The Great Brain

by John D. Fitzgerald

  “I thought he meant if people thought he was rich they would respect him more,” Tom said. “But I was wrong. It was like Papa said — Able would rather die than take charity.”

  “I’d hate to have it on my conscience that I let a man starve to death,” I couldn’t help saying.

  “It wasn’t me who let Abie starve to death,” Tom said. “I knew there was no gold in the strongbox, but that only meant Abie wasn’t a rich man to me. When Mamma sent me to the store, I always went to the variety store first. Many times when Abie didn’t have exactly what Mamma wanted, I went all the way back home to ask her if she couldn’t use something else Abie had suggested. No, J.D., it wasn’t me who let Abie starve to death. It was people like you.”

  “But you will get all the blame,” I said, “when people find out you knew the strongbox was empty all the time.”

  “The people who didn’t buy from Abie and didn’t worry about him would love to have somebody to blame for his death,” Tom said. “But they are going to have to live with their guilty consciences because I’m never going to tell, and neither are you. Give me your word, J.D., you will never tell.”

  “Not even Papa and Mamma?” I asked.

  “Not even Papa and Mamma,” Tom said.

  “But you told me,” I protested.

  “I had to tell somebody, J.D.,” Tom said. “I knew I could trust you.”

  I gave my word and kept it until now.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The New Teacher

  SUMMER VACATION CAME to an end. We all went down to the depot to see Sweyn off for Salt Lake City to attend a Catholic academy and boarding school. Mamma was crying. Papa kept clearing his throat. I felt a lump in my throat that wouldn’t go up and wouldn’t go down. Tom was very quiet. The only one who didn’t appear even a little upset was Sweyn.

  “Please stop crying, Mamma,” he said.

  “What if Father O’Malley forgets to meet you at the depot in Salt Lake?” Mamma sobbed.

  “You saw the telegram from Father O’Malley saying he would meet me,” Sweyn said. “Please stop crying, Mamma. People are staring at us. I’m not a little boy.”

  Mamma dried her tears with a handkerchief. “You are right, my son,” she said. “You are not a little boy. I know I don’t have to ask you to promise you will write every week.”

  The train came. There were kisses, hugs, good-byes, and more tears from Mamma. Sweyn boarded the train. He stood by a window, waving at us as the train pulled out of the station.

  I put my arm around Tom’s shoulders. “Old S.D. certainly has courage,” I said. “He didn’t even cry.”

  “That was an act put on for Mamma and Papa,” Tom aid. “As soon as the train gets around the bend he will need that extra handkerchief Mamma. put in his pocket.”

  “It is going to be lonesome without S.D. around,” I said.

  “That is life, J.D.,” Tom said. “When I graduate from the sixth grade, I will be leaving home for the first time to go to school in Salt Lake just like him.”

  I didn’t cry when Sweyn left, but I knew I would bawl like a baby when the day came for Tom to leave.

  Our friend Andy Anderson didn’t start to school with Tom and me that year. He had stepped on a rusty nail while playing in an abandoned barn on the outskirts of town a couple of weeks before school started. Andy didn’t tell his parents about stepping on the rusty nail because he had been forbidden to play in the barn ever since Seth Smith’s accident. We had been playing follow-the-leader, and Seth was the leader when the accident happened. Seth was going hand over hand across the rafters in the barn when one of them broke. He had fallen on the railing of a stall, breaking two of his ribs. All the kids in town had been forbidden by their parents to play in the barn after Seth’s accident. What parents didn’t seem to realize was that this was one sure way to make us kids play in the barn.

  Andy knew he would get a whipping if he told his parents about stepping on the rusty nail. He kept the secret of his injured foot from his mother and father until blood poisoning had set in and turned into gangrene. By that time there was nothing else Dr. LeRoy could do but to amputate Andy’s left leg just below the knee to prevent the gangrene from spreading. I guess Tom missed Andy more than I did because he was nearer Andy’s age, being just a year older.

  My first day in school, as I got acquainted with our new teacher, Mr. Standish, I couldn’t help thinking that Andy was lucky he didn’t have to start to school.

