Only an Irish Boy Andy Burke's Fortunes

CHAPTER XV MRS. PRESTON'S DISCOMFITURE

God­frey rose to his feet, red with mor­ti­fi­ca­tion. His moth­er looked dis­con­cert­ed. Mr. Stone said noth­ing, but glanced sig­nif­icant­ly from God­frey to Mrs. Pre­ston.

“What is the mat­ter, God­frey?” she asked, rather sharply.

“It was an ac­ci­dent,” said God­frey, rather sheep­ish­ly.

“You can go out and shut the door, and take care not to let such an ac­ci­dent hap­pen again. For some un­known rea­son, Mr. Stone prefers that you should not be present, and, there­fore, you must go.”

For once, God­frey found noth­ing to say, but with­drew in si­lence.

“You ap­pear to have formed a prej­udice against God­frey, Mr. Stone,” said Mrs. Pre­ston.

“I may have formed an un­fa­vor­able judg­ment of him on some points,” said the teach­er. “I judge of him by his con­duct.”

“To say that An­drew Burke is his su­pe­ri­or is in­sult­ing to him and his fam­ily, as well as lu­di­crous.”

“I beg par­don, Mrs. Pre­ston, but I must dis­sent from both your state­ments. An­drew Burke pos­sess­es some ex­cel­lent qual­ities in which God­frey is de­fi­cient.”

“He is a poor work­ing boy.”

“He is none the worse for that.”

“He should re­mem­ber his po­si­tion, and treat my son with prop­er re­spect.”

“I ven­ture to say that God­frey will re­ceive all the re­spect to which he is en­ti­tled. May I ask if you ex­pect him to be treat­ed with def­er­ence, be­cause his fa­ther is rich­er than those of the oth­er boys?”

“It seems to me on­ly prop­er.”

“Do you ex­pect me to treat him any bet­ter on that ac­count?”

“I think my son's so­cial po­si­tion should com­mand re­spect.”

“Then, Mrs. Pre­ston, I en­tire­ly dis­agree with you,” said Mr. Stone, firm­ly. “As a teach­er, I have noth­ing what­ev­er to do with the so­cial po­si­tion of the chil­dren who come to me as pupils. From me a poor boy will re­ceive the same in­struc­tion, and the same treat­ment pre­cise­ly as the son of rich par­ents. If he be­haves as he should, he will al­ways find in me a friend, as well as a teach­er. Your son God­frey shall have no just com­plaint to make of my treat­ment. I will give him cred­it for good con­duct and faith­ful study, but no more than to An­drew Burke, or to any oth­er pupil un­der the same cir­cum­stances.”

“Mr. Stone, I am sur­prised at your sin­gu­lar style of talk­ing. You wish to do away with all so­cial dis­tinc­tions.”

“I cer­tain­ly do, madam, in my school­room, at least. There must be so­cial dif­fer­ences, I am aware. We can­not all be equal­ly rich or hon­ored, but what­ev­er may be the world's rule, I mean to main­tain strict im­par­tial­ity in my school­room.”

“Will you re­quire Andy Burke to apol­ogize to God­frey?”

“Why should I?”

“For his vi­olent as­sault up­on him.”

“Cer­tain­ly not. He was jus­ti­fied in his con­duct.”

“If my son was do­ing wrong, the Irish boy, in­stead of in­ter­fer­ing, should have wait­ed till you came, and then re­port­ed the mat­ter to you.”

“And, mean­while, stood by and seen Al­fred Park­er in­hu­man­ly treat­ed?”

“I pre­sume the mat­ter has been great­ly ex­ag­ger­at­ed.”

“I do not, madam.”

“Do I un­der­stand that you de­cline to make repa­ra­tion to my son?”

“Repa­ra­tion for what?”

“For the man­ner in which he has been treat­ed.”

“I must have talked to lit­tle pur­pose, if I have not made it clear that your son has on­ly re­ceived his deserts. Of course, he is en­ti­tled to no repa­ra­tion, as you term it.”

“Then, Mr. Stone,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, her thin lips com­pressed with in­dig­na­tion, “since God­frey can­not meet with fair treat­ment, I shall be com­pelled to with­draw him from your school.”

“That must be as you please, madam,” said the teach­er, quite un­moved by the threat­ened with­draw­al of his rich­est pupil.

“I shall re­port to Colonel Pre­ston your treat­ment of his son.”

“I have no ob­jec­tion, madam.”

“You are pur­su­ing a very un­wise course in alien­at­ing your wealth­iest pa­trons.”

“I have no pa­trons, madam,” said Mr. Stone, proud­ly. “I re­turn faith­ful ser­vice for the mod­er­ate wages I re­ceive, and the obli­ga­tion, if there is any, is on the part of those whose chil­dren I in­struct.”

