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A Short History of Quebec 4th Edition John A. Dickinson
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): John A. Dickinson, Brian Young
ISBN(s): 9780773534391, 0773534393
Edition: 4
File Details: PDF, 8.80 MB
Year: 2008
Language: english
A Short History of Quebec
A Short History of Quebec

John Dickinson and Brian Young

Fourth Edition
© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2008
ISBN 978-0-7735-3439-1 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-7735-3440-7 (paper)

Legal deposit third quarter 2008

Bibliothèque nationale du Québec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest

free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the

Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also
acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada
through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program
(BPIDP) for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Dickinson, John Alexander, 1948–

A short history of Quebec / John Dickinson and Brian Young. – 4th
ed.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7735-3439-1 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-7735-3440-7 (pbk)

1. Québec (Province) – History. I. Young, Brian, 1940- II. Title.

FC2911.D53 2008 971.4 C2008-903375-2

Typeset in Sabon 10/12

by Infoscan Collette, Québec
 Contents

Illustrations
Tables
Figures
Preface to the Fourth Edition
Introduction

1 The Native People and the Beginnings of New France

2 Preindustrial Quebec, 1650s–1810s
3 Preindustrial Society and Economy
4 Economy and Society in Transition, 1810s–1880s
5 Politics and Institutions in Transition, 1810s–1880s
6 Industrial Capitalism, 1890s–1930s
7 Church, State, and Women in Capitalist Society, 1890s–1930s
8 From Depression to Quiet Revolution
9 The Quiet Revolution
10 Contemporary Quebec: A Distinct Society

Bibliography
Chronology
Index
 Illustrations

Cree woman arranging firewood outside her lodge (Hudson’s Bay

Company Archives, neg. 83–87)
An Iroquoian longhouse at Lanoraie (illustration by Guy Lapointe,
Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, 1986)
An Iroquoian wampum belt (McCord Museum of Canadian History
[MMCH])
The cod fishery: the green fishery (detail from Traité général des
pêches de Duhamel du Monceau, Paris, 1772)
The dry fishery (detail of Herman Moll’s Map of North America, 1718,
Library and Archives Canada [LAC], C-3686)
Native people in the whaling industry (Université de Montréal [UM],
Melzack Collection [MC], Indiens ouvrant une baleine, vers 1660,
from Relations des Jésuites, Paris, 1668)
La France apportant la foi aux Sauvages, by Brother Luc (Archives
des Ursulines)
A General View of Quebec from Pointe Levy, 1761, by Richard Short
(LAC, C-355)
A View of the Bishop’s Palace at Quebec, 1761, by Richard Short
(LAC, C-352)
Exploration in the Labrador peninsula (UM, MC, Traversée du Lac des
Moustiques, 1863)
Lake of Two Mountains (MMCH, steel engraving from W.H. Bartlett
drawing)
L’atelier du forgeron, by Blanche Bolduc (MMCH)
Les Forges de la Rivière Saint-Maurice (vers 1831), watercolour by
Joseph Bouchette Jr (LAC, C-4356)
A View of the Chateau Richer, watercolour by Thomas Davies
(National Gallery of Canada)
Ploughing ca. 1830 (UM, MC)
Ploughing, 1883, drawing by T. Welch (UM, MC)
Street life in Montreal, detail from Place Jacques-Cartier, 1830, by
R.A. Sproule (MMCH)
French Canadian Habitants Playing at Cards, by C. Krieghoff
Giving thanks to Sainte-Anne (Photo Livernois, 1958, 4666, Sainte-
Anne-de-Beaupré Archives, Galerie d’art de la Basilique)
Montreal, 1812, by Thomas Davies (MMCH)
The West End of Montreal (LAC, C-76322, Robin Grey Collection)
Les chantiers maritimes de l’Anse-au-Foulon, 1872, by William
Notman (MMCH, 76310-I, Notman Photographic Archives [NPA])
Victoria Bridge, lithograph by S. Russell (MMCH)
The Redpath Sugar Refinery (courtesy of Redpath Sugar Museum)
L’arrivée du chemin de fer à Joliette, 1857, drawing by Trefflé Loisel
(UM, Collection Baby)
French Church, Place d’Armes, Montreal, painting by C. Krieghoff
(MMCH)
Place d’Armes à Montréal, painting by C. Krieghoff (MMCH)
Le marché de bois à Trois-Rivières (Archives du Séminaire de Trois-
Rivières)
The Lambkin furniture factory (courtesy of Missisquoi Historical
Museum)
Saint-Roch, 1866 (LAC, C-4733)
New pastimes (MMCH, 9/90, NPA)
A Catalogue of Vices, 1873, drawing by C. Arnold (MMCH, 8/90, NPA)
Saint-Hyacinthe, print by R.M.S. Bouchette (in British American Land
Company: Views in Lower Canada, London, 1836; Metro Toronto
Public Library)
A Bird’s-Eye View of Saint-Hyacinthe, 1881 (Société d’histoire
régionale de Saint-Hyacinthe)
Riots in Montreal (LAC, C-15494)
Rebels, as painted by Jane Ellice (LAC, C-13392)
Grenadier Guards (LAC, C-40295)
The Special Court, 1855, lithograph by William Lockwood (MMCH)
Saint-Jean courthouse and jail (author’s private collection)
Fishing for shad (MMCH, 21472-I, NPA)
Commercial ice cutting on the St Lawrence (MMCH, 1492-view, NPA)
Grand Séminaire and Collège de Montréal (MMCH, 24027-II, NPA)
The burning of the Parliament Buildings in Montreal (MMCH, M11588)
Louis-Joseph Papineau (LAC, C-5414)
George-Étienne Cartier (LAC, C-6166)
Mount Stephen Avenue, Westmount (MMCH, MP886(6), NPA)
Shawinigan (Groupe de recherche sur la Mauricie, Université du
Québec à Trois-Rivières, Hydro-Québec)
Collapse of the Quebec City Bridge (LAC, C-55787)
Eviction in Montreal (LAC, C-30811)
Women’s lunchroom (LAC, DND/PA-24439)
Irma LeVasseur (Cap-Aux-Diamants 1, no. 2 [1985])
Sleeping-car porter (Canadian Pacific Archives, B4793-1, NS 20171,
NS1852)
Sohmer Park (La Presse, 27 May 1916)
Farmer in Charlevoix (LAC, PA-43304)
St Lawrence Boulevard (MMCH, 2698-view, NPA)
St Catherine Street (Archives de la ville de Montréal)
Franciscan temperance brochure (LAC, C128063)
St Joseph’s Oratory (LAC, 163121)
Montreal Ladies Benevolent Institution (MMCH, 174471-misc II, NPA)
Henri Bourassa (LAC, C-9092)
Louis Riel’s trial (Glenbow Archives, Calgary, Alberta)
Quebec’s Tercentenary (Provincial Archives of Ontario, MU2365)
Sisters of Miséricorde Hospital (Sisters of Miséricorde Archives)
Courtyard of Ursuline Convent (LAC, C-14394)
Lamontagne Family (Société d’histoire de St-Côme et de Linière,
Fonds Onésime Lamontagne)
Rancourt Family (Société d’histoire de St-Côme et de Linière, Fonds
Marguerite Fortin)
Powdered milk factory (private collection)
Depression breadline (Archives de la ville de Montréal, Z-35)
Ritz-Carlton Hotel (LAC, PA-32056)
War materials factory (LAC, PA112815)
Graduating class at the Baie-Saint-Paul Normal School (author’s
private collection)
Hughette Tremblay and friends en route to a teachers’ union
convention (author’s private collection)
Madeleine Parent (courtesy of Madeleine Parent)
Radio-Canada strike (photo La Presse, Montreal)
Anti-Semitism (Canadian Jewish Congress, Gilbert to H.M.
Caiserman, 30 June 1937)
Adélard Godbout (LAC, PA-203116)
Duplessis election poster (LAC, C-87690)
Lionel Groulx (Archives de l’Université de Montréal)
Marie Victorin (Archives du Jardin botanique, Montreal) 300
Pro-abortion protest (John Doggett, LAC, PA-164027)
A Montreal bowling alley (Alain Leloup, private collection)
Delicatessen (Alain Leloup, private collection)
Clothing factory, 1987 (Alain Leloup, private collection)
Daniel Johnson Dam (Hydro-Québec Archives)
René Lévesque (LAC, PA-114514)
Demonstration at McGill University (McGill News, May 1969)
Cultural communities in Quebec (author’s private collection)
Pierre Elliott Trudeau (LAC, PA-140705)
The destruction of LG2 (Hydro-Québec Archives)
Lise Payette (LAC, PA-159867)
Université du Québec à Montréal (Université du Québec à Montréal)
An air ambulance (Ministère des transports du Québec)
Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day celebration (author’s private collection)
Wind farm at Murdochville (photo courtesy of TechnoCentre éolien)
Lucien Bouchard (Office of Lucien Bouchard)
Pro-Canada Rally (Montreal Gazette, 28 October 1995)
“Hands off my city” (author’s private collection)
Mario Dumont (courtesy of the office of Mario Dumont)
School for sale (author’s private collection)
Françoise David (Fédération des femmes du Québec)
Montreal Massacre plaque (author’s private collection)
“Cirque du Soleil: A World of Fun” stamp (© Canada Post
Corporation, LAC, R169-5, no. 0881)
Maurice Richard (LAC, PA-127084)
The Oka Crisis (Shaney Komulainen, Canapress)
Grande Bibliothèque (© BAnQ, Bernard Fougères)
The marriage of Guy Bélanger and Michel Malo, 3 December 2004
(courtesy of Michel Malo)
 Tables

