Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 10.djvu/615

Rh the strap, sent him to bed, and the shirt, with its contents, was soon put in a bowl, and covered with boiling water.

The time at length came when Tom Edward must be educated. To be sure, he had been educating himself pretty rapidly, but he must be sent to school. This he hated. He could not bear the confinement. When between four and five years old he was sent to a dame's school, kept by an old woman called Bell Hill in the garret of an ordinary dwelling-house. But he often played the truant, and would rather be in the fish-market than the school-room. His truancy soon became known to his mother, who then employed her mother, Tom's granny, to take him to school. But Tom rebelled against his granny's supervision, and got away from her so often that she had to drag him "by the scruff o' the neck." Once he slipped away from her, and ran for the water, and was in the act of getting a lot of horse-leeches, when his granny, who had pursued him, caught him by the neck. He let go of the stone, and, making a sudden bound, upset the old woman in the water. His comrades called out, "Tarn, lam, your granny's droonin'!" Tom was off, and did not get home till night, when his mother abused him for a ragamuffin who tried to drown his granny. For once his father was in good-humor, and remarked to his wife that "granny should beware of going so near the edge of such a dirty place." The scapegrace returned to school, but did not learn much. The education that Bell Hill gave was rather theological; she prayed, or, as Tom called it, "groaned," with the children twice a day, and in one of these devotional exercises Tom came to grief. She forbade him to bring his "nasty and dangerous things" to the school, but it made no difference. He had a noisy jackdaw at home, of which he was very fond, and one day he stuffed it inside of his trousers, and took it to school. While Mother Bell was at prayer the daw became restless, got its head out, and began to scream. "The Lord preserv's a'! Fat's this noo?" cried Bell, starting to her feet. "It's Tam Edward again!" shouted the scholars, "wi' a craw stickin' oot o' his breeks!" Bell went up to him, pulled him up by his collar, dragged him to the door, thrust him out, and locked the door after him, and Edward never saw Bell Hill's school again.

Tom was next sent to a school governed by a master who had great faith in what is called the "taws" as a means of education. But the boy's old habits followed him, and one day he smuggled into the school a broken bottle, containing horse-leeches and the grubs of water-flies. Mr. Smiles relates that "all passed on smoothly for about half an hour, when one of the scholars gave a loud scream, and started from his seat. The master's attention was instantly attracted, and he came down from the desk, taws in hand. "What's this?" he cried. "It's a horse-leech crawlin' up my leg!" "A horse-leech?" "Yes, sir; and see," pointing to the corner in which Tom kept his