THE BEATING OF BILLY SUMSION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2746, 26 February 1910, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE BEATING OF BILLY SUMSION.

AN OUTBACK SCHOOL STORY. (By Jimmie Pannikin, in the “fcydney Mail.") Billy Sumsion was abnormally sensitive and particularly mischievous. Close to the core of his teacher’s kindly heart ■was Billy; but he was not aware of the fact. He believed that the teacher—a quiet girl with the mobile mouth oi a humorist —liked the clean, tidy, polite son of the clean, tidy, polite postmaster •best; hence Billy called Bertie Holland, the (postmaster’s son, ‘‘Teacher s Pretty Pet"; and he made life out of school very unpleasant at times for Bertie. Billy’s vocabulary was copious. He had a facility for inventing irritating nick-names that- bore an approximation to the truth. He never played with Bertie; but he fought him whenever lie got an excuse. , ' . , Every boy and girl in the school but Bertie was allowed to ride in Billy s famous goat-cart. This was a wonderful vehicle, drawn by four goats. It was none of your make-believe carts, but a miniature model made 'by the local blacksmith of a Cobb and Co. s CoaC ] l# Occasionally the girl-teacher would talk quietly to Billy about his uncharitableness; and tell him that the big brave men of Outback, real whitemen,” never had room in their hearts for petty spite. “Bertie docs not hurt you, Billy, she said one afternoon, when the rest of the pupils were out .playing on the red sandhills close to the little ironroofed, verandahless school. “He’s not game to, Miss,” said Billy with the confidence of one who knows from experience. “Well, Billy, he never interferes with you.” , “Good reason why, Miss; he s afraid “You are bigger than lie is, Billy.” “And he’s older than me, so that evens us.” . “He wants to be friends with you, Billy, but you won't let him. You won’t give him a chance.” “I don’t like him: but you like him best of all.” “You are wrong, Billy. I have no favorites. I am fond of all my Cutback ibairnies. I like you quite as well as I do Bertie —yet you give me a Jot of trouble. I like you because you are straight, because you are good to your mother, because you are always ready to help the little ones. And you are {not selfish, except t-o Bertie. A boy like you, Billy, could help me to make a man of Bertie —but you don’t want to help me.” “Yes I do. Miss; but not that way. “You are'the best boy in the school for getting up games and making fun; but you won’t let Bertie join in.” “He can make his own games. Let him go and play with the girls —that’s all he’s fit for!” “Do you want him to grow up to be a girlish sort of man ?” ‘-‘:I don’t care if he never grows uip at all, Miss.” “That’s very wicked, Billy Boy,’ said the teacher with a sigh. “I didn’t think you’d talk to me that way.” “You make me talk that way, .Miss. You kept me in after school the very afternoon i promised the Hosier twins that I’d drive them to the Big Bend to meet the Tibooburra coach —and all because I can’t like Baby Bertie.” “You mean won’t like the poor little chap.” “Yes. if you like, Miss,” said Billy with a hardening mouth. “Evidently, it’s useless to talk to you, Billy; and I don’t want the Twins to miss their ride. You make me very unhappy, because I want to do something more for you than merely, to teach you reading, writing, dictation, arithmetic, and so on. I want to teach you how to train yourself to.be a kindly, generous man, above all little meannesses of soul, to be a worthy of ‘The Best Men, The West Men, The Men o’ the Sunset Side.’ That’s wliat I want, Billy, I’d sooner do that than make,you the nest reader, and speller, and writer, and reckoner in All-Out-Back ; but you are so stubborn. You will not try to help me. I cannot do it without vour help. You may go now. Good afternoon, Billy. I wish you and the twins a pleasant drive.” “Good afternoon, Miss,” said Billy. When he got to the door, he turned and fumbled with his . hat. 'He was having a battle with himself. The clock ticked, accentuating the silence and the suspense. Suddenly Billy said —“I’ll do any mortal thing you'like, Miss, but that one thing.” “That’s the one thing I want you Ja> do. Billy-, for me.”- ... “It’s no good ,to gundy ;. good; afternoon, Miss.” .“Good afternoon, Billy.”; ,; v ..

