"In the morning, Perk, I want you to help me about finding a boarding-place, or some room that I can hire cheap, and board myself. I should prefer a garret, as that will be the cheapest. There"—laying a two-dollar bill on the table—"is every cent of money I possess in the world; and if I study medicine I must have books, that come very high, instruments by and by, and instruction from an experienced physician. I am, to be sure, well clothed. I have clothing sufficient, with economy, to last for years, but money I have none."
"I know I am not capable of giving you advice, and cannot expect that you will receive it from me as you would from Mort; but I beg of you, whatever you do, don't go to starving yourself; it will be a losing game in the end. If you are going to work hard all day in school, and then study when out of it, you need, and must have, good, nourishing food, and plenty of it. There was Eckford, of our class, lived on water[Pg 161] gruel and molasses, and roast potatoes, and made out to graduate. But what did he ever amount to, more than sweetened water?"
"He never was more than half alive, to begin with. I am in good case, and must economize the last cent."
"Economize, with a vengeance! Saving at the tap, and spilling at the bung-hole. A precious doctor you'll make. Going to dry up the juices, both of body and brain, by starvation. Now let me plan. My aunt has considerable land and other property, and needs some one to aid her in the care of it. Dan is a mere boy, and it brings a good deal of care upon her. If you will see to her affairs, cut the wood, take care of the garden in the summer (Dan milks, and takes care of the cow and horse), keep her accounts, and just do what pertains to the house (if there is anything beyond that, she will hire other help), you can stay in this room, have your board, fuel, and a horse to ride occasionally, you can borrow medical books of Dr. Ryan, practice on my aunt, who is in delicate health, dearly loves to take medicine, wears a Burgundy pitch plaster between her shoulders, reads Buchan's Domestic Medicine, and Parson Meek will pray for you. I think this will be a great deal better than your starvation plan, unless you think it would be derogatory to your character, and injure your [Pg 162]influence as principal of the academy, if it should be known that you cut wood and did chores."
"Derogatory!" cried Rich, jumping up. "I don't value the opinion of any who think honest labor derogatory that," snapping his fingers. "If they don't like it, they may dislike it. I can earn as much at the anvil as I can here, and all the reason I prefer it is, I can study when I have done my day's work here; and after I have been at work in the shop all day I am tired and sleepy. I will most gladly fall in with the offer of your aunt, and do all or anything she wants done."
"Rich, you are no more like a fellow we used to call Rich in Radcliffe, than chalk's like cheese."
"I've been through a 'discipline,' as President Appleton would say. Then, I used to dip my fingers in rose water of a morning, and dress my hair with pomatum. Since that, I've had to wash in an iron-hooped bucket, and wipe on a tow towel cousin german to a nutmeg grater. Sweat and coal dust have taken the place of pomatum. It didn't last, however, longer than the first term of the freshman year. I caught an expression on Mort's face one day, when I was fixing up before the glass, that made me, as soon as his back was turned, fling the rose water and pomatum into the slop pail. I tell you, Perk, there's no tonic equal to iron. I mean to give lots of it when I am a doctor."
[Pg 163]
"So I think; but I like to take it best in the shape of a gun barrel, a fish-hook, or a pair of skates."
The number of pupils in the academy was quite large, and, as was customary in those days, they consisted of both sexes, ranging in age from ten to nineteen, and even twenty years. There were boys fitting for college, and others pursuing English studies. Some of the older scholars studied surveying, book-keeping, and navigation.
Rich gave himself wholly to his work, and speedily created among his scholars not merely an attachment to himself, but enthusiasm in study, and desire to excel. It was soon evident, both to the trustees and more advanced scholars, that their present teacher was greatly superior in every department, not only to Perk, but any instructor who had preceded him.
The fact that he did chores, and attended to business matters, in order to defray the expense of his board, so far from proving derogatory, as Perk had hinted, operated in precisely the opposite manner. Had he resorted to this method of reducing his expenses from penuriousness, and an overweening desire to accumulate, such, doubtless, would have been the result, and the proceeding would have excited both ridicule and contempt.
The instincts of the boys, however, divined that this was not his character. They felt [Pg 164]themselves drawn towards him by that magnetic influence that his college mates confessed, and were proud of his scholarship and commanding ability, that even those who could not appreciate felt. In addition to this they were not long in discovering that, although he did chores, and even cleaned out the pig-sty, he was the best dressed man in the town on the Sabbath, which was to them a sore puzzle. But when it leaked out, probably through Perk, that he had been reared in affluence, was now flung upon his own resources, struggling to obtain a professional education, and that his style of dress was merely the remnant of better days, and not occasioned by mere love of display, the knowledge produced universal sympathy and respect, the whole community vying with each other in the manifestation of it.
Although practising the most rigid economy, husbanding every moment of time, and performing a great deal of labor, the noble nature of Rich manifested itself in a thousand ways; and strange it is how this unwritten, unspoken language of the heart is generally felt and understood. He was patient with the dull, encouraged the industrious, and stimulated to the utmost those scholars possessed of superior ability, while the mere desire to merit his esteem and affection roused indolent and wayward boys to persevering effort, and inspired them with a love of study and spirit of emulation they had never felt before.
[Pg 165]
But when Granny Fluker (after he went into the blacksmith's shop, made a ne............