Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1886-10-22
GONG A-GUDDLING.

HOW. IL IaUe, as frequently happens,
has any unpleasantness in store for me,
it is sure TO reserve il till Friday.
But Dominic Forbes was, as we boys
phrased it, "in tear" on that particular
Friday forenoon; something had gone
radically wrong with him. Everybody
knew that the dominic was deeply in
love with farmers fair daughter, and
that the courtship of Duncan Gray was
nothing to his in vicissitude, for at one
time bonnie Jeanne tombstone smiled on
him, and at another she laughed at him.
And whatever Jeanies mood was, we
poor pupils became the resultant; it was
g-flog-hog all day when Jeanne was
saucy but when Jeanne was kind every
thing we did pleased our dominic.
AS rule, at all ordinary times Dom
inie Forbes was a tartar. Squeers was
saint to him. And the tawse-a piece
of leather bride cut at the end into two
fingers and hardened in the fire-got lit
tie rest. When it was put away for a
time the "spengie" cane or rattan, took
its place, and | do not know which
makes the palms and fingers tngle the
most.
A bit of masher was Dominic Forbes,
especially on a Sunday, when he wore a
swallow-tailed coat, with a morsel of
crimson silk handkerchief sticking out
of the pocket-he kept an ordinary white
one in breast-pocket for nasal duty
and his club foot boot with its extraor-
binary thickness of sole. shining like half
a-yard of polished Whitby jet. The
dominie's hair was as black as his boot,
and his side whiskers glittered, like boat
men beetles.
Now Saturday was kind of mixed
day with us boys at Bellfeld school;
day of grief in the morning, because the
work of the week had to be recapitu-
lated, and we were all sure to be
thrashed; and of joy in the afternoon,
morrow was Sunday.
But 10! to our great establishment, on
this particular Saturday the ominie
was as sweet in temper rs a t. by cat
with five young kittens.
Jeanne had been kind nat was the
solution of the RI
But Their .. was, dressed in his Sab
bat, clothes, silk handkerchief and
polished club-foot boot, and positively
white neckte,
And he frequently smiled softly to
himself-wandered little in his talk
but looked generally angelic.
blundered a good deal over my ir-
regular verbs. | gave single verbs to
plural nominatives and murdered my
past participles. But dominic merely
smiled and corrected me.
l Went back to my seat, walking on
feathers, seemingly.
| had a favorite fiat mahogany ruler,
and got round to my table in time to
find mischievous Davie Law burning
one end of it between the bars of the
CRATE.
My joy was turned to wrath. l drew
forth the ruler and smote Davie with
the frey end of it, javelin fashion. 1t
went half way down his throat, l sup
pose, and loosened some of his teeth.
Davie yelled, and the dominic appeared
and found Davie splitting blood and
cinders But even this did not disturb
his equanimity. He merely said, You
shouldn't have done that, Gordon"
Such is love-when Chloe is kind!
We were not bit surprised to get
away that day two hours sooner than
usual.
We rushed pell-mell, almost breaking
each others ribs in the doorway.
We yelled and shouted for Joy, and
flung our Highland bonnets high in air.
When the exuberance of our ecs tasy
had somewhat subsidized, Willie jamie
son-poor lad! he was killed soon after
this by his fathers horse falling on him
stood up on the top of a stone and
shouted:
"Who will go a-guddling?"
What he really did say was: Fail
gag guddlin'?" But you see am polite
enough to translate his words into Eng
lish.
Now, Willie was the biggest boy in
our set, and we respected him accord
ingly and looked up to him almost rever-
entially. Even a box on the ears from
Willie was considered an honor and a
condescension on his part
who will go a-guddling?"
Fifty arms waved in the air at once;
Aity 'OiNco iuL6 Oul gang
I'll gang! I'll gang"
But Willie had no intention of invit-
ing the small-fry-the nippers from 8
to 7.
He rushed through their ranks,
dashing them aside in all di-
rections, like sturgeon in a
shoal of haddocks, and made his
way to the spot where Davie Law and
l, with our jackets off, We're having it
out in downright earnest.
He soon settled the business by pitch
ing into us both, and when we arose
from the ground
Now, will ye gang guddlin't" said
Willie.
Gang guddlin' Wouldn't we, just ?"
On went our jackets, and off after
Willie went Davie and l; my arm round
Davies waist; his arm round my neck;
he telling me he liked me better than any
other boy in the school, and assuring
Davie that | had always quite loved
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