  Calvin Whitlock and the other two members of the school board, Mrs. Granger and Mr. Douglas, had decided Miss Thatcher was getting too old to teach school. Without even consulting us kids, they had retired Miss Thatcher and hired Mr. Standish to teach the first through the sixth grades in our one-room schoolhouse. Their decision brought about a complete change in the way students were disciplined. Miss Thatcher had her own system. When a student broke any of the rules, she wrote a note to the parents, leaving the punishment up to the parents. It was a good system because the punishment meted out by the parents was always more drastic than anything Miss Thatcher could have done. Just dipping a girl’s pigtails in an inkwell called for a whipping by most parents.

  Miss Thatcher had been smart enough to know how tough the first day back at school is for kids. She had always pretended not to see any mischief going on that first day. But Mr. Standish let us know there would be no nonsense even on the first day of school.

  He was a man in his late thirties with jet black hair that came to a widow’s peak on his forehead, giving him a sinister appearance.

  “Students will come to order,” he said, rapping a ruler on his desk right after we’d been assigned our desks and seats.

  Nobody paid any attention to him because Miss Thatcher had always called us .to order three or four times on the first day of school before we obeyed.

  Mr. Standish looked at the front row of first graders, then at the second row of second graders, and then at the rows of third, fourth, and fifth graders, and finally at the back row of sixth graders. Not a single student had come to order. Mr. Standish then took out his watch.

  “For every minute you fail to come to order,” he said, “you will all remain for fifteen minutes after school.”

  We came to order in a hurry.

  Mr. Standish put his watch back in his pocket. Then he pointed at a paddle in the corner. "I am here to educate you children,” he said, “and I will not tolerate anything that interferes with your education. The paddle will be used on boys of all ages who shoot spitballs, dip a girl’s pigtails in an inkwell, put a frog or any other animal in a girl’s desk, throw chalk, or any other infraction of the rules.”

  Then he picked up a ruler from his desk. “This ruler will be used on the palms of girls who break the rules, and they will be forced to remain after school and clean blackboards and erasers.”

  Mr. Standish let us know beyond doubt that first day of school, he was not only our teacher but our warden as well. He paddled five boys so hard they all cried. He made three girls remain after school to clean blackboards and erasers.

  I was completely cowed when I left the one-room schoolhouse that first day. “That Mr. Standish is a holy terror,” I said to Tom as we walked home. “He’s got me so scared I’m afraid to go to school.”

  “He’s a mean one all right,” Tom agreed.

  “I’d hate to be Jimmie Peterson,” I said. “Mr. Standish is taking board and room at Jimmie’s mother’s boarding house. It’s tough enough having Mr. Standish for a teacher, but poor old Jimmie has to live in the same house with him.”

  “I’m not going to worry about Mr. Standish,” Tom said.

  Three days later Tom had to worry about Mr. Standish. Hal Evans put a live frog in Muriel Cranston’s desk. Like any girl, she began screaming and carrying on when she opened her desk and saw the frog. Mr. Standish got the frog and threw it out the window. Then he stood before the class.

  “I want the boy who did that to come right up here,” he said, which wa
s a silly thing to say in my opinion.

  When nobody moved, Mr. Standish pointed at Basil, who had the desk behind Muriel.

  “Basil, come up here,” Mr. Standish ordered.

  This was Basil’s first year in an American school. I could tell he was frightened as he stood up.

  “I no do it” he said.

  “Your desk is right behind Muriel’s desk,” Mr. Standish said. “If you didn’t do it, you must have seen who did.”

  “I no see,” Basil said, so frightened I thought he was going to start jabbering in Greek.

  “I think you did,” Mr. Standish said. “Now you either tell me who did it if you didn’t do it or come up here and take a paddling.”

  Basil walked to the front of the classroom as Mr. Standish got the paddle from the corner.

  Tom stood up. “You can’t paddle Basil,” he said. “He didn’t do it.”

  Mr. Standish looked at Tom like a cat at a mouse. “If you know for a fact that Basil didn’t put the frog in Muriel’s desk,” he said, “then you must know who did. I want the name of the boy who did.”

