25
Some Birthday Customs
It had become a custom among the classes to give their respective teachers some kind of a surprise on the anniversary of their birthday. On one such occasion, Professor Gilcrist was very pleasantly surprised to find his armchair nicely cushioned, a pair of gold-bowed spectacles reposing amid a wreath of evergreens on his desk, and his schoolroom nicely decorated with evergreens. The surprise had been devised and executed by his pupils.
Professor Gilcrist was a man thoroughly devoted to the interests of the deaf and dumb, having thus far spent nearly thirty years in their service. By his kind and considerate conduct toward them, and his ready sympathy with them, he had won the confidence and love of very many of these silent ones.
Professor Vance’s birthday anniversary was fast approaching, also, and his class held a council to devise some means of giving that amiable gentleman a pleasant surprise. As their pecuniary resources were very limited, the majority not possessing even so much as a penny, they were at a loss how to procure a birthday token. They had generous and loving hearts, and they were greatly desirous of giving their teacher pleasure. After some debating, satisfactory arrangements seemed to have been made, and they at once set about executing them. Mr. Vance’s schoolroom was nicely decorated with fragrant boughs and wreaths of evergreens, and a basket constructed of evergreens was hung from the ceiling in the center of the room. In this basket were deposited an orange, an apple, and a cigar.
The following day, when Mr. Vance had somewhat recovered from the fit of abstraction into which this unexpected event threw him and had received the greetings of his pupils and begun his customary duties, the superintendent entered the room. He gazed around for a few minutes, and then his eyes fell upon the pendant basket. While inspecting its contents, he spied the cigar placed there, and immediately his brow knit and a look of displeasure spread over his countenance. Taking the offending cigar from the basket, he crumbled it into fragments; then, stepping to a window, he raised the sash and sent them fluttering to the ground. Closing the window and approaching Mr. Vance, he remarked that smoking was a bad habit, and he did not wish him to indulge in it. Mr. Vance, being a man of good sense and not in the habit of smoking or chewing the weed, cheerfully acquiesced in his judgment. The superintendent had himself been for many years a tobacco chewer, but he had learned the folly of using it and was strenuously exerting himself to overcome the habit. He was also striving to show others the folly of using it, thus to prevent them from going through a course in the hard school of experience.
The little incident above recorded had a salutary effect upon those who witnessed it, judging from the remarks it called forth.
The next day Mr. Vance’s wife and his two children, having learned of the surprise he had received, came to inspect the decorations of his room. Mrs. Vance, like her husband, was deaf and dumb, and a stranger would have supposed that their children were also deaf and dumb from the facility with which they used the deaf and dumb sign language. But no! They could both of them hear and speak. The parents, being deprived of the senses of hearing and speech, had habitually used signs as their only means of communicating their thoughts and desires to their children. They had thus taught them the sign language in much the same manner that other children are taught to speak words which they hear others utter. That they understood the meaning of the signs which they used was evident from their intelligently associating them with the objects they represented. Little Helen Vance caught sight of the orange in the evergreen basket, and, pointing up at it, she made the sign for “orange”; then she indicated by the proper signs that she wanted it. So the golden treasure had to be taken from its green cushion to gratify the little maiden.
A few mornings later, a little girl belonging to Mr. Vance’s class obtained that gentleman’s attention and informed him that it was Alice Ranney’s birthday. “Is that true?” he exclaimed, and he seized his ruler and started toward Alice’s seat. Alice could not deny the truth of the statement. “How old are you?” he then asked, holding the ruler aloft. Alice refused to tell her age, but someone enlightened him on this point by saying, “fourteen.” Thereupon he proceeded to administer fourteen blows, which Alice meekly bore, counting, however, to see that he did not give her a blow too many.
Sometimes an aspiring youth would purchase a handsome birthday present to offer to some girl whose favor he wished to win. Afterwards it sometimes happened that he, fancying himself slighted, would demand his present back. Such a demand was usually complied with.
The deaf and dumb are quite patriotic and disposed to do honor, in their own way, to the great men of our country. All of the pupils in the advanced classes of the I Institution knew something of the life and services of the great and good George Washington; so, on the coming anniversary of his birth, some of the boys proposed to celebrate the day in a somewhat original manner. With this object in view they began privately to make their preparations. They petitioned the superintendent to make the day a holiday, and he promised to consider the matter.
On the morning of the 22nd of February the superintendent said nothing about granting a holiday. The morning service passed as usual, and the classes were dismissed to their respective schoolrooms. Then it was that the chief movers in the plan to celebrate the day began to grow anxious, fearing lest their schemes should come to naught. On his way back to his office, after chapel service, the superintendent stepped into one of the schoolrooms for a moment’s conversation with the teacher, and, while there, one of the boys ventured to renew the request for a holiday. After some deliberation, the superintendent said he would give them all a half-holiday, to begin immediately after dinner. That arrangement was considered satisfactory by most of them.
As usual, the school exercises were taken up, but it was evident that there was no great interest felt in the lessons this morning. Every now and then someone would venture to make some remark concerning the celebration that was to take place in the afternoon, thus showing whither their thoughts were wandering. I think the teachers must have been very glad when the dinner hour came, relieving them from further attempts to force new ideas into careless, indifferent minds.
The boys hastily ate their dinner and awaited the order to leave the tables somewhat impatiently. When the signal was given, they hurried from the dining room and immediately began preparations to spend their half-holiday pleasantly.
As the day was cold, and a snow lay upon the ground, it was not deemed advisable to allow the girls to go out of doors; so they stationed themselves at the windows to watch the proceedings. The boys who were not to take part in the celebration were kept on their own side of the building so as to afford the girls an unobstructed view; yet as the west windows on both sides faced the grounds where the exercises were to be enacted, everyone had a free view.
It was not long after the girls had gathered at the windows before a number of boys appeared, bearing a small cannon—not a toy, but a real cannon—which they had borrowed from the arsenal in the city. This they wheeled into position and proceeded to open fire upon some invisible enemy. In the opinion of the silent watchers at the windows, it did not make any noise, but simply belched forth a small cloud of smoke.
Presently there was seen skulking among the trees what appeared to be an Indian chief arrayed in Indian war costume. The group around the cannon soon caught sight of him, and several of them went in pursuit of him and soon brought him to where the rest of the group were stationed. They then attempted to converse with him, apparently with only partial success. His queer motions and general appearance were amusing. The cannon was again fired off, causing the poor Indian to jump and quake from fear. After this nothing would induce him to touch the cannon.
Soon there was seen in another direction a young man who seemed endeavoring to escape the notice of the group, but he could not. He was captured and brought forward, and after a speedy examination, during which it was decided that he was the spy (Andre), he was condemned to be hung. Scarcely had the sentence against him been pronounced before his captors proceeded to execute it. Leading him beneath a tree, a bough of which hung conveniently low, they strung him up to the limb, much to the surprise of some of the watchers at the windows. After he had hung for several minutes, he was taken down and carried away while the looks of surprise upon some faces deepened into dismay. It was soon afterwards learned, however, that the spy was unharmed. His captors had been so merciful that they had suspended him to the tree by the waist instead of by the neck, and he had leaned his head against the rope so that at a little distance it appeared as if he was suspended by the neck. It was also learned that nothing but powder had been used in the cannon.
The trustees of the institution very unexpectedly arrived during the performance and witnessed a part of it from the library windows. Subsequently, in company with the superintendent, the trustees visited first the girls and then the boys in their respective study rooms.