| From buckwheat fields the summer sun Drew honeyed breezes over The lanes where happy children run With bare feet in the clover. |
| The schoolhouse stood with pines about Upon the hill, and ever A creek, where hid the speckled trout, Ran past it to the river. |
| And rosy faces gathered there, With rustic good around them; With breath of balm blown everywhere, Pure, ere the world had found them. |
| Behind sweet purple ambuscades Of lilacs, laws were broken; And here a desk with knives was frayed, There passed forbidden token. |
| One slipped a butternut between His pearly teeth; a maiden Dove-eyed, caressed her cheek; ‘twas e’en With maple sugar laden— |
| A flock that caught at wiles, because The shepherd’s hand that drove them, Reached little toward wise human laws, And less to God above them. |
| With eyebrows bent and surly look He only saw before him, The rule, the lesson, and the book, Not nature brooding o’er him. |
| One day through drone of locusts fell The wood-bird’s fitful tapping, And in his chair at “dinner-spell,” The teacher grim sat napping. |
| An urchin creeping in beholds The tyrant slumber-smitten, And in his pocket’s ample folds He thrusts the school-yard kitten. |
| At length the master waked, and clanged His bell with anger fitting; His sleep had made it double-fanged, And crossed like needles knitting. |
| Slow to their seats the children file, And wait “Prepare for classes,” A score of lads across the aisle From twice a score of lasses. |
| But two within the throng betray A mirth suppressed; the sinner, And Rafe Ridall, the chief at play, At books the easy winner: |
| The wildest boy in all the school, In mischief first and ever, His daily seat the penance-stool, Disgraced for weeks together. |
| Just sound of bone and strong of heart, Staunch friend and noble foeman; In life to play the kingly part, True both to man and woman. |
| Joe’s secret now he holds; a deed With just enough of danger, To win his—ah, what’s that? ‘Tis freed, The pocket-prisoned stranger! |
| A moment’s riot laughter-filled, Then fear, white-visaged, follows; And through the silence there is trilled The shrill note of the swallows. |
| And now a fierce form fronts them all, Two fierce eyes search their faces, Then flash their fire on Rafe Ridall, Whose mirth no peril chases. |
| “You did it, sir!” “Not I!” “You did!” “No!” “You’ve one chance for showing Who in my coat the kitten hid, Or be well thrashed for knowing.” |
| The master paused, the birch he grasped Against his trousers flicking; Rafe said, with hands behind him clasped, “I’d rather take the licking.” |
| Full many a year has passed since then, The lilacs still are blooming, Awaiting childish hands again, But they are long in coming. |
| Now wandering swallows build their nests Where doors and roofs decaying, No more shut in the master’s zest, Nor out the children’s playing. |
| All, all are gone who gathered there; Some toil among the masses, Some, overworn with pain and care, Wait Death’s “Prepare for classes.” |
| And some—the sighing pines sway on Above them, dreamless lying; And ‘mong them sleeps the master, gone His anger and their crying. |
| And Rafe Ridall, brave then, brave now, Amid the jarring courses Of man’s misrule, still takes the blow For those of weaker forces. |