1 Population change in Quebec’s Catholic population, 1711–1815

2 General store sales by Joseph Cartier, 1794–1797
3 Agricultural production
4 Criminal activity in New France
5 The population of Lower Canada/Quebec, 1815–1881
6 Arrivals at the port of Quebec from the British Isles, 1829–1851
7 Children abandoned at the Grey Nuns’ foundling hospital in
Montreal, 1820–1840
8 Number of towns in Canada East and Canada West, 1850–1870
9 Industrial activities in Trois-Rivières, 1871
10 Francophone banks established before 10 1874
11 Animals in Montreal, 1851–1891
12 Church membership in Montreal, 1851–1891
13 Infant mortality in Montreal, 1885–1914
14 Value of Quebec’s gold, copper, and asbestos production, 1910–
1930

15 Factory butter and cheese production in Quebec, 1901–1941

16 Percentage of female labour in the principal occupation sectors,
Montreal, 1911–1931
17 Percentage of lay female and male teachers, nuns, and brothers
in Catholic schools, 1900–1950
18 Labour conflicts in Quebec, 1901–1935
19 Women in religious communities in Quebec, 1851–1921
20 Sulpician investments in bonds, debentures, and shares worth
over $40 000, 1882–1909
21 Number of children in the Grey Nuns’ daycare centres, 1858–1922
22 Ethnic origin of the population of Quebec, 1931–1961
23 Mechanization of Quebec farms, 1931–1961
24 Labour force by occupation, 1931–1951
25 Motor vehicle registrations in Quebec
26 Women’s franchise
27 Strikes and lockouts in Quebec, 1937–1957
28 Ethnic origin of the population of Quebec, 1961–1986
29 Importance of different sectors in the Quebec economy (as
percentage of gross provincial product), 1961–1986
30 Public school registration by language of instruction
31 Work stoppages in Quebec, 1960–1989
32 The legal status of women in Quebec
33 Work sectors of active women over age fifteen, 1975–1985
34 Wage spreads between men and women, 1971 and 1981
35 A constitutional chronology
36 Support for sovereignty at the turn of the millennium
37 Full-time enrolment by faculty and sex, Université de Montréal,
autumn 2006
 Figures

1 Quebec: Physical characteristics and regions

2 Aboriginal people at the time of contact: Language groups and
tribes
3 The Huron and St Lawrence Iroquoian subsistence calendars and
sexual division of labour
4 Value in French livres of furs exported from New France, 1634–1652
5 Estimated native and European population of the St Lawrence
Valley, 1530–1650
6 Land distribution patterns around Quebec (NA, C-155703, Gédéon
de Catalogne, 1709)
7 Map by Robert de Villeneuve, 1685 (Archives nationale du
Québec, B-962)
8 Seigneuries controlled by the church in New France (Harris 1984)
9 Acadia in 1754
10 Imperial claims and territorial changes, 1697–1791
11 The population of Quebec, 1650–1815
12 The population of Quebec, 1815–1885
13 Illegitimate births in Quebec City, 1771–1870 (Canada 1871, 5:359)
14 Rural industries in the Montreal region, 1831 (Courville 1988)
15 Religious communities founded or implanted in Quebec, 1837–1914
(Danylewycz 1987: 47)
16 Membership in three Roman Catholic burial societies in the parish
of Montreal, 1739–1899 (Caulier 1986: 82)
17 Southern Quebec in 1930
18 Urbanization in Chicoutimi County, 1861–1921
19 Ethnic composition of the province of Quebec and the city of
Montreal, 1881–1931 (based on Bernier and Boily 1986: 43)
20 Number of farms in Quebec, 1911–1981
21 Divorces in Quebec, 1969–1987
22 Ordination of Catholic priests in Quebec, 1961–1987
23 Age pyramids for Quebec, 2007 (Institut de la statistique du
Québec)
 Preface to the Fourth Edition

We finished the first edition of this book in November 1987, the month
in which René Lévesque died – an opportune time to evaluate
Quebec society. The present edition is being published thirty-two
years after the election of the Parti Québécois in November 1976.
Unlike the emotions around sovereignty in those two periods,
Quebecers, at this writing of a fourth edition in 2008, seem more
concerned with issues of the environment, health care, and the
integration of immigrants.
In our first edition, we noted that one of the reasons for writing the
book was the overemphasis on what we called a “traditional, political
orientation” in treatments of Quebec written in English. We
compensated by devoting important sections to society, the
economy, and labour. In our second edition – written in the aftermath
of the 1992 referendum which rejected the Charlottetown Accord – we
gave more space to the “national question” and its implications for
language, culture, and civil law. The Canada–United States free
trade agreement of 1988 also loomed large on our radar as we tried to
evaluate its effects on Quebec culture, regional development, and
relations with the rest of Canada.
This work remains concentrated on the concerns of social
historians, who regard material condition, social class, gender,
ethnicity, and race as the prime determinants of history. The 1990s
and the millennium have confirmed the poignancy of these concerns;
the place of women and their objectives in Quebec society has
changed, as has the issue of aboriginal self-government. The
welfare state and social democracy – pillars of postwar Canadian
society – have been challenged in Quebec, and this in turn has put
in question the legacy of the Quiet Revolution.
Similar shifts are evident in ideology. Senior intellectuals of the
Quiet Revolution, such as sociologist Guy Rocher, are questioning
some of its basic tenets, arguing that it represented reform rather
than revolution. Quebec, suggests Rocher, in referring back to the
observations of de Tocqueville in the 1830s, became a modern
democracy in which a dominant middle class imposed social reforms
acceptable to itself (Rocher 2001: 28). This distancing of Quebec from
an image of a revolutionary society in favour of its depiction as a
“normal” Western democracy is part of a reevalutation of Quebec
identity, the place of nationalism, and Quebec’s position vis-à-vis
both North America and France. What Anne Legaré, Quebec’s
delegate in Boston in 1995, has called Quebec’s obsession with
Americanité has become an important interpretive theme, especially
with historians such as Gérard Bouchard and Yvan Lamonde, who
emphasize Quebec’s development as a North American society.
We remain critical of this interpretation, leaning instead to such
observers as Ronald Rudin, Annmarie Adams, and Peta Tancred in
suggesting that Quebec has a singular past with institutions and
culture that set it forcefully apart: Quebec’s ethnic struggles, its
gender and cultural particularities, its relative lack of immigrants and
cultural diversity, and its ongoing willingness to use public capital to
serve state ends – through the Fonds de solidarité (1985) and the
Caisse de dépôt – speak to the continued and largely distinctive
example of a “Quebec model.” And although it may seem self-
serving, since we ourselves are English-speaking Quebecers, we
give an important place to the anglophone experience as an
essential part of Quebec’s collective experience, arguing that the
anglophone community’s culture and institutions are critical to an
understanding of the history of Quebec and deserve more attention
than has usually been admitted.
Reading the history written in the last two decades, we find that
new forms of identity and memory have assumed importance for
historians. Fernand Dumont (1927–97), a sociologist associated with
the Quiet Revolution in its early years and with its objectives of
modernization, was also comfortable with the place he accorded to
the Roman Catholic Church, his own village of Montmorency, and his
ethnic and cultural particularities as a French Canadian. Partial to
the passionate national histories written by Jules Michelet and
François-Xavier Garneau, Dumont emphasized that the historian’s
commitment to objectivity in the creation of national memory was
only one part of a duality that included a recognition of his own
subjectivity (1995: 33).
A younger generation of intellectuals – and particularly the
sociologist and historian Gérard Bouchard – have forcefully rejected
Dumont’s vision of a Quebec nation based on “a cultural entity” – on
ethnicity or French-Canadian culture. Instead, Bouchard has posited
construction of a nation based on civic and territorial commonality.
Reworking the title of Dumont’s Genèse de la société québécoise
into a broader Genèse des nations et cultures du Nouveau Monde,
he argued that Quebec is “a new collectivity, like all the collectivities
of the Americas and Australasia, but contrary to most of them, it has
not had the opportunity to fully express the dreams of the New
World” (2000: 75). Jocelyn Létourneau (2004: 44) has in turn rejected
Bouchard’s view as one-dimensional in its focus on independence
and as “imbued with a perennial melancholy.” Bouchard himself
seems to have taken an ideological turn, telling Quebecers in the
Bouchard-Taylor Commission report (86) that they “must not don the
victim’s mantle” and must reject “the scenario of inevitable
disappearance.”
The referendum of 1995 overshadows other political events in the
recent history of Quebec, giving critical focus to the province’s place
in the Canadian federation – and equally to redefinitions of how the
rest of Canada should react to the secession of one of its central
components. The 1998 Supreme Court opinion on the constitutionality
of a unilateral declaration of independence led to the 2000 Clarity Act,
which established federal ground rules for a breakup. This act was
unanimously rejected by the National Assembly.
The authors have been writing together for two decades, and
perhaps our liveliest debates have been on the long-term prognosis
of independence. The 1995 referendum on independence – which
was defeated, but by less than 1 percent of voters – speaks to the
deep division concerning Quebec’s future in Canada. Jacques
Parizeau’s election-night blaming of ethnics for the defeat and the
ongoing angst of anglophones about their future in Quebec
encouraged us to increase the emphasis on ethnicity and the
anglophone minority, a tendency continued in the fourth edition.
One of the original aspects of this book, we feel, is its treatment of
periodization, which we have tried to refine over this work’s several
editions. Here we offer a new periodization of the recent period, with
an updated chapter on the years since the early 1980s. The past
decades have been marked by phenomena such as AIDs, economic
conservativism, a communications revolution, and environmental
and social concerns. These have been accompanied by important
demographic change, particularly the aging of Quebec society. The
failure of the first referendum and the patriation of the Canadian
constitution brought new parameters to Quebec society. A major
theme of this last chapter is the evolution of what has been called
the “Quebec model” – the use of the state in sectors ranging from
higher education to hospitals, and the use of public capital to
intervene in the economy. We have increased the number of
illustrations, improved the bibliography, simplified terms, and tried to
make the text more user-friendly.
 Introduction

