I wonder if it isn't the very same," said Jenny,
laughing heartily: "Father Swaim thought he could manage it
best, I guess."
"But what was it that happened to you that time at school?"
said Ellen.
"Why, when we heard the horn blow, our master — the
schoolmaster, you know — went out to get a paper; and I was
tired with sitting still, so I jumped up, and ran across the
room and then back again, and over and back again, five or six
times; and when he came in, one of the girls up and told of
it. It was Fanny Lawson," said Jenny, in a whisper to Alice,
"and I think she ain't much different now from what she was
then. I can hear her now — 'Mr. Starks, Jenny Hitchcock's been
running all around the room.' Well, what do you think he did
to me? He took hold of my two hands, and swung me round and
round by the arms, till I didn't know which was head and which
was feet."
"What a queer schoolmaster!" said Ellen.
"Queer enough; you may say that. His name was Starks; — the
boys used to call him Starksification. We did hate him, that's
a fact. I'll tell you what he did to a black boy of ours — you
know our black Sam, Alice? — I forget what he had been doing;
but Starks took him so — by the rims of the ears — and danced
him up and down upon the floor."
"But didn't that hurt him?"
"Hurt him! I guess it did, he meant it should. He tied me
under the table once.
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