Ferule

I have lately been obsessed with LibraryThing, which is an online card catalog service for those of us with personal libraries. It links to Amazon and the Library of Congress for its source data, and I have to confess I am obsessed. It will take me a long time to upload all of the books in the library - maybe forever. But never fear I will pursue that aim faithfully.

I have also been obsessed with Chris, or more correctly, with being physically attached to him. Either way, we've spent many hours in bed lately and this is a Very Good Thing, if you know what I mean.

Summer is over on Tuesday when the princess starts first grade. She seems so little and girlish and perfectly childish. My heart cries that she is not ready for first grade, but she calmly exclaimed Wednesday last, "Mama, I tried really hard to do that and I could do it!" So she's already learned the critical lesson, right?

I'm still meeting the bus at the corner after school is out. And I'm still holding her hand in the parking lot. So there.

In my spare time, I've been re-reading Little Men by Louisa May Alcott. It strikes me that I could read this to the princess, but I can't imagine wading through one of my personal favorites, Little Women, with her yet.

In any event, I ran across this excerpt, which I had forgotten. Those who are interested in having their hands strapped will find it especially interesting if forgotten, all of us who have been tempted to tell a white lie now and then might find it especially tempting otherwise. (As a parent though, I have to say that this particular course of action is probably better left in a book.)

"See now, when you tell a lie, I will not punish you, but you shall punish me."

"How?" asked Nat, startled at the idea.

"You shall ferule me in the good old-fashioned way; I seldom do it myself, but it may make you remember better to give me pain than to feel it yourself."

"Strike you?" Oh, I couldn't!" cried Nat.

"Then mind that tripping tongue of yours..."

But of course, the poor boy cannot mind it for more than a few days.

... and taking Nat by the hand led him into the school and shut the door.

The boys looked at one another in silence for a minute, then Tommy slipped ou and peeping in at the half-closed blinds, beheld a sight that quite bewildered him. Mr. Bhaer had just taken down the long rule that hung over his desk, so seldom used that it was covered in dust.

"My eye! He's going to come down heavy on Nat this time. Wish I hadn't told," thought good-natured Tommy, for to be feruled was the deepest disgrace at this school.

"You remember what I told you last time?" said Mr. Bhaer, sorrowfully, not angrily.

"Yes, but please don't make me, I can't bear it," cried Nat, backing up against the door with both hands behind him, and a face full of distress.

"Why don't he up and take it like a man? I would," thought Tommy, though his heart beat fast at the sight.

"I shall keep my word, and you must remember to tell the truth. Obey me, Nat, take this and give me six good strokes."

Tommy was so staggered by this last speech that he nearly tumbled down the bank, but saved himself, and hung onto the window ledge, staring in with eyes as round as the stuffed owl's on the chimney-piece.

Nat took the rule, for when Mr. Bhaer spoke in that tone everyone obeyed him and, looking as scared and guilty as if about to stab his master, he gave two feeble blows on the broad hand held out to him. Then he stopped and looked up half-blind with tears but Mr. Bhaer said steadily:

"Go on, and strike harder."

As if seeing that it must be done, and eager to have the hard task soon over, Nat drew his sleeve across his eyes and gave two more quick hard strokes that reddened the hand, yet hurt the giver more.

"Isn't that enough?" he asked in a breathless sort of tone.

"Two more," was all the answer, and he gave them, hardly seeing where they fell, then threw the rule all across the room, and hugging the kind hand in both his own, laid his face down on it sobbing out in a passion of love and shame and penitence, "I will remember! Oh! I will!"

Then Mr. Bhaer put an arm about him, and said in a tone as compassionate as it had just now been firm, "I think you will. Ask the dear God to help you, and try to spare us both another scene like this."

Tommy saw no more, for he crept back to the hall, looking so excited and sober that the boys crowded round him to ask what was being done to Nat....

I understand that technically this is not one of Alcott's better stories. It drifts aimlessly and is clearly a filler between Little Women and the mis-titled Jo's Boys. There are some fantastic chapters, particularly one concerning John Brooke. She lets more Sunday School into the story and, to be truthful, her editor seemed to have been less than diligent.

I like it anyway. The boys are charming, human, and tempered by little Daisy. The Bhaers are not wholly successful in their educational practices, and face failure as well as success.

In any event, it's more amusing than late night television, and that's all that's really required when I simply want to put away the cares of the world and think about something pleasant before I sleep.