This work interprets Quebec history in a socio-economic framework,

based on a re-evaluation of the traditional periodization. It is part of
an ongoing historiographical debate in Quebec. Ronald Rudin (1992)
has suggested that we, along with other “revisionist” intellectuals,
have played down the influence of Catholicism in favour of
emphasizing materialist factors and Quebec’s “normality” as a North
American society. We certainly see economic conditions, class,
gender, and race as central to the Quebec experience, but we hope
that the reader will see that this work also gives full treatment to the
place of ethnicity and religion in Quebec society, and insists on
Quebec’s distinctness.
Regionalism is important in Quebec. Life in the Gaspé and on the
Montreal plain, for example, has always been very different.
Variations in dialect, economy, and social structure differentiate the
francophone populations of the Saguenay, the Eastern Townships,
and the Ottawa Valley. At the same time, the worker in the
snowmobile factory in Valcourt is separated by profound class
differences from members of the Bombardier family, although they
share a similar cultural heritage. Ethnic and cultural differences, the
structure of capitalism, and the particularity of a metropolis have
increasingly set Montreal apart from the other regions of the
province.
Social history, with its emphasis on long-term evolution in social
and economic relations, and feminist history with its questioning of
traditional political categories, have caused historians to reflect on
periodization – the division of history into periods. Without denying
the importance of political events such as the Conquest or
Confederation, we have subordinated them to a socio-economic
framework that explains them in a broader perspective. Our view of
periodization is close to that of Gilles Paquet and Jean-Pierre Wallot
(1982), but although we agree with their concept of the process, our
time periods are different, and we relate our periodization closely to
the passage of Quebec through distinct modes of production and
exchange. Property and other forms of economic power, the law,
social structure, institutions, and gender are central to our focus.

Figure 1
Quebec: Physical characteristics and regions
Until the 1650s, the aboriginal people had the demographic
superiority, power, and cohesion to remain dominant, and European
trading networks remained reliant on prehistoric native exchange
systems. The preindustrial period, from the 1650s to the 1810s, was
first characterized by a rapid decline in native strength. By the late
seventeenth century, a rapidly maturing colonial preindustrial society,
based on a peasant economy and commercial capitalism, had been
established. Europeans had gained control of the trading areas, and
the seigneurial, legal, religious, and administrative institutions took
shape.
 We join Robert Sweeny (1986), Joanne Burgess (1988), and Serge
Courville and Normand Séguin (1989) in seeing the end of the
Napoleonic Wars as the benchmark from which we can discern
fundamental changes in forms of production and social, capitalist,
and political relations. Transition to industrial capitalism in the 1810s–
80s period was admittedly uneven, and the persistence of
preindustrial characteristics in some sectors of the economy and in
some regions must not be discounted. Early industrialization was
complex; wage labour was often introduced, or the scale of
production changed, before new technology arrived. Immigration and
urbanization were important characteristics of this period. The end of
the Napoleonic Wars marked the beginning of a change in British
attitudes towards their Canadian colonies, a process that culminated
in responsible government, federalism, and Confederation. By mid-
century the form of the modern state can be discerned in institutions
such as schools, in the land registry system, colonization roads, the
dismantling of seigneurialism, and the establishment of the Civil
Code of 1866. The period before 1837 saw an important rise of
nationalism among the francophone professional class, as well as a
renaissance of the Roman Catholic Church.
The half-century from the 1880s – when the National Policy and
completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway symbolized the
formation of a pan-Canadian state – to the 1930s can be
characterized as the period of monopoly capitalism. Quebec had
been the traditional manufacturing centre of Canada, and with its
abundant natural resources it became important in mining, electricity,
and pulp and paper. Capital in these and other industrial sectors was
concentrated in the hands of anglophones; francophones turned to
regional and cooperative sources of capital. In this period, the
Roman Catholic Church reached its social and political zenith.
Monopoly capitalism had particular consequences for women.
Catholic ideology and Victorian ideals forced bourgeois women to
channel their energies into home, family, and philanthropic activities,
while working-class women often served as cheap factory labour in
addition to their domestic and child rearing responsibilities.
 The crisis of capitalism in the 1930s led people to question the role
of the state and the nature of capitalist society. The years between
the Depression and the 1960s were transitional, and it is appropriate
to deal with them as a distinct period. The reforms proposed by
Catholic intellectuals such as Lionel Groulx, Georges-Henri
Lévesque, and members of the École sociale populaire ranged from
corporatism to statism and included independence. In the years after
1929, the diminishing demand for Quebec’s raw materials, farm
products, and manufactured goods was reflected in massive
unemployment and poverty. The incapacity of Catholic agencies to
deal financially with these needs undermined the power of the
church and forced the state to intervene. Provincial government
expenditures in health, social services, and education rose from $60
million in 1933 to nearly $600 million in 1959.
In ways that were prescient of the Quiet Revolution, the Second
World War triggered modernization of the political and economic
structures. Women received the provincial vote; a massive number
of married women entered the paid labour force; education was
made compulsory for children under fourteen; Hydro-Quebec was
established; and important labour legislation was enacted.
The Quiet Revolution emerged from this period of economic
depression, war, and reconstruction. With a growing sense of their
collectivity, Quebecers reordered their society, granting a larger role
to the state in the economy and in health and education. The
nationalization of electricity was broadened, education became
secular and democratic, and universal health care was implemented.
In the same period, nationalism became a strong force. Language
assumed a new centrality as francophones questioned their place in
the Canadian federal state, a development that resulted in the 1980
referendum on sovereignty.
A demographic transition was complete by the mid-1980s as the
birth rate declined to one of the lowest in industrial countries. The
divorce rate rose dramatically after the federal divorce law of 1968,
and single-parent families, usually headed by women, became more
common. Women pressed for a redefinition of their position in
Quebec society, both in the workplace and with respect to issues
such as abortion and birth control. In public life, women gained
limited power in the civil service, the courts, unions, and the cabinet.
The decline of manufacturing in favour of the tertiary sector and
Montreal’s slipping importance in the pan-Canadian economy
(already evident in the 1930s, when its stock exchange was
superseded by Toronto’s) was symbolized by the transfer of many
head offices to Toronto. The process was most notable in the
financial sector.
The main objectives of the Quiet Revolution had been met by the
mid-1980s when new issues emerged – globalization, public debt, an
aging population, aboriginal resistance, and the environment. Free
trade agreements have produced tremendous pressures to conform
to the United States’ social model, threatening the welfare state and
increasing disparities between rich and poor. The national question
became more divisive leading up to the 1995 referendum and the
resignation of Jacques Parizeau as premier. The issues of ethnicity,
the place of immigrants, and the nature of Quebec citizenship remain
unresolved.
Women have been absent from elite history because until recently
they did not formally participate in politics, the professions, or the
army. Consideration of women’s experience is fundamental to our
periodization and socio-economic perspective. Nonetheless, the
debate over whether women’s history – or, for that matter, aboriginal
history – should be separated from traditional history presents an
ongoing organizational dilemma.
Not all aspects of Quebec history can be treated in a brief work.
For some important issues, such as the environment and the North,
research remains preliminary. We see this book’s vocation, then, as
twofold. It gives an overview of the main elements of Quebec’s
history and at the same time addresses important interpretive
questions. It is our modest wish that the book will serve to reinforce
the maxim that “all history has to be looked at again.”
A word about using the book and about further reading: at the end
of each chapter is a bibliographical note that directs the reader to
general works on the subjects treated in that chapter. This is
supplemented by a larger and more comprehensive general
reference list at the end of the book.
The changing political reality of Quebec poses problems of
terminology. In the period of New France, for example, the French
inhabitants of the St Lawrence Valley were called “Canadiens”; in
British North America they were known as “new subjects,”
“Canadiens,” and “Lower Canadians.” After Confederation, “French
Canadian” was commonly used and, more recently, “Québécois.”
Although they are neologisms, we use the terms “francophone” and
“anglophone” to distinguish between the two main cultural
communities of Quebec. Contemporary designations are more
correct in an historical perspective and are occasionally used in the
text, but they are not without ambiguity to readers. The English-
speaking population of Quebec is heterogeneous, and here too the
terms “English,” “Scot,” “Irish,” and “American” are used to
understand particular events. The term “anglophone” is used when
members of these different English-speaking communities acted in a
common fashion.
The variety of currencies and units of measurement poses
problems as well. French livres were commonly used until the mid-
nineteenth century, overlapping with various British currencies after
the Conquest. With the introduction of banking institutions in the
1820s, the dollar rose in importance and was formally adopted in 1862,
when six livres equalled one dollar and £1 Halifax equalled four
dollars. Throughout the text, the currency used reflects that of the
document. The metric system has been adopted throughout.
A Short History of Quebec
A Short History of Quebec
 1
The Native People and the Beginnings
of New France

