He pushed Bill Haskell into a seat and the bench broke.
He ran across the room and reached out for Lem Harkins, and Lem had a
fit before the old man touched him. He shook Dan Stevenson for two
minutes, and when he let him go, Dan walked around his own desk five
times before he could find it, and then he couldn't sit down without
holding on. He whipped the two Knowltons with a skate-strap in each hand
at the same time; the Greenwood family, five boys and a big girl, he
whipped all at once with a girl's skipping rope, and they raised such a
united wail that the clock stopped.
He took a twist in Bill Rodecker's front hair, and Bill slept with his
eyes open for a week. He kept the atmosphere of that school-room full of
dust, and splinters, and lint, weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth,
until he reached the end of the alphabet and all hearts ached and
wearied of the inhuman strife and wicked contention. Then he stood up
before us, a sickening tangle of slate frame, strap, ebony ferule and
skipping rope, a smile on his kind old face, and asked, in clear,
triumphant tones:
"WHO says there isn't going to be any more speaking pieces?"
And every last boy in that school sprang to his feet; standing there as
one human being with one great mouth, we shrieked in concerted anguish:
"NOBODY DON'T!"
And your Pa, my son, who led that strike, has been "speakin' pieces"
ever since.
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