Billy had made the school .museum most interesting and most, comprehensive to please "his teacher:'" He brought lier emu eggs, carved and plain ; curiously carved quandong nuts; blackfellows’ implements; wonderfully polished and decorated bullocks’ horns; a beautiful ring-gidyed walking stick, with snakes, and broiigas, and emus, and kangaroos cut on it by an ingenious blackfellow, “Jackie-emu-legs”; camel shoes; the first lilies of th e desert that bloomed in the sandy' desolation about Billycannia, the terribly, tiny, tinny township; the crests of the Major Mitchell parrots; black cockatoos’ red-barred feathers; and many lovely odd things from The Treasury of Outback, The girl-teacher never despaired. Sho did not know much profound and perplexing psychology, but she loved children ; and she tried to line up to Professor Drummond’s mighty and memorable words: “A school is not so much a place for making scholars as a place for making souk.” Sho knew that there is an open road to every human heart; and that the heart-track is always to' he found by those who lovingly seek. So she waited, and watched, and worked, and prayed. She had read a few hooks dealing with Child-Study, and she tried daily to read aright the little human documents in her school.

Tho big inspector of schools—a vigorous Australian, with the physique of a giant and the heart of a boy —made his first annual inspection of the Provisional School. He and Billy got on famously from the start. After the inspection, Billy harnessed up a team of eight goats; and drove the inspector to a dam about a mile away, to show him how to catch yahbies. The inspector praised Billy’s method of 1 driving the eight-in-hand, team, and told him that he was almost as good a driver as tho celebrated “Cbolibah” Charlie. Tho inspector seemed to he an apt pupil (he did net tell Billy that he had caught yabbies by the hundred in tho happy days of his boyhood, so far away in years, so close at hand in spirit); and Billy calmly informed him that “he •was the making of*?£ bosker fisher.” The inspector did not rebuke Billy for using slang, for he had often preached'that slang is the wild game of speech, and he was fond of wild game.

Tlie two walked back to the township, the goat team drawing a record load of prime yabbics that were to be distributed amongst Billy mates. Bertie Holland was- not to have any. Billy would have thrown them away rather than give any to his enemy. The inspector had 'been told .something by the girl teacheK “Billy,” lie said, after lighting his pipe, “we have such a lot of .yabbics that you ought, I think, give some to Bertie Holland.”

Billy halted dead. “I thought we were going to be friends, sir,” he said. “Sowe are, Billy; very good friends, I hope.” “Can’t wo he friends without dragging in Baby Bertie’s name?” “I don’t want to drag in his name if it annoys you, Billy. Surely a kindhearted chap like you wouldn’t mind doing a kindness to anybody?” “Anybody but Babyboy Bertie for me, sir. Say. did teacher put you up tp this?” Billy looked up suspiciously. “Up to what, Billy?" “Up to trying to make me be friends with Bertie Holland.”

“Certainly not,” said the inspector, lying whitely. “Coolibah Charlie, a great admirer of yours, told me that you had got Bertie Holland set. Coolibah Charlie knows everybody, and everybody knows him.” “Look here, sir, why can’t people let me alor.e?”

“Because boys don’t always happen to. know what’s best for them, B’Jly.” “And men don’t always know-’what’s best for them, either.” “True, my saltbush sage in knickerbockers, but little boys should be guided by the men and women who love them, and who, therefore, want to see them do right.” “I won’t argue with you,” said Billy, “let’s get back. You are too clover for me, but I know I’m right in not liking Bertie Holland. Anyhow, I will not try to like him. I hate him. He’s a sneaking little beast, a tittletattle —that’s all he is.”

Billy stepped out towards the township, and the inspector w r alked by Ins side in silence for a time. “I want to ask you one question, Billy.” “Alright, sir, but no arguing.” “Very good—no arguing. I am not going to ask you to try to like Bertie Holland—that would be too hard for you, Billy. I want you to play sometimes with him—to let him join with the others in the games you get up. Won’t you do that for me?” Billy faced the inspector: “How can I do that for you, when I won’t do it for iny teacher. She’s got at me, time after time, about it. but it’s the one and only thing I won’t do for her, and like her nearly as much as I do me mother 1”

“That settles it, Billy. If you won’t do it for your teacher, you won’t do it for me. We’ll talk about something else.”

Tlie inspector told the girl teacher of his failure with Billy. When he was about to board the coach next morning for a 200-milo trip to the next school, the teacher came out to say . good-bye. “Good-bye, Miss Threeby,” said the inspector, shaking hands. “Don’t despair about Billy Sumsion. I know that you’ll beat Billy before very long, before your outback exile is over. Goodbye—and good luck !” . ' Away went the lumbering coach in a cloud of red dust to the post-office, where some of the pupils were waiting to say good-bye. Tlie inspector was a bit disappointed when lie saw that Billy' was not with the other pupils. “Don’t you worry, Mr Inspector,” said Coolibah Charlie, with a knowing smile. “I’ll bet -you a bob that Billy’s waiting to say ‘or rescvwar’ at the Big Bend.” Sure enough, Billy and his coach were there with his two little brothers. The inspector got.off the coach and shook hands with them.