The perception of the history of early Canada has been coloured by

the writings of European travellers and missionaries eager to
promote settlement or Christianity. From this eurocentric perspective,
the native people were never more than a backdrop to the heroics
surrounding the establishment of European communities in North
America. Early Canadian history therefore needs to be refocused,
with more emphasis on the original inhabitants. Several millennia
before the arrival of Europeans, aboriginal people were coping with
the harsh North American environment while also evolving intertribal
relations. Until the mid-seventeenth century, Europeans were a small
minority on the continent who had to adjust to native ways of
conducting trade and war. Since the 1960s, the work of archaeologists
and ethnohistorians has contributed to a better appreciation of
aboriginal history and its centrality in understanding early New
France (Trigger 1985).
The interpretation of the pre-1663 period as the “Heroic Age” of
French colonization is a good example. Even anthropologists such
as Bruce Trigger, who has studied this era from the viewpoint of the
native people, have been unable or unwilling to break with this
traditional benchmark. Yet 1663, when the French crown assumed
direct control of the colony, was essentially only a political point of
reference; it had little significance for the colony’s developing
economic and social structures and had even less importance for
native people. The aboriginal people played a decisive economic
role in enabling a French colony to take shape along the St
Lawrence; and if we accept their importance, then the first major
turning point of the postcontact era is the demographic and
economic upheaval created by the dispersal of the Huron in 1650.

PRECONTACT NATIVE SOCIETY

Native oral traditions invariably maintain that a Creator placed
humans on earth in North America at the beginning of time.
Archaeological evidence indicates that the ancestors of the native
people were hunters who crossed the Bering Strait from Asia some
40 000 years ago and spread through North and South America. After
the retreat of the glaciers more than 10 000 years ago, hunters moving
into eastern Canada followed herds of caribou and other game.
About 3000 years ago the climate stabilized, creating an environment
in which the population could increase and spread across the region
that is now Quebec. The food supply came from fish, migrating birds,
and mammals such as moose, deer, and caribou. This meat diet was
supplemented by wild berries and nuts. Fish, fowl, and vegetation
were scarce in winter, and survival depended on ideal weather
conditions and heavy snows, which slowed down the prey. The size
of the population was therefore limited by seasonal fluctuations in
the meat supply (Clermont 1974).
The cultivation of plants developed in South and Central America
about 9000 years ago. This practice spread northward, and by about
AD1000 most peoples in what is now southern Ontario and Quebec
had begun to raise corn, beans, and squash. In these societies,
summer food surpluses fed the population during winter and broke
the link between population growth and limited seasonal resources.
On the Canadian Shield, however, soil and climate conditions
prevented the development of horticulture, and although corn was
obtained through trade, the population in this region remained
sparser than farther south. By the time of European contact in the
sixteenth century, the North American population was divided into
complex band, tribal, cultural, and linguistic subgroups. The
northeastern quarter of the continent contained three separate
language stocks: Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Inuit (figure 2). Within
these three groups there were many different dialects. Language did
not necessarily correspond with economic and cultural delineations.
Most Algonquians in Canada were seminomadic hunters, for
example, but those living along the present-day New England
seaboard practised horticultural subsistence similar to the Iroquoian
peoples of the lower Great Lakes.
The precontact period was one of great cultural development, in
which villages became larger, warfare more widespread, political
structures more complex, and funeral rites more elaborate, while
pottery design took on distinctive regional characteristics (Trigger
1985: 100–8). During this period most of the peoples of the northeast
adopted the behavioural patterns that were observed by the early
European travellers, such as funerary ceremony and political
organization into confederacies. It must be remembered, however,
that aboriginal societies were undergoing constant change, which
was accelerated by the coming of Europeans.
Figure 2
Aboriginal people at the time of European contact: Language groups and tribes. It
is important not to confuse the Iroquoian speakers with the Iroquois Confederacy.
The confederacy was one group of Iroquoian speakers, made up of the Mohawk,
Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca peoples.
While the exact size of the precontact population cannot be
determined – even estimates for well-studied people such as the
Huron vary by 50 percent – it is clear that North America was not a
virgin land at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The Algonquian-
speaking groups in central and eastern Canada numbered some 70
000, and another 100 000 lived in New England. About 100 000
Iroquoians lived around Chesapeake Bay, the lower Great Lakes,
and along the upper St Lawrence Valley. The Inuit, inhabitants of the
Canadian Arctic, numbered perhaps 25 000, of whom 3000 lived in
northern Quebec and Labrador. These native peoples can be divided
into two broad categories of subsistence, determined by local
environment and resources: the seminomadic hunters of the Arctic,
the Canadian Shield, and the Appalachians; and the sedentary
horticulturalists of the St Lawrence Lowlands. The subsistence
pattern of the seminomadic peoples was dictated by a sharply
defined seasonal cycle. During winter, the population divided into
small bands, which moved into the interior in search of moose,
caribou, deer, and bear. When conditions made it difficult to capture
these larger mammals, beaver and otter were hunted. It is estimated
that a hunter in Quebec had to kill twenty to thirty beaver, seven
moose or caribou, and a bear for his family to survive through a
winter (Clermont 1974).

A Cree woman arranging firewood outside her lodge. Illustrations of aboriginal

people from the early historical period are highly stylized and often contain many
inaccuracies, but more recent pictures can be helpful in reconstructing traditional
life. This photograph, taken by Hudson’s Bay Company trader A.A. Chesterfield, in
the Ungava District at the beginning of the twentieth century, shows a Cree
caribou-skin lodge and, on the left, a toboggan. The woman and child are both
clad in caribou skins and, apart from a cloth handkerchief tied round the woman’s
head, show little European influence.
Early European observers echoed Jesuit Pierre Biard’s
observation that “if the weather then is favourable, they live in great
abundance; but if it is against them, they are greatly to be pitied and
often die of starvation” (1616). In spring, individual bands returned
from their winter hunting grounds in the interior and formed larger
groups at propitious sites near lakes, rivers, or the Atlantic, where
they lived on fish and shellfish, migratory birds, fruit, nuts, and small
game. “Free from anxiety about their food” (Thwaites 1896–1901, 3:79–
81), they bartered with neighbouring bands and had time for social
activities. Warfare was not an important part of these people’s
existence; if it occurred, it was carried on during the summer months.

