Schooldays
At the first recess a large boy approached him, hit him hard in the face, and said, 'Come on, Chicken, let's see if you can fight.' They fought, and Francis was beaten disastrously.
After that he had to fight twice a day for three weeks, and he was beaten every time. Small boys are not skilled fighters, and though he was hurt and shaken he suffered no serious damage. But after recess he sat at his desk, wretched and aching, and Miss McGladdery was fifty-nine, and she was soldiering through her teaching career until, at sixty-five, she would be able to retire and, with God's help, never see any of her former pupils again.
A strong Scots background, and thirty years at Carlyle Rural, had made her expert disciplinarian. A short, fat, implacable woman, she ruled her three groups – for Carlyle Rural had only two rooms and she took the most advanced classes – not with a rod of iron, but with the leather strap that was issued by the school board as the ultimate instrument of justice. She did not use it often; she had only to take it from a drawer and lay it across her desk to quell any ordinary disobedience. When she did use it, she displayed a strength that even the biggest, most loutish boy dreaded, for not only did she flail his hands until they swelled to red, aching paws, but she tongue-lashed him with a virtuosity that threw her classes into a ecstasy of silent delight.
'Gordon McNab, you're a true chip off the McNab block. (Slash!) I've given the strap to your father (Slash!), and both your uncles (Slash!), and I once gave it to your mother (Slash!), and I'm here to tell the world that you are the stupidest, most ignorant, no-account ruffian of the whole caboodle. (Slash!) And that's saying something. (Slash!) Now go to your seat, and if I hear a peep out of your except in answer to a question, you'll get it again and get it worse, because I've got it right here in my desk, all ready for you. Do you hear me?
What's Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies (Canadian)
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