The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-05-10
LAST or A DICKENS CLUB.'
suggested Thirty Years AgO by the "StOry
Of the Sick Scholar" ...

II am the last but one OF Dickens Club
that was organized in my home town when
l quit school thirty years ago" said
New York doctor who had jus, returned
from n visit to the town where he grew
, up
"The Dickens Club was the result of an
incident which occurred in my last school
days. 1t il founded on The story Of Dickenas
Sick Scholar Everybody who ever read
Dickens remembers that ...
"One Of our class had been stricken down,
And his home. like that o: the sick scholar
in Dickens was in sight of the schoolho,i-s,
and the old playground, where we played
townbaIl and shiny before we knew any,
thing about ba sebal or golf. Our teacher,
like the teacher in the Dickens story, was
devoted 20 his stricken scholar.
"One day-it was only a few weeks before
vacation-the old teacher seemed q uito
uns,rung. The village doctor who, by
the way, is responsible for my being in tho
profession. stopped at an open window
OF the schoolhouse and had Il conversation
vii h our old master
AFTER the doctor had passed on, The
master came back to his desk, sat in his
big chair and looked out of the window
from which there WAS a panorama of hills
and trees, The hum of the schoolroom
dwindled. A few moments later he said
there would be no recitations that after
noon.
Then he took a volume of Dickens ont
of his drawer and read the story of the
Sick Scholar Returning the volume to
his drawer, lie said:
You may 60 for the remainder of the
day, young gentlemen. but promise mo
that RS you go out you will do so quietly
DO not stop on the playground, if you
please, but go away, out of sight, and out
of sound of his vicinity"
My class OF which the sick scholar had
been the favorite, fingered until the other
scholars had gone, and then we waited
on the master and asked that he take with
him to the sick scholars room-for We
knew he was going there-our love for our
stricken cassmate. 1t was the masters
last visit to his sick scholar. In fact the
sick scholar died while the teacher was
at his bedside.
"The class attended the funeral as pail
bearers. Then we organized our Dickens
and then, until our schooldays we're past. '
And then we made compact that once a
year we would have reunion. ....., r..
Most Of us drifted away, as all scholars
do, as they must. But we came together, 4"
eleven Of us, from various parts OF the
country for several years.
First one. and then another, and
another failed to come. They had entered
into that other reunion which all men think
about. sometime: At each of the reunions
we had in the old home town we went to
the house where our sick classmate had Z.
died, for some of the family remained
in posse ssion of the homestead.
when | was there the other day | met
the other surviving member. We went,
as has been our custom. to the homestead
and then to the cemetery where VIC had
laid our dead classmate so many years.
ago and then we separated.
"The other survivor said good-by to
me as he turned his footsteps to his home
in Colorado. l am positive, knowing his
condition, that he will not come back.
The last reunion of the, Dickens Club.
counterpart of Dickens's Sick Scholar,
has been held