An Iroquoian longhouse at Lanoraie. This artist’s conception of an Iroquoian

longhouse near Montreal is based on archaeological evidence found at the site.
The only important interior division in a longhouse was the grain storage area at
one end.
The technology of the seminomadic peoples was utilitarian. Since
transportation was so important for their subsistence, their birchbark
canoes were superior to those of the sedentary groups, and their
moccasins, beaver robes, snowshoes, and long, narrow toboggans
enabled them to travel warmly and easily through snow and forests.
Other aspects of their material culture were less developed: apart
from birch-bark bowls and hunting and fishing gear, they had few
utensils. Knives and arrowheads were made of stone, and needles
and harpoon heads of bone and antler. Their conical lodges, covered
with bark in the summer and skins in the winter, were easy to
dismantle, transport, and reconstruct. With a radius of only two to
three metres and inhabited by up to a dozen people, these lodges
were used for sleeping and for shelter on the coldest days, but most
of their activities took place outside. A fire in the centre of the lodge
served for both cooking and heating. Although some smoke escaped
through a hole in the top of the lodge, these dwellings were stuffy
and caused severe eye infections.
The Iroquoian peoples were sedentary, living in palisaded villages
joined by networks of trails. Longhouses, the main structures in their
villages, were twenty to thirty metres long and six or seven metres
wide. Constructed of wooden supports that were tied together and
covered in bark, the longhouse had few interior divisions. Each
longhouse had four or five fireplaces, around which several related
families worked, played, ate, and slept. Raised platforms along each
side provided storage and sleeping space. Villages had populations
of about 1500 and occupied the same site for about fifteen years, or
until the surrounding soil or the firewood supply was exhausted.
Figure 3
The Huron and St Lawrence Iroquoian subsistence calendars and sexual division
of labour. Iroquoians in general had the same subsistence patterns, with minor
variations caused by environmental differences. The life cycle of the various
species of fish and game determined a fairly rigid calendar, in which men left the
village from midwinter to late autumn. Hunting was a more important activity for the
St Lawrence Iroquoians than for the Hurons, and their fishing was concentrated
over longer periods during the spring and autumn. This left less time for winter
socializing (Chapedelaine 1989: 120–1).
Iroquoian life also followed a seasonal pattern (figure 3), though
horticulture freed these people from the winter survival crises of their
seminomadic neighbours. Iroquoian women worked in village fields
growing corn, beans, squash, sunflowers (for seeds and oil), and
tobacco. Women’s work also included collecting firewood, making
pottery, cooking, and raising children. Men cleared new fields and
prepared new village sites. Although meat formed only a small part
of the Iroquoian diet, the men hunted beaver and Virginia deer in
February and in the autumn. Fish was the major source of protein for
the Hurons and St Lawrence Iroquoians, and spawning-season
fishing expeditions drew men away from their villages for several
months each year. Trade and warfare were other good-weather
activities that depopulated Iroquoian villages of their males. The
people socialized and practised crafts primarily in the winter, when
the community was together.
In addition to many of the tools and goods of their more
peripatetic neighbours, the Iroquoians produced horticultural tools
such as hoes, axes adapted to clearing fields, and pestles to grind
corn into flour. Since sagamite – a soup made of corn flour and fish –
was a staple in the Iroquoian diet, pottery cooking bowls were an
essential part of Iroquoian craftwork. These people were also skilled
at making reed baskets and mats and hemp fishing nets.
For all native peoples, the family was the basic social unit, and its
structure depended on subsistence patterns. Among hunters,
families were patriarchal, centring around a male head who was
respected for his skills. Family life in horticultural communities
centred around female members, who raised the crops essential for
survival. This structure was reflected in the organization of the
Iroquoian longhouses, which were inhabited by matrilineally related
families, often a woman and her daughters or a group of sisters. All
native peoples had incest taboos, and partners were chosen from
outside the kinship group.
Marriage had political and social significance. Among the
Algonquians it cemented bonds between different groups sharing
adjacent territories, while among the Iroquoians it reinforced the
sense of community by uniting members of the different clans that
made up a village. In contrast to European societies of the time,
young people chose partners without parental interference. In
aboriginal societies couples were normally monogamous, although
important Algonquian chiefs might have two or three wives as a
symbol of their power. Although divorce was accepted, it rarely
occurred among couples with children.
 Political organization centred around the tribe. In hunting
societies, the tribe was usually a loose association of bands which
met briefly in the summer; in these circumstances, unity was more
cultural than political. Summer gatherings were the occasion for
barter, storytelling, and games, and an opportunity for young people
to meet and court. Political discussions generally concerned external
relations, and band chiefs prepared war parties when the occasion
arose. Since hunters exploited vast sparsely inhabited territories and
had little contact with their neighbours, conflicts were minimal and
warfare was not an important activity.
Iroquoian society, with its farming, villages, and larger population,
required more organization and sense of community in order to
function. In every village each clan had a civil chief and a war chief.
The civil chief was responsible for order, religious ceremonies, trade,
and the changing of the village site, while the war chief determined
war and defence strategy. These leaders were chosen by clan
matrons from among suitable candidates in their own families. Chiefs
from each village met occasionally in tribal or league councils to
decide on matters of common interest and arrange joint war parties.
Women were not allowed to speak in village or tribal councils.
Conflict in horticultural societies was endemic because the denser
population increased tensions within the group and at the same time
added to external competition for both land and game. As well, when
horticulture was adopted, male activities such as hunting and fishing
were overshadowed, leading men to seek prestige through military
feats. Warfare strengthened community solidarity by focusing
aggression on an outside party. But rather than seeking to enlarge
territory, the aim was to capture individuals from other nations and
subject male prisoners to ritualistic torture (Viau 1997). Captives were
brought into the village and symbolically adopted into the family of a
recently killed warrior before being subjected to a long ceremony,
during which the whole community – men, women, and children –
spent hours mutilating the victim before opening the body and eating
the vital organs. The prisoner was expected to show his bravery by
singing his war song and threatening his tormentors. Women and
children captives were rarely tortured but were adopted and
assimilated.
Although differences in subsistence patterns influenced social
organization, all First Nations societies shared similar concepts of
acceptable behaviour; all believed that the supernatural influenced
daily life, and all divided labour along sexual lines. As well as
hunting, fishing, trading, and warring, the men produced spears,
bows and arrows, snowshoes, and canoes. Iroquoian men cleared
land for new village sites; small trees could be chopped down with
stone axes, but bigger trees had to be felled by stripping their bark
and burning the base. The women, in addition to bearing and raising
children, prepared food and hides, made clothes, collected firewood
and berries, and smoked meat and fish. Their other tasks depended
on the main subsistence activity of the people involved. Among
horticulturalists, women, aided by children, did all the tasks
associated with raising the crops. They also made pottery, baskets,
and mats. Whenever a band moved its camp, women in hunting
societies often carried the heaviest loads so that the men would be
free to pursue game en route.
Although early European observers often described aboriginal
women as drudges with little control over their own lives, the women
were in fact remarkably autonomous and enjoyed complete freedom
over their bodies, their sexuality, and the organization of their work
(Leacock 1986; Viau 2000). Mary Jemison, an Englishwoman adopted
by the Delaware, observed that native women’s labour was
comparable to that of white women, the main difference being that
“we [native women] had no master to oversee or drive us, so that we
could work as leisurely as we pleased” (Axtell 1985: 324). In contrast,
explorers and missionaries, failing to recognize the importance of
hunting (since in Europe it was considered a leisure activity reserved
for the nobility), described aboriginal men as lazy. The Europeans
based their opinions on observations in the villages; they did not
identify the men’s contribution to horticulture and rarely followed
them in their subsistence activities.
Native people valued individual freedom, disliked coercion, and
expected people to show each other politeness and respect. Social
control depended on community norms such as generosity, self-
sacrifice for one’s family, and stoic acceptance of adversity. Social
control was generally enforced by relatives, with family members
responsible for their kin’s transgressions. To avoid being involved in
feuds within one’s nation or with an allied nation, families paid
reparations, which depended on both the seriousness of the crime
and the sex and status of the victim. In cases of murder, for example,
the slaying of a Huron chief would require greater compensation
than that of someone less important, and the compensation for a
women (forty beaver robes on average) was greater than for a man
(thirty beaver robes) (Trigger 1976, 1:60).
Chiefs governed largely through respect. Since they could not
order people to act against their will, there were consultations and
attempts to reach consensus. Only in the most rare and dramatic
forms of deviant behaviour (witchcraft, murder, and treason) did
councils execute members of their own nation (Trigger 1963).
First Nations society was based on communal sharing rather than
private accumulation. European concepts of property were unknown,
and this absence of familiar norms allowed the French to disregard
native claims to territory. Hunting bands had specific territories which
they exploited rationally in a cycle determined by the seasonal
availability of fish and game. Europeans perceived them as roaming
the woods, but in fact they followed predetermined routes, which
took them to the regions best suited to their particular subsistence
activities. Horticulturalists shared communal fields and well-defined
hunting territories and fishing camps. Hospitality and helping the
needy were considered great virtues, and those who accumulated
wealth were expected to be generous in providing the less fortunate
with food, clothing, and other necessities. Prestige was acquired
more by donation than accumulation.
Wampum consisted of beads made of polished shells and was used to decorate
clothing or to make armbands, necklaces, and belts. Wampum was used in
diplomatic meetings to serve as a mnemonic device and, on belt or necklace,
accompanied the speech discussing each issue.
This principle can be seen in trade relations: goods were
exchanged in the form of presents, often of equal value. Trade had
social as well as economic connotations, and barter was usually
accompanied by feasts, games, speeches, and the smoking of
peace pipes. Trade in precious commodities – such as copper from
north of Lake Superior or wampum from Long Island – predated
European contact by hundreds of years.
By the fifteenth century, trade in the northeast increasingly centred
on the exchange of the sedentary people’s agricultural surplus in
return for the meat and fur surpluses of the hunters. The Huron, for
example, traded corn and tobacco for pelts with their northern
neighbours, the Nipissing and Ottawa. These aboriginal trading
systems later formed the framework for the rapid expansion of the
fur trade.
Since all First Nations people believed that most aspects of nature
– sun, moon, rain, and disease, for example – as well as certain
fabricated objects, such as fishing nets, were animate, religion
permeated daily life, and the supernatural was considered to be
responsive to human behaviour. Hunters contacted the spirit of their
prey to ensure success, and they disposed of inedible parts
according to a strict code so that the animal’s kin would not be
offended. The bones of a bear, for example, were carefully buried
rather than being thrown to the dogs. Gifts were made to the spirit of
the rain to ensure good harvests and to the spirit of the river for safe
voyages.
Because their spirituality commanded genuine respect for the
welfare of other life forms, the native people can be seen as the first
environmentalists. Historian Calvin Martin argues that native people
were willing to destroy the balance in nature and to hunt animals to
extinction in the fur trade because they believed that the diseases
afflicting them in the early seventeenth century were caused by
animal spirits. As disease spread, the native people thought that the
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 “Oh, that’s the sort,” muttered Rodney. “Well, she can’t be a
mother to me! Say, what sort of a chap is Watson? Know him?”
“Guy Watson?” Matty recovered her composure and her
equilibrium and frowned. “You won’t like him, I guess. We don’t, do
we, May? He’s—” she paused, searching for a word—“he’s coarse!”
“And ungentlemanly,” added May, nodding decisively.
“But I suppose,” said Matty, “we should also say that he is a very
good football player. And he is on the track team, too. He’s a Third
Form boy. Do you know him?”
“Not very well.” Rodney smiled. “I met him on the way up here.
He and three others.” Then he recounted the incident in the drug
store and the twins clapped their hands with delight.
“How perfectly splendid!” cried Matty. “Think of anyone getting the
best of Guy Watson like that!”
“He will be awfully angry, though,” said May. “I think you should
look out for him, Rodney. He won’t be satisfied until he gets even
with you, will he, Matty?”
“No, I’m afraid he won’t.” She regarded Rodney gravely and shook
her head. “I’m afraid you’ll have trouble with him. But perhaps—Who
do you room with?”
“Room with? I don’t room with anyone, I suppose!”
“Oh, yes you do. You have to.”
“I do?” asked Rodney gloomily. “If I’d known that I wouldn’t have
come. I didn’t want to, anyway!”
“Oh, but you’ll like it after awhile, really!” assured May earnestly.
“And if they put you in with a nice boy—Matty!” May’s eyes grew
round. “It’ll be ‘Kitty’!”
“Of course it will! Jack Leonard’s gone, hasn’t he?” Matty clasped
her hands in ecstacy, her blue eyes dancing. “You’ll room with
‘Kitty’!”
 “Who’s ‘Kitty’?” asked Rodney suspiciously. “A freak?”
“‘Kitty’ is Phineas Kittson,” began May, “and he’s——”
“No, May, no!” cried Matty. “We mustn’t tell him! It would just
spoil it!”
“So it would,” agreed May beamingly. “Oh, wouldn’t you love to be
there, Matty?”
“You mean when——”
“Yes, when——”
“Oh, wouldn’t I?” She gasped. “If we only could!” She turned to
Rodney and clasped her hands ecstatically. “Oh, Rodney, it’s going to
be such fun!”
Rodney arose and observed them disgustedly.
“I’m going,” he said.
 CHAPTER III
“WESTCOTT’S”