“Re­al­ly,” thought Mrs. Pre­ston, “this man is very in­de­pen­dent for a poor teach­er.”

She re­solved up­on an­oth­er shot, not in the best of taste.

“You must not be sur­prised, Mr. Stone,” she said, “if the school trustees refuse to em­ploy you again.”

“You mis­take me ut­ter­ly,” said the teach­er, with dig­ni­ty, “if you sup­pose that any such threat or con­sid­er­ation will make me swerve from my du­ty. How­ev­er, though I did not pro­pose to men­tion it, I will state that this is the last term I shall teach in this vil­lage. I have been en­gaged at dou­ble the salary in a neigh­bor­ing city.”

Mrs. Pre­ston was dis­ap­point­ed to hear this. It was cer­tain­ly vex­atious that the man who had treat­ed her son with so lit­tle con­sid­er­ation, who had ac­tu­al­ly tak­en the part of a work­ing boy against him, should be pro­mot­ed to a bet­ter sit­ua­tion. She had thought to make him feel that he was in her pow­er, but she now saw that her an­tic­ipa­tions were not to be re­al­ized.

As she did not speak, Mr. Stone con­sid­ered the in­ter­view closed, and rose.

“Good-​evening, Mrs. Pre­ston,” he said.

“Good-​evening, sir,” she re­spond­ed, cold­ly.

He bowed and with­drew.

When God­frey, who was not far off, though he had not thought it best to play the part of eaves­drop­per again, heard the door close, he hur­ried in­to the room.

“Well, moth­er, what did he say?” he in­quired, ea­ger­ly.

“He ob­sti­nate­ly re­fused to make any repa­ra­tion to you.”

“Did you tell him what you thought of his treat­ment of me?” said God­frey, rather sur­prised that his moth­er's re­mon­strance had pro­duced no greater ef­fect.

“Yes, I ex­pressed my opin­ion very plain­ly. I must say that he's a very im­pu­dent man. The idea of a poor teach­er putting on such airs!” con­tin­ued Mrs. Pre­ston, toss­ing her head.

“What did he say?”

“That that Irish boy was su­pe­ri­or to you.”

“I'd like to knock him over,” said God­frey, wrath­ful­ly.

Mrs. Pre­ston was a la­dy, and it is not to be sup­posed that she should join in her son's wish. Still, it did not oc­cur to her that she should mourn very much if Mr. Stone met with a re­verse. She would like to see his pride hum­bled, not re­flect­ing that her own was greater and less jus­ti­fi­able.

“You ought to have told him that he would lose his school,” said God­frey. “That would have fright­ened him, for he is a poor man, and de­pends on the mon­ey he gets for teach­ing.”

“He is not go­ing to teach here af­ter this term.”

“Good! Did he tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“He is afraid of me, af­ter all.”

“You are mis­tak­en, God­frey. He is of­fered con­sid­er­ably high­er pay in an­oth­er place.”

God­frey's coun­te­nance fell. It was as dis­agree­able to him as to his moth­er to learn that Mr. Stone was to be pro­mot­ed in his pro­fes­sion.

“Shall I have to go to school again, moth­er?” he asked, af­ter a pause.

“No,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, with en­er­gy. “Up­on that I have de­ter­mined. While Mr. Stone is teach­er, you shall not go back. I will take care to let it be known in the neigh­bor­hood why I keep you at home. I hope the next teach­er will be a man who un­der­stands the re­spect due to so­cial po­si­tion. I don't care to have you put on an equal­ity with such boys as An­drew Burke. He is no fit as­so­ciate for you.”

“That is what I think, moth­er,” said God­frey. “The low beg­gar! I'd like to come up with him. Per­haps, I shall have a chance some day.”

When Colonel Pre­ston re­turned home, the whole sto­ry was told to him; but, col­ored though it was, he guessed how mat­ters ac­tu­al­ly stood, and was far from be­com­ing his son's par­ti­san. He pri­vate­ly went to Mr. Stone and ob­tained his ver­sion of the af­fair.

“You did right, Mr. Stone,” he said, at the end. “If my son choos­es to act the bul­ly, he must take the con­se­quences. Mrs. Pre­ston does not look up­on it in the same light, and in­sists up­on my tak­ing God­frey from school. For the sake of peace, I must do so, but you must not con­strue it as show­ing any dis­ap­proval on my part of your course in the mat­ter.”

“Thank you, Colonel Pre­ston,” said the teach­er, warm­ly. “I can on­ly re­gret Mrs. Pre­ston's dis­plea­sure. Your ap­proval I high­ly val­ue, and it will en­cour­age me in the path of du­ty.”