  Tom folded his arms on his chest. “I’m no tattletale,” he said defiantly.

  Mr. Standish told Basil to return to his desk. Then the new teacher ordered Tom to the front of the classroom.

  “You will tell me who put the frog in Muriel’s desk or take a paddling yourself,” Mr. Standish said.

  “You can’t paddle me for something I didn’t do,” Tom said, glaring at the teacher.

  “But I can paddle you for not telling me who did it.” Mr. Standish had an answer for everything.

  “I’m not going to tell, and I’m not going to take a paddling,” Tom said defiantly.

  “We’ll see about that,” Mr. Standish said as he grabbed my brother and threw Tom across his knees.

  I felt tears come into my eyes as I watched Mr. Standish give Tom ten hard whacks with the paddle. The tears weren’t for the pain I knew Tom was suffering. I knew my brother could stand pain like an Indian without crying. The tears were for the humiliation I knew Tom was enduring.

  “Maybe that will teach you to respect your teacher,” Mr. Standish said as he let Tom go.

  I was proud of my brother. There were no tears in his eyes as he glared at the new teacher.

  “You’ll be sorry for this,” he said.

  Mr. Standish pointed at Tom. “You keep a civil tongue in your head or I’ll give you another paddling” he threatened.

  It was the rawest deal a kid ever got from a teacher. I couldn’t wait for school to let out so we could tell Papa and Uncle Mark. Finally the school day was over and I walked home with my brother.

  “When we tell Papa that Mr. Standish paddled you for nothing,” I said, “he will write an editorial and get the new teacher fired. And when we tell Uncle Mark, he will arrest Mr. Standish and put the new teacher in jail. There must be some kind of a law against a teacher paddling a kid for nothing.”

  “We aren’t going to tell Papa or Uncle Mark or anybody,” Tom said to my surprise. “I can take care of myself. Mr. Standish will rue the day he paddled me because I wouldn’t be a tattletale.”

  My brother sounded like a prophet of doom. I felt a chill come over me.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked breathlessly.

  “I’m going to put my great brain to work on getting rid of Mr. Standish,” Tom answered.

  “Oh boy!” I shouted. “I’d hate to be in his shoes.”

  “When we get home,” Tom said “I want you to sneak the bottle of liniment out of the medicine cabinet without Mamma seeing you and bring it up to our room. You can rub it on my behind. I’ll bet it is black and blue.”

  I was disappointed when a whole week passed without my brother’s great brain devising a scheme for getting rid of Mr. Standish. The new teacher paddled several kids the second week of school. He didn’t paddle Tom or me because he had no reason for doing so.

  Saturday came. Tom and I did our chores. Then Tom went up to his loft in the barn to put his great brain to work on getting rid of Mr. Standish. He stayed up in his loft all day.

  That night after supper Tom sat on the floor in the parlor, staring into the fireplace. I knew his great brain was working like sixty because his forehead was wrinkled. Just before it was time for our Saturday night baths, he got up and walked over to where Papa was reading the New York World.

  “What does a schoolteacher have to do to be dismissed by the schoolboard?” he asked.

  Papa laid aside the newspaper. “Is Mr. Standish that bad?” he asked. “I know some parents have complained that the new teacher uses the paddle quite freely.”

  “All the kids hate him and want Miss Thatcher back,” Tom said.

  “I’m afraid, T.D.,” Papa said, “they are going to have to put up with Mr. Standish for at least the rest of the school year. And it is in his contract that he can use the paddle or any other means he wishes to keep discipline in school.”

  “There must be something a teacher can do that will make a schoolboard dismiss him,” Tom said.

  “There are several things,” Papa said. “A schoolteacher must maintain a reputation that is beyond reproach. Now, a teacher who drank or gambled or used profanity, for example, would be considered too immoral to be in charge of children. But your Mr. Standish does none of these things.”

  Mamma came into the parlor at that moment and said it was time for our baths. I was the youngest and so I had to go first.

  Monday morning during recess I saw Tom talking to Jimmie Peterson. I also saw him hold whispered conversations with several other kids during the afternoon recess. He didn’t tell me what was going on until we were on our way home from school that day.