“A nd this is Rodney Merrill!” exclaimed Mrs. Westcott, beaming

upon him as she swept into the parlor with rustling skirts. “I’m
so glad to see you! And how nice to get here early! Doctor Farron
has told me all about you, my dear, dear boy, and we’re going to
make you so happy here at our wonderful school, so very happy!”
And Mrs. Westcott, shaking hands, beamed harder than ever. She
was a tall, thin woman with prominent features and a dark blue silk
gown that rustled. It was in that order that Rodney noted those
particulars. Her face was kindly if not very attractive, and her voice
quite pleasant.
“You had a comfortable journey, I hope? Won’t you sit down a
moment, Rodney? This is our parlor. We meet here in the evenings
and have such pleasant, homelike times. One or two of my boys sing
very nicely.” Mrs. Westcott sank rustling into a chair, folded her thin
hands in her lap and beamed. “The Doctor said you were fifteen.
That is right, I presume? Yes. And you’re to be a First Form boy?
Yes. Isn’t that splendid? I hope you will like us all very much. I have
such a fine family this year, such dear, dear boys! Perhaps you’d like
to go up and see your room? Your trunk and bag came and are
awaiting you upstairs. This way, if you please, Rodney.”
And Rodney, who had just seated himself uncomfortably on the
edge of a chair, arose and followed. The room, he had to
acknowledge to himself, was really rather jolly. It was at the back of
the house but had windows on two sides, each of which looked out
upon the campus. It was very nearly square and of good size. The
furnishings were neither elaborate nor particularly new, but there
was a generous study table covered with green baize—interestingly
adorned with cabalistic marks and ink stains—a sufficiency of chairs,
two single white-enamelled beds, two tall and narrow chiffoniers,
and a bench which, evidently of home manufacture, stood under the
side window and did duty as a window-seat. The floor was
uncarpeted, but rugs, the kind that are woven of old carpets, lay
about the floor. Everything was immaculately neat and clean. There
was something about Mrs. Westcott that forbade the thought of dust
or grime.
The walls were painted a light tan, and the woodwork about the
room was of varnished pine. The effect, with the rugs, whose
predominant color was brick-red, was decidedly cheerful. There were
no pictures—Rodney learned that denizens of the Westcott Cottage
were not allowed to hang anything on the walls—but the back of
one of the chiffoniers held a number of photographs.
“This will be your side of the room,” announced Mrs. Westcott.
“When you have unpacked your trunk I will show you where to put it
in the storeroom. In the closet”—Mrs. Westcott swung open the door
—“you will use the seven hooks to the left and half the shelf. Clothes
that are not in present demand should be kept in your trunk. You
will be able to get to it whenever you like. We have no washstands
in the room as the boys use the bathroom, which is just across the
hall, you see. In the coat-closet downstairs you will find blacking and
brushes for shoes. I hope you will keep your shoes looking nice. I
am very particular about that. We have a regular bathroom schedule
in the morning. Each boy is allowed ten minutes by the clock. Your
time will be from seven-twenty to seven-thirty. You will find the
schedule on the door. That is all for now.”
Mrs. Westcott, who had delivered the foregoing in the manner of
one repeating a well-learned lesson, paused for breath.
“Who’s the other chap in here?” asked Rodney, who, hands in
pockets, was still examining his quarters.
 “Your roommate,” said Mrs. Westcott, beaming again, “is Phineas
Kittson. Such a dear boy! You’ll like him, I know. He is a year older
than you, and in the Second Form. I hope you will be great friends.
Phineas is—” Mrs. Westcott paused and seemed searching for just
the right word. Finally, “so interesting!” she ended triumphantly. “Not
exactly like my other boys, you know, rather—rather exceptional. We
all expect great things from Phineas some day. He has such a—a
remarkable mind! Now perhaps you’d like to unpack and arrange
your things. The rest of my boys will be along very shortly. Two have
come already, but they’ve gone out. If you want anything, Rodney,
you’ll find me downstairs. Make yourself at home, my dear boy.”
When Mrs. Westcott had gone Rodney subsided into a chair and
grinned at the empty chiffonier. “She’s going to make me happy if it
kills me, isn’t she?” he inquired of the chiffonier. Then, with a
chuckle, he arose and again made the circuit of the room, testing
the bed by punching it, pulling open the drawers of the chiffonier,
and pausing at each window to take in the view.
The window at the rear, just at the foot of his bed, looked over the
back yard and across the intersection of two tree-lined streets.
Beyond that the foliage cut off his view, although he glimpsed the
copper-roofed turret of a building a block or so beyond. From the
side window the school buildings in the campus were in plain sight
across the street. There were four of them, all of red brick and
limestone; a large one in the center of the group with a tower at one
end, two others nearer at hand, and a fourth at the farther side of
the campus. The middle one Rodney rightly surmised to be the
recitation hall and the others dormitories. Maple Hill took care of one
hundred and fifteen pupils, of which number but ninety could be
accommodated in the dormitories. The newcomers usually had to go
to one or other of the half dozen private houses which, while run
independently of the Academy, were, as Rodney discovered later,
very much under the Head Master’s supervision. From the side
window Rodney lounged across to Phineas Kittson’s chiffonier and
viewed the collection of photographs there. Finding those but mildly
interesting, and having by this time returned to where his trunk and
bag reposed upon a rug near the hall door, he bethought him of
unpacking. The bag was quickly emptied and then he tackled the
trunk. It wasn’t easy to decide which things should remain in it and
which should be stowed in his half of the much too small closet. And
he was still in the middle of his task when voices and laughter and
many footfalls below told him that the rest of the household had
arrived. He paused with a Norfolk jacket, which had twice made the
journey to the closet and return, in his hand to listen.
“Hello, Mother Westcott! What’s the good word with you? Got
anything to eat?”
“That’s so, Mother, we’re starving! Look at my poor thin form!
Does it not move you to tears of pity? Say, Mother, got any cake?”
“Shut up, Tad, and get out of Pinkie’s way! That’s my trunk, Pinkie,
the one with the lock busted. You know my room. Say, Pete, lend me
a half till to-morrow, will you?”
Now and then Mrs. Westcott’s voice was to be heard, but for the
most part the boys’ laughter and chatter filled the house. Presently
heavy steps on the stairs indicated the ascent of Pinkie with a trunk.
Close behind him other steps sounded and a voice called:
“Jack, we’ve a new one! He’s in with Kitty!”
“Shut up! He’ll hear you,” a low voice warned.
“What of it? I haven’t said——” But the rest was drowned in the
general noise. There were three other rooms on the floor and the
new arrivals distributed themselves therein, still, however, keeping
up their conversation.
“We’ve got new curtains, Warren!” announced a triumphant voice.
“Get out! They’ve just been washed. I’ve got a new spread,
though. Mother always did love me best!”
“What do you think of that for favoritism! I’m going to kick! It isn’t
fair——”
“Tom!”
 “Hi?”
“Got my bag in there? Pinkie says he——”
“Heads out, fellows! See who’s coming!”
Rodney could hear the rush to the front windows, followed by
applause and cries of “Good old Kitty!” “Breathe deep, Kitty, breathe
deep!” “What’s your time, old man?”
Presently the last arrival entered the house and Rodney heard
Mrs. Westcott exclaim: “Why, Phineas, how well you look! You dear,
dear boy, I’m so glad to see you back again.”
A deeper voice answered, but as the uproar in the other rooms
had begun again Rodney heard no more. Desperately he doomed
the Norfolk jacket and the trousers that went with it to the trunk
again, and began to arrange his shirts in the second drawer of the
chiffonier. Rodney was rather proud of his collection of shirts. Most
of them had been bought in New York and were things of beauty,
especially the negligees, which ran to color combinations of lavender
and blue, pink and green and old rose and gray stripes. He was
assorting them carefully and approvingly and had for the moment
forgotten everything else when footsteps at the doorway caused him
to turn his head. What he saw was sufficiently interesting to put the
shirts out of mind. Not Mrs. Westcott, who was beaming from the
threshold, but the boy who was with her. Rodney, staring
wonderingly, thought he had never seen a more remarkable person
in his life. And he went right on staring, most impolitely, but quite
excusably, until Mrs. Westcott’s voice broke his trance.
“Rodney,” she announced, “this is Phineas Kittson. Phineas, dear,
this is Rodney Merrill, your new roommate. I just know you’re going
to be such good friends!”
“Great Scott!” thought Rodney.
 CHAPTER IV
PHINEAS KITTSON

