Ballou's Monthly Magazine, Vol. XXVII, No. 1 — page 81: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Ballows Monthly Magazine. 85 OLD HUGH’S LOOK-OFF: —oR,— MAURY STONE’S PRIDE. BY AMETHYST WAYNE. “FfaLioo! here’s fun, boys! Here’s a new scholar!” shouted the tallest boy of the group in the yard. tt-was just as I expected. I knew I had got to be the target for all their jeers, and sport, and insulting glances, when I took my satchel and started for school. lf I could only have taken a good whipping that morning, instead of being obliged to march down the street, through that large play-yard, and under the portico of Dr. Polisher’s great building, how happy I should have been! But there was no escape for me, and I knew it, and I knew besides that there ought not to be any escape. But, O dear! that didn’t help my heart’s fluttering in that queer, faintish fashion, that takes all the life out of a fellow. I felt, for all the world, as if I was marching straight up to the biggest kind of a dentist’s chair, where a great ogre was standing with a terrible pair of those terribly glittering instruments. There was a great lump in my throat, and my knees were knocking together, and my lips trembling like a sick monkey’s, and all because I had got to face the music there at the famous school of the widely-known and greatly- respected Dr. Polisher. I was ashamed enough of myself; but that didn’t help me to behave any better. I took the longest way around by the post-office, and then cut through the fields, tucking my book-satchel under my jacket; for I really thought every soul I met, from poor, wizened- looking Widow Martin to the pompous and dignified squire, who was lounging with his. cigar at the great, stone gateway, knew that, I was on my way, a new scholar for Dr. Polisher. Not that it was Dr. Polisher himself who could frighten me. He was a portly, hand-. some mah, and whenever I had seen him in the streets or at church, had always worn. such a benignant, comfortable look, that I rather mistrusted he would wink at a good many tricks on the part of his boys, before he would spoil the good look of his face by an ugly frown. Nor, indeed, was it any one especially of the pupils who gave me such a horror of the experiment I was about to make, although I had a nervous remembrance of Reginald Motley’s sneering red lips; but I think it was most of all my own conscious- ness that I was putting myself in a false position. _ Dr. Polisher’s school was an aristocratic in- stitution. There was not a single poor boy in it; but every one was either the heir of a rich man, or the relation of an influential. one; and here was I, the only child of a poor widow, going among them. I somehow seemed to feel as if I deserved all the con- (Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of assachusetts.] COMMIG OOKS . CONN