Winning His Way - Charles Carleton Coffin

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was the music of their voices. At recess and at noon they had leap-frog and tag. Paul was in a class with Philip Funk, Hans Middlekauf, and Michael Murphy. There were other boys and girls of all nationalities. Paul's ancestors were from Connecticut, while Philip's father was a Virginian. Hans was born in Germany, and Michael in Ireland. Philip's father kept a grocery, and sold sugar, molasses, tobacco, and whiskey. He was rich, and Philip wore good clothes and calf-skin boots. Paul could get his lessons very quick whenever he set about them in earnest, but he spent half his time in inventing fly-traps, making whirligigs, or drawing pictures on his slate. He had an accurate eye, and could draw admirably. Philip could get his lessons also if he chose to apply himself, but it was a great deal easier to have some one work out the problems in arithmetic than to do them himself.

      "Here, Paul, just help me; that is a good fellow," he said, coaxingly.

      It was at recess.

      "No; Cipher has forbid it. Each one must do his own work," said Paul.

      "If you will do it, I will give you a handful of raisins," said Philip, who usually had his pockets full of raisins, candy, or nuts.

      "It wouldn't be right."

      "Come, just do this one; Cipher never will know it."

      "No!" Paul said it resolutely.

      "You are a mean, sneaking fellow," said Philip.

      Philip was a year older than Paul. He had sandy hair, white eyelashes, and a freckled face. He carried a watch, and always had money in his pocket. Paul, on the other hand, hardly ever had a cent which he could call his own. His clothes were worn till they were almost past mending.

      "Rag-tag has got a hole in his trousers," said Philip to the other boys.

      Paul's face flushed. He wanted to knock Phillip's teeth down his throat. He knew that his mother had hard work to clothe him, and felt the insult keenly. He went into the school-house, choked his anger down, and tried to forget all about it by drawing a picture of the master. It was an excellent likeness—his spindle legs, great feet, short pants, loose coat, sunken eyes, hooked nose, thin face, and long bony fingers.

      Philip sat behind Paul. Instead of studying his lesson, he was planning how to get Paul into trouble. He saw the picture. Now was his time. He giggled aloud. Mr. Cipher looked up in astonishment.

      "What are you laughing at, Master Funk?"

      "At what Paul is doing."

      Paul hustled his slate into his desk.

      "Let me see what you have here," said Cipher, walking up to Paul, who spat on his fingers, and ran his hand into the desk, to rub out the drawing; but he felt that it would be better to meet his punishment boldly than to have the school think he was a sneak. He laid the slate before the master without a line effaced.

      "Giving your attention to drawing, are you, Master Paul?" said Cipher. His eyes flashed. He knit his brows. The blood rushed to his cheeks. There was a popping up of heads all over the school-room to get a sight of the picture.

      The boys laughed aloud, and there was a tittering among the girls, which made Cipher very angry. "Silence!" he roared, and stamped upon the floor so savagely that the windows rattled. "Come out here, sir. I'll give you a drawing-lesson of another sort." He seized Paul by the collar, and threw him into the space in front of his own desk. "Hold out your hand."

      Paul felt that he was about to receive a tremendous thrashing; but he determined that he would not flinch. He held out his right hand, and received the blow from a heavy ferule. His hand felt as if he had been struck by a piece of hot iron.

      "The other, sir."

      Whack! it fell, a blow which made the flesh purple. There was an Oh! upon his tongue; but he set his teeth together, and bit his lips till they bled, and so smothered it. Another blow—another—another. They were hard to bear; but his teeth were set like a vice. There was a twitching of the muscles round his lips; he was pale. When the blows fell, he held his breath, but did not snivel.

      "I'll see if I can't bring you to your feeling, you good-for-nothing scapegrace," said the master, mad with passion, and surprised that Paul made no outcry. He gave another round, bringing the ferule down with great force. Blood began to ooze from the pores. The last blow spattered the drops around the room. Cipher came to his senses. He stopped.

      "Are you sorry, sir?"

      "I don't know whether I am or not. I didn't mean any harm. I suppose I ought not to have drawn it in school; but I didn't do it to make fun. I drew you just as you are," said Paul—his voice trembling a little in spite of his efforts to control it.

      The master could not deny that it was a perfect likeness. He was surprised at Paul's cleverness at drawing, and for the first time in his life saw that he cut a ridiculous figure wearing that long, loose, swallow-tailed coat, with great, flaming brass buttons, and resolved upon the spot that his next coat should be a frock, and that he would get a longer pair of pants.

      "You may take your seat, sir!" he said, puzzled to know whether to punish Paul still more, and compel him to say that he was sorry, or whether to accept the explanations, and apologize for whipping him so severely.

      Paul sat down. His hands ached terribly; but what troubled him most was the thought that he had been whipped before the whole school. All the girls had witnessed his humiliation. There was one among them—Azalia Adams—who stood at the head of Paul's class, the best reader and speller in school. She had ruby lips, and cheeks like roses; the golden sunlight falling upon her chestnut hair crowned her with glory; deep, thoughtful, and earnest was the liquid light of her hazel eyes; she was as lovely and beautiful as the flower whose name she bore. Paul had drawn her picture many times—sometimes bending over her task, sometimes as she sat, unmindful of the hum of voices around her, looking far away into a dim and distant dream-land. He never wearied of tracing the features of one so fair and good as she. Her laugh was as musical as a mountain-brook; and in the church on Sunday, when he heard her voice sweetly and melodiously mingling with the choir, he thought of the angels—of her as in heaven and he on earth.

      "Run home, sonny, and tell your marm that you got a licking," said Philip when school was out.

      Paul's face became livid. He would have doubled his fist and given Philip a blow in the face, but his palms were like puff-balls. There was an ugly feeling inside, but just then a pair of bright hazel eyes, almost swimming with tears, looked into his own. "Don't mind it, Paul!" said Azalia.

      The pain was not half so hard to bear after that. He wanted to say, "I thank you," but did not know how. Till then his lips had hardly quivered, and he had not shed a tear; now his eyes became moist; one great drop rolled down his cheek, but he wiped it off with his coat-sleeve, and turned away, for fear that Azalia would think him a baby.

      On his way home the thought uppermost in his mind was, "What will mother say?" Why tell her? Would it not be better to keep the matter to himself? But then he remembered that she had said, "Paul, I shall expect you to tell me truthfully all that happens to you at school." He loved his mother. She was one of the best mothers that ever lived, working for him day and night. How could he abuse such confidence as she had given him? He would not violate it. He would not be a sneak.

      His mother and the Pensioner were sitting before the fire as he entered the house. She welcomed him with a smile—a beautiful smile it was, for she was a noble woman, and Paul was her darling, her pride, the light, joy, and comfort of her life.

      "Well, Paul, how do you get on at school?" his grandfather asked.

      "I got a whipping to-day." It was spoken boldly and manfully.

      "What! My son got a whipping!" his mother exclaimed.

      "Yes, mother."

      "I am astonished. Come here, and tell me all about it."

      Paul stood by her side and told the story—how Philip Funk tried to bribe him, how he called him names—how, having got his lessons, he made a picture of the master. "Here

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