P hineas Kittson, or Kitty, as he was called, was sixteen years of

age, but looked a year older. He was large—perhaps bulky would
be the better word—very broad shouldered, very deep chested. His
legs were short and so were his arms, giving him the appearance of
being all body. He had a large, round face, somewhat sallow, but not
unhealthy, of which the principal features were his eyes and his
mouth. The eyes were of the palest green and unusually prominent
and caused him to look as though he had just made a most
astounding, stupendous discovery and was on the point of breaking
into excited announcement of it. He wore a pair of rubber-rimmed
spectacles with big round lenses, which magnified his eyes to an
uncanny extent. His mouth was wide and very serious, turning down
at the corners as though in gentle disapproval of the world. His nose
was not remarkable, but appeared to belong on someone else, being
small and narrow and seemingly quite lost on such a broad expanse.
His hair was dark brown and stood in need of trimming. It also
appeared to stand in need of brushing, but later Rodney found that
brushing had little effect on Phineas Kittson’s hair. Its constantly
touseled appearance was due to the fact that it had never decided in
which direction to grow and so was trying them all. There was a tuft
over his left eye that grew straight, a tuft over his other eye that
grew down, a patch on the top of his head that curled to the right,
and a patch over one ear that shot straight out. And there were
other patches that were still experimenting.
Phineas wore a suit of some indescribable shade of grayish green
which looked as though he had slept in it, and carried in one hand a
much worn suitcase and in the other a brown straw helmet with a
green-lined brim and a metal peak on top for ventilation. Afterward
Rodney made the discovery that his hands were very small, as were
his feet, and that of the latter the left one was encased in a dusty
black Oxford and the right one in a low-cut Blucher that had at one
time been tan.
“How are you,” said Phineas, advancing and shaking hands. “Glad
to know you.” He had a deep, pleasant voice and spoke slowly,
pronouncing each word very distinctly. When he had shaken hands
he looked Rodney over attentively with his startled eyes and asked,
“Ever try inhaling?”
“I don’t smoke,” replied Rodney disapprovingly. The green eyes
blinked.
“Not smoke, air. Fresh air. Try it. Fine for the lungs. Take long
walks and inhale. Expand. Nothing like it, Merriwell.”
“Merrill,” corrected Rodney, amused.
“Beg pardon. I don’t remember names.” He placed his hat on the
table, sat down, got up, saw that Mrs. Westcott had gone, and sat
down again with a sigh. “Twelve minutes, twenty-eight and two
fifths,” he said.
“Indeed?” asked Rodney politely.
Kitty nodded gravely. “I’ve done better than that by nearly two
minutes. In the winter. Air’s better then. Lungs work better. It
follows, of course.” He seemed to demand an answer and Rodney
nodded gravely, too.
“Naturally,” he agreed. “What the dickens are you talking about?”
Kitty viewed him thoughtfully. “My fault,” he said after a moment.
“Thought you knew. Walking up the hill, you know. Station to house.
Twelve minutes, twenty-eight and two-fifths.” He pulled a stop-watch
from his pocket and studied it. Apparently satisfied, he clicked the
hands back into place again. “Warm to-day. Heat enervates the air.
There’s a difference. You’ve noticed it, I guess.”
 “I can’t say I ever have,” replied Rodney, turning again to his
shirts. “Must be quite a climb up that hill, though. Did you lug that
bag with you?”
“Yes. Forgot I had it. That counted against me, of course.” He
looked for a moment at the suitcase. Then, “Funny about my trunk,”
he meditated aloud.
“What’s wrong with it?” asked Rodney indifferently.
“Left it in New York. Ferry station. Forgot to recheck it. Got any
collars?”
“What size do you wear?”
“Oh, thirteen or fourteen, I think. I’ll borrow a couple. Thanks,
Morrill.”
“You’re welcome,” replied Rodney dryly. “It’s Merrill, though.”
“Of course. Beg pardon. What time is it? I forgot to wind my
watch yesterday.”
Before Rodney could oblige him with the desired information there
was a sound of approaching footsteps and voices in the hall, and in
a moment half a dozen boys whose ages varied from fourteen to
seventeen years flocked in. In deference to the stranger their
entrance was quite decorous. One boy, a youth of Rodney’s own
age, was grinning broadly, but the rest were politely serious.
“Thought we’d come in and get acquainted,” announced the eldest
of the six, a tall, nice-looking chap of seventeen, who was evidently
the leader at Westcott’s.
“Hello,” responded Kitty. “Funny about my trunk——”
“Never mind about your trunk,” laughed another visitor. “We’ve
heard all about it, Kitty. I wonder you didn’t forget to bring yourself!”
The others chuckled, and Rodney, a trifle embarrassed, smiled.
The boys seated themselves here and there about the room and
there was a painful silence. Kitty, viewing them absently, was
apparently deep in thought. Finally, with a laugh:
“Come on, Kitty,” said the eldest youth. “Introduce your friend.”
“Eh?” Kitty looked vaguely around the room until his eyes
encountered Rodney, still standing at the chiffonier. “Oh, yes. Beg
pardon. This chap’s name is—er—” Kitty paused at a loss and turned
inquiringly to Rodney. “What is it, now?”
“The same as it was a few minutes ago,” laughed Rodney. “It’s
Merrill, Rodney Merrill.”
“Glad to know you,” replied the older boy. “My name’s Billings.
This grinning ape is Mudge. Mr. Greenough is the thoughtful
gentleman at your left. Over there are Hoyt, Trainor and Trowbridge.
There’s no use waiting for Kitty to introduce. He’d fall into a trance in
the middle of it.”
Kitty smiled untroubledly. The others, having nodded, or, if near
enough, shaken hands, laughed. The irrepressible Mudge—Tad, for
short; Theodore Middlewich for long—removed the last vestige of
restraint.
“Welcome, Merrill, to our happy little home,” said Tad. “Hope you’ll
like us and our quaint ways. Pete, get up and give Merrill a seat, you
impolite loafer.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want to sit down,” replied Rodney. “I was
putting my things away.”
“Don’t let Kitty impose on you,” advised Tom Trainor, a slender,
light-complexioned chap. “If you don’t watch him he will have his
things all over the place. Sometimes he forgets which is his own bed
and goes to sleep in the other one. You got here early, Merrill.”
“I came on the boat from New York. It was very nice.”
“It’s nice enough once—or even a couple of times—” said Hoyt, a
short chap with a snub nose and a bored expression. “After that it’s
monotonous.”
 “I’d hate to be world weary as you are, Warren,” said Jack Billings,
dryly. “Well, we’re having early supper to-night, fellows, so we’d
better move along. Come in and see us, Merrill, when you get
straightened out. By the way, it’s Faculty Reception to-night; about
seven-thirty; better come along and meet the tyrants. We’re all
going—all except Kitty.”
Kitty looked across in greater surprise than ever and blinked.
“Thought I’d go,” he said.
“You think so, but you’ll forget it,” laughed Jack.
After the visitors had dispersed to their own rooms, Phineas
turned to Rodney and said, “I haven’t a very good memory for some
things. Sometimes I forget. They like to joke about it. I don’t mind,
of course. It amuses them, Maynard.”
“I see.” Rodney didn’t correct him this time. What was the use?
 CHAPTER V
RODNEY ENCOUNTERS WATSON

