"_Woon't_ stand it!" echoed Peter Grant; "ain't that Dutch?"
"Dutch?" replied Horace: "I'll show you what _Dyche_ is! We have a _Dyche_ teacher come in our school every day, and he stamps his foot and tears round! 'Sei ruhig,' he says: that means, 'hush your mouth and keep still.'"
"Is he a Jew, and does he stay in a synagogue?"
"No, he is a German _Luteran_, or a Dutch _Deformed_, or something that way."
"What do you learn in?" said Johnny Bell.
"Why, in little German Readers: what else would they be?"
"Does it read like stories and verses?"
"I don't know. He keeps hitting the books with a little switch, and screamin' out as if the house was afire."
"Come, say over some Dutch; _woon't_ you, Horace?"
So the little boy repeated some German poetry, while his schoolmates looked up at him in wonder and admiration. This was just what Horace enjoyed; and he continued, with sparkling eyes,--
"I s'pose you can't any of you _count_ Dutch?"
The boys confessed that they could not.
"It's just as easy," said Horace, telling over the numbers up to twenty, as fast as he could speak.
"You can't any of you _write_ Dutch; can you? You give me a slate now, and I'll write it all over so you couldn't read a word of it."
"Ain't it very hard to make?" asked the boys in tones of respectful astonishment.
"I reckon you'd think 'twas hard, it's so full of little quirls, but _I_ can write it as easy as English."
This was quite true, for Horace made very hard work of any kind of writing.
It was not two days before he was at the head of that part of the school known as "the small boys," both in study and play; yet everybody liked him, for, as I have said before, the little fellow had such a strong sense of justice, and such kindness of heart, that he was always a favorite, in spite of his faults.
The boys all said there was nothing "mean" about Horace. He would neither abuse a smaller child, nor see one abused. If he thought a boy was doing wrong, he was not afraid to tell him so, and you may be sure he was all the more respected for his moral courage.
Horace talked to his schoolmates a great deal about his father, Captain Clifford, who was going to be a general some day.
"When I was home," said he, "I studied pa's book of _tictacs_, and I used to drill the boys."
There was a loud cry of "Why can't you drill us? Come, let's us have a company, and you be cap'n!"
Horace gladly consented, and the next Saturday afternoon a meeting was appointed at the "Glen." When the time came, the boys were all as joyful as so many squirrels suddenly let out of a cage.
"Now look here, boys," said Horace, brushing back his "shingled hair,"
and walking about the grove with the air of a lord. "First place, if I'm going to be captain, you must mind; will you? _say_."
Horace was not much of a public speaker; he threw words together just as it happened; but there was so much meaning in the twistings of his face, the jerkings of his head, and the twirlings of his thumbs, that if you were looking at him you must know what he meant.
"Ay, ay!" piped the little boys in chorus.
"Then I'll muster you in," said Horace, grandly. "Has everybody brought their guns?--I mean _sticks_, you know!"
"Ay, ay!"
"I want to be corporal," said Peter Grant.
"I'll be major," cried Willy Snow.
"There, you've spoke," shouted the captain. "I wish there was a tub or bar'l to stand you on when you talk."
After some time an empty flour barrel was brought, and placed upright under a tree, to serve as a dunce-block.
"Now we'll begin 'new," said the captain. "Those that want to be mustered, rise up their hands; but don't you snap your fingers."
The caution came too late for some of the boys; but Horace forgave the seeming disrespect, knowing that no harm was intended.
"Now, boys, what are you fighting about?--Say, For our country!"
"For our country," shouted the soldiers, some in chorus, and some in solo.
"And our flag," added Horace, as an after-thought.
"And our flag," repeated the boys, looking at the little banner of stars and stripes, which was fastened to the stump of a tree, and faintly fluttered in the breeze.
"Long may it wave!" cried Horace, growing enthusiastic, and pointing backward to the flag with a sweep of his thumb.
"There ain't a 'Secesh' in this company; there ain't a man but wants our battle to beat! If there is, we'll muster him out double-quick."
A few caps were flourished in the air, and every mouth was set firmly together, as if it would shout scorn of secession if it dared speak. It was a loyal company; there was no doubt of that. Indeed, the captain was so bitter against the South, that he had asked his aunt Madge if it was right to let _southernwood_ grow in the garden.
"Now," said Horace, "Forward! March! 'Ploy column!--No, form a line first. Ten_tion_!"
A curved, uncertain line, not unlike the letter S, gradually straightened itself, and the boys looked down to their feet as if they expected to see a chalk-mark on the grass.
"Now, when I say, 'Right!' you must look at the buttons on my jacket--or on yours, I've forgot which; on yours, I reckon. Right! Right at 'em!
Right at the buttons!"
Obedient to orders, every boy's head drooped in a moment.
"Stop!" said Horace, knitting his brows; "that's enough!" For there seemed to be something wrong, he could not tell what.
"Now you may ''bout face;' that means whirl round. Now march! one, two, quick time, double-quick!"
"They're stepping on my toes," cried barefooted Peter Grant.
"Hush right up, private, or I'll stand you on the bar'l."