  “I’ve called a meeting in our barn of all the kids who aren’t Mormons,” he told me.

  “Your great brain has figured out a way to get rid of Mr. Standish!” I cried with excitement.

  “Mr. Standish will rue the day he paddled me,” Tom said.

  “But why no Mormon kids?” I asked. “They hate him as much as we do.”

  “You’ll find out why later,” Tom said.

  A short time later fourteen kids besides Tom and me were assembled in our barn. Tom climbed up the rope ladder to his loft. He came right back down carrying the skull of the Indian chief that always sat on an upturned keg in the loft. He placed it on a bale of hay.

  “My great brain has figured out a way to get rid of Mr. Standish,” he announced. “But before I tell you about it, I want you all to take an oath on the skull of this dead Indian chief.”

  Danny Forester had never been up to Tom’s loft. “How do we know it is the skull of a dead Indian chief?” he asked.

  “Because my Uncle Mark who gave it to me says so,” Tom answered. “He is the marshal and a deputy sheriff and his word is the law. Now do you believe it?”

  “If your Uncle Mark says so,” Danny answered.

  “Now line up,” Tom said. “Come forward one at a time and place your right hand on the skull of this dead Indian chief, and swear you will never tell anybody what we are going to do to get rid of Mr. Standish.”

  One by one we all took the oath never to tell.

  Tom then raised his hands over his head. “I call upon the ghost of this dead Indian chief to come back to earth and cut out the tongue of anybody who tells,” he chanted. Then he looked at us and said in his natural voice, “And just to make sure, I will personally give two black eyes and a bloody nose to anybody who does tell.”

  Tom then picked up an empty gunnysack and held it up. “Behold, the first step in Mr. Standish’s downfall,” he said.

  Basil took a step forward. "Me no understand,” he said.

  “It is only the first step,” Tom said. Then he looked at Sammy Leeds. “Can you sneak out of your house after curfew tonight?” he asked.

  "Sure," Sammy answered.

  "Meet me here,” Tom said. "Wait until you hear the curfew whistle blow and then leave your house. The rest o
f you meet me here tomorrow after school. I will tell you then of the rest of my plan and why no Mormon kids were invited.”

  I watched Tom remove the screen from our bedroom window that night right after the curfew whistle at the powerhouse sounded. He leaned out the window and grabbed a limb of the elm tree by the side of the house. He went hand over hand down the limb to the trunk of the tree. I watched him shinny down the trunk and disappear into the darkness. I was sure I wouldn’t fall asleep until he got back, but the next thing I knew it was morning.

  “Did everything go all right last night?” I asked.

  “Perfect “ Tom answered.

  I thought that school day would never end. It just seemed to drag on and on. Tom and I and the other fourteen kids were on our good behavior all day so nobody would be kept after school.

  The moment we had been waiting for finally came as we all trooped into our barn after school let out. Tom removed a gunnysack from beneath some hay. Something in it made a tinkling sound.

  “Last night under the cover of darkness,” Tom said, “Sammy and I, with the stealth of Indian scouts, made our way to the rear of The Whitehorse Saloon. There we obtained part of the evidence that will get rid of Mr. Standish.”

  I watched breathlessly as Tom removed two empty quart whiskey bottles and two empty pint whiskey flasks from the gunnysack.

  “The plan my great brain devised for getting rid of Mr. Standish is to convince the schoolboard that he is a secret drinker,” Tom explained. “With Jimmie’s help we will plant evidence in Mr. Standish’s room.”

  I thought I saw through the plan. “Jimmie will put the empty whiskey bottles in the teacher’s room?”

  “Not empty ones,” Tom said.

  I didn’t understand. “How are kids like us going to get whiskey?” I asked.

  “My great brain has thought of everything,” Tom said confidently. “That is why I didn’t let any Mormon kids in on this. The Mormons can’t drink whiskey because it’s against their religion. Now how many of you have fathers who drink whiskey or keep it in the house for medicinal purposes?”

  P

  Twelve kids raised their hands.