S chool began on Wednesday, and by Friday Rodney was pretty

well settled down in his groove. Finding his place at Westcott’s
was easy enough. As it happened he was the only First Form boy
there, although Tad Mudge, Warren Hoyt and Tom Trainor were of
his age. Phineas Kittson and Pete Greenough were sixteen; Eustace
Trowbridge—called Stacey—and Jack Billings were seventeen. On
the whole they were a nice lot of fellows, Rodney thought, although
they were rather different from the boys he knew at home. He liked
Jack Billings immensely; everyone did, he found; and he liked Tad
Mudge and Pete Greenough and Tom Trainor. Warren Hoyt he
thought disagreeable. Warren put on airs and pretended to be bored
by everything. Stacey Trowbridge was a quiet fellow who kept to
himself a good deal and was hard to know. Rodney thought that he
would probably like Stacey if he ever got really acquainted with him.
As for Phineas—well, Rodney realized that he would have to make
the best of that strange roommate of his. Not that Kitty caused any
trouble. He didn’t. Let Kitty alone and Kitty let you alone. He seemed
to live in a different altitude from the others, on some higher and
finer plane. He studied a good deal, had a wonderful memory for
lessons, and stood well in class. When he was not poring over his
lessons he was either exercising or reading books on physiology,
hygiene and kindred subjects, of which he possessed a veritable
library. When Kitty exercised he hung a pedometer from his belt,
took a stop-watch in hand, and walked violently about the country
for hours at a time. Kitty’s theory, as Rodney soon learned, was that
if a fellow developed his lungs properly his other organs would look
out for themselves. He talked a good deal about something he called
“glame,” and inhalation and expansion and contraction, and Rodney
got rather tired after a while of those subjects. But, on the whole,
Phineas was a well-meaning, good-humored chap who bothered no
one and who was quite contented to be left to his own devices.
The entering class that year numbered twenty-seven. Rodney had
a chance to look them over Thursday evening when the new First
Form held a meeting in the Assembly Hall and organized. A fellow
named Sanderson was elected president, and a youth named White
was chosen for secretary and treasurer. Rodney took small part in
the proceedings, but met, after the business meeting was over, quite
a number of his classmates. They seemed a decent lot, he thought.
They ranged in age from twelve to fifteen and hailed from seven
States, most of them living within a half day’s journey. Rodney was
the only Nebraska representative and came from farther away than
any of them, except one boy whose home was in Colorado.
So far he had not again encountered Guy Watson, and was rather
glad of it. Not that he was physically afraid of Watson, but he
anticipated trouble sooner or later, and, being a sensible chap,
preferred to avoid it as long as possible. One thing that amused
Rodney was the fact that no one had as yet connected him with his
brother, who had graduated from Maple Hill four years previous.
Sooner or later fellows would discover that the famous Ginger Merrill
and the unknown Rodney were brothers. Until they did Rodney was
satisfied to remain in obscurity, having no desire to shine in reflected
glory. He hadn’t been there twenty-four hours before he heard
Stanley’s name mentioned—they didn’t call him Stanley, however; he
was Ginger to fame. At Maple Hill they compared every promising
football player with Ginger Merrill, and each year’s team to the team
that Ginger had captained four years before. Of course, Rodney
knew that that remarkable brother of his had been something
unusual on the football field, but he didn’t realize Stanley’s real
greatness until he reached Maple Hill and heard fellows hold forth.
They spoke of Ginger almost with bated breath, at least with a pride
and reverence that warmed Rodney’s heart and made him wonder if
fellows would ever speak like that of him after he had been gone
four years. If they ever did, he reflected, it would not be because of
his prowess on the gridiron, for football had no place in Rodney’s
scheme. He liked to watch the game and could get as excited and
partisan as anyone over it, but as for playing—well, one football hero
was enough in a family, and Rodney had confined his athletic
interests to baseball and tennis. Of those he was fond, especially
tennis. He rather prided himself on his tennis. He had tried football,
had even played a whole season on a team composed of grammar
school youngsters in Orleans, but he had never become an
enthusiast, nor ever made a name for himself. If someone, ball in
arm, ran the length of the field and fell triumphant over the goal
line, it was never Rodney. Rodney played in the line, took his
medicine unflinchingly, did his best to give as good as he got, and
was always somewhat relieved when the final whistle sounded. No,
it wouldn’t be for his football prowess that posterity would
remember him.
Rodney had an interest in life, however. He liked to learn things,
all sorts of things; mathematics even. History had no terrors for him.
He could even find reasons to remember dates. Latin he liked
immensely, and Greek he found absolutely romantic, although, what
Greek he knew he had picked up almost unaided. Modern languages
—well, a fellow had to know French and German, of course, but
Rodney was less enthusiastic about them. Geography, physics, even
botany—all was grist that came to his mill. This love of learning he
had inherited from his father. Mr. Merrill had started in life as a
farmer’s boy, and by sheer passion for learning things had climbed
up and up until to-day at forty-five he was the actual if not yet the
official head of one of the biggest railroad systems of the country. Of
Mr. Merrill’s five children, two boys and three daughters, only Rodney
had succeeded to his father’s thirst for knowledge. Stanley was
smart enough and had managed to do fairly well at his studies both
at school and at college, but, to use his own expression, “he was no
shark.” Stanley was far more contented in the Omaha office of the
railroad than he had been in the classrooms. Perhaps Rodney’s
youngest sister, Eleanor, was more like Mr. Merrill than any of the
children save Rodney; although aged thirteen, her thirst for
knowledge took the form of ceaseless questioning.
At grammar school, back at home, Rodney’s friends and
companions had viewed his studiousness with surprise, and for
awhile with disapproval. Finding eventually, however, that aside from
his strange love for lessons he was very much the same as they
were, they forgave him his peculiarity. But at Maple Hill scholarship
was not regarded askance. In fact, Maple Hill rather went in for
learning, and Rodney found himself in congenial surroundings. Maple
Hill had its own local idiom, and in its language to study was to
nose, and one who was of professed studiousness was a noser.
Doubtless the word was suggested by the expression “with his nose
in his book.” At all events, Rodney became a noser, and settled down
quite happily and contentedly.
Of course, just at first there were some lonesome hours. In fact
there was one whole day of homesickness. That was Thursday. On
Thursday Orleans, Nebraska, seemed a terribly long way off and the
trees sort of smothered him, and the cool, crisp breeze that blew
along Maple Ridge brought an ache with it. But somehow on Friday
morning it was all different. He