“Good-bye, kiddies! Good-bye, Billy! Be good 1” “Good-bye, sir! .Good luckl” During one dinner hour Billy was putting out the material for afternoon lessons. The girl teacher had not returned from lunch. In the morning she had praised Bertie Holland for his neatly-kept tablet. The demon of mischief entered Billy’s soul. He took a duster, and rubbed off the blackboard a solution of a 6um: then he drew a picture of Bertie Holland. Ho used the color chalks, and put in blue eyes, yellow hair, and rosy cheeks. But he dressed Bertie' in a girl’s dress, and wrote underneath:

“The best girl in tho school, Miss Bertie Holland, The teacher’s pretty pet.” • Unknown; to- Billy, his : work ; was watched; by Bertie. Holland through a window. '' : '■ Y NY"’ - ' ,V

; When the pupils, assembled in school ■ most of. them• .were igririhirxg. / : The girl teacher took her pointer, and turned towards the'board: ''.,,' • V“Oh l” -.-she: -extalaimed:-.. “Who■' did? this?”..' . , v / : •' *

Billy was looking straight out the door, studying the timber belt in the distance. 'Ho felt that his teacher was looking at him, and he knew that Bertie Holland was waving his hand to attract the teacher’s attention. The girl teacher was praying for a splendid silence —except from the one who had done the drawing. She tried to ignore Bertie Holland’s raised hand, but she had to notice him. “Bertie, did-you do this?” putting tho pointer on the portrait. Bertie was staggered. Ho nearly lost liis breath. “Please, Miss,” he faltered. “I never did it. I saw Billy Sumsion —” “Silence!” the teacher said firmly. “I want one answer to one question. You have said that you didn’t do it. That’s quite enough. Billy, please rub tliat awful picture-out.” Billy walked out. Ho wiped off the insulting inscription, and then faced his teacher. “I don’t like to rub out the picture, miss. It took me a long time to dru.. Bertie’s likeness.” The girl teacher was deaf to Billy » words. . “Get out your tablets—upper division,” she said, “and write an account of a duststorm.” Billy reluctantly rubbed the picture out, and went to his place puzzled. When school was dismissed, Billy asked permission to take a library book. While he was : choosing a hook the teacher sat at her little table writing. Billy took a 10-ng time to select a book;' still the girl teacher kept on writing. Billy coughed gently; but the writer continued. Billy moved close to the little table, and stood right in front of it. .

“Miss Threeby,” he said, “didn’t you hear me say that I drew that picture of Bertie Holland?” , - “Billv. that awful picture was surely not drawn by the boy, who has charge of the school material. He woukln t do a thing like that behind my back. He’s not a sneak. I’d trust that boy with anything. It’s impossible, Billy. Give mo tho name of your hook, and run away home. I want to think ovei things.” _

Billy straightened his sturdy figure, and drew in his breath sharply. His eyes filled. The girl-teacher saw what was coming. 011 1 she was kind and quick to see. She sprang up from her chair; and, putting one hand on Billy’s head, and the other on his quivering mouth, said, softly—“ Not a word, Billy. Not a word. If you dare to say one word against my moiiitor, Billy Sumsion, when I take my hand away from your mouth. I’ll never forgive you, never. Mind that. I’ll leave my writing and my thinking till to-morrow. I’ll shut up school now, and you will see me home. Keep this in your mind —you arc the very best monitor I ever had; and you are going to grow up to be the man I want vou to be.”

Miss Threeby and Billy walked away from the school together. When they were close to the hotel where the girlteacher boarded they stopped to watch a team of camels go by. “Good afternoon, Billy.” Billy raised his hat, and said, “Good afternoon, Miss Threoby. I’ll do that one thin" you’ve wanted me to do so long. rm sorry—you understand. You’ve got me beaten—and I’m glad ■now.”

“That’s a man’s talk. Good-bye, Billy.” The girl-teacher’s eyes shone like stars as she walked to her room, for she had helped to make strong and sweet a human soul, which is a wondrously fine thing to doT