined to laugh a little at Mrs. Hemans. But thirty years ago her religious and sentimental poetry was greatly esteemed. This one presented no difficulty to the readers. In that day, little or no attention was paid to inflection--the main endeavor being to p.r.o.nounce the words without hesitation or slip, and to "mind the stops." Each one of the cla.s.s read a stanza ending with a line:

"Not there, not there, my child!"

The poem was exhausted before all had read, so that it was necessary to begin over again in order to give each one his turn. All waited to hear the little Columbus read. When it came his turn, the school was as still as death. The master, wishing to test him, told him, with something like a sneer, that he could read three stanzas, or "verses," as Mr. Ball called them.

The little chap squared his toes, threw his head back, and more fluently even than the rest, he read, in his shrill, eager voice, the remaining lines, winding up each stanza in a condescending tone, as he read:

"Not there, not there, my child!"

The effect of this from the hundred-year-old baby was so striking and so ludicrous that everybody was amused, while all were surprised at the excellence of his reading. The master proceeded, however, to whip one or two of the boys for laughing.

When recess-time arrived, Susan Lanham came to Jack with a request.

"I wish you'd look after little Lummy Risdale. He's a sort of cousin of my mother's. He is as innocent and helpless as the babes in the wood."

"I'll take care of him," said Jack.

So he took the little fellow walking away from the school-house; Will Riley and some of the others calling after them: "Not there, not there, my child!"

But Columbus did not lay their taunts to heart. He was soon busy talking to Jack about things in the country, and things in town. On their return, Riley, crying out: "Not there, my child!" threw a snow-ball from a distance of ten feet and struck the poor little Christopher Columbus George Washington Lafayette so severe a blow as to throw him off his feet. Quick as a flash, Jack charged on Riley, and sent a snow-ball into his face. An instant later he tripped him with his foot and rolled the big, scared fellow into the snow and washed his face well, leaving half a snow-bank down his back.

"What makes you so savage?" whined Riley. "I didn't snow-ball you." And Riley looked around for Pewee, who was on the other side of the school-house, and out of sight of the scuffle.

"No, you daren't snow-ball me," said Jack, squeezing another ball and throwing it into Riley's shirt-front with a certainty of aim that showed that he knew how to play ball. "Take that one, too, and if you bother Lum Risdale again, I'll make you pay for it. Take a boy of your size."

And with that he moulded yet another ball, but Riley retreated to the other side of the school-house.

CHAPTER V

WHILING AWAY TIME

Excluded from the plays of the older fellows, Jack drew around him a circle of small boys, who were always glad to be amused with the stories of hunting, fishing, and frontier adventure that he had heard from old pioneers on Wildcat Creek. Sometimes he played "tee-tah-toe, three in a row," with the girls, using a slate and pencil in a way well known to all school-children. And he also showed them a better kind of "tee-tah-toe," learned on the Wildcat, and which may have been in the first place an Indian game, as it is played with grains of Indian corn.

A piece of board is grooved with a jack-knife in the manner shown in the diagram.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DIAGRAM OF TEE-TAH-TOE BOARD.]

One player has three red or yellow grains of corn, and the other an equal number of white ones. The player who won the last game has the "go"--that is, he first puts down a grain of corn at any place where the lines intersect, but usually in the middle, as that is the best point.

Then the other player puts down one, and so on until all are down. After this, the players move alternately along any of the lines, in any direction, to the next intersection, provided it is not already occupied. The one who first succeeds in getting his three grains in a row wins the point, and the board is cleared for a new start. As there are always three vacant points, and as the rows may be formed in any direction along any of the lines, the game gives a chance for more variety of combinations than one would expect from its appearance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JACK AMUSING THE SMALL BOYS WITH STORIES OF HUNTING, FISHING, AND FRONTIER ADVENTURE.]

Jack had also an arithmetical puzzle which he had learned from his father, and which many of the readers of this story will know, perhaps.

"Set down any number, without letting me know what it is," said he to Joanna Merwin.

She set down a number.

"Now add twelve and multiply by two."

"Well, that is done," said Joanna.

"Divide by four, subtract half of the number first set down, and your answer will be six."

"Oh, but how did you know that I put down sixty-four?" said Joanna.

"I didn't," said Jack.

"How could you tell the answer, then?"

"That's for you to find out."

This puzzle excited a great deal of curiosity. To add to the wonder of the scholars, Jack gave each time a different number to be added in, and sometimes he varied the multiplying and dividing. Harvey Collins, who was of a studious turn, puzzled over it a long time, and at last he found it out; but he did not tell the secret. He contented himself with giving out a number to Jack and telling his result. To the rest it was quite miraculous, and Riley turned green with jealousy when he found the girls and boys refusing to listen to his jokes, but gathering about Jack to test his ability to "guess the answer," as they phrased it. Riley said he knew how it was done, and he was even foolish enough to try to do it, by watching the slate-pencil, or by sheer guessing, but this only brought him into ridicule.

"Try me once," said the little C. C. G. W. M. de L. Risdale, and Jack let Columbus set down a figure and carry it through the various processes until he told him the result. Lummy grew excited, pushed his thin hands up into his hair, looked at his slate a minute, and then squeaked out:

"Oh--let me see--yes--no--yes--Oh, I see! Your answer is just half the amount added in, because you have----"

But here Jack placed his hand over Columbus's mouth.

"You can see through a pine door, Lummy, but you mustn't let out my secret," he said.

But Jack had a boy's heart in him, and he longed for some more boy-like amus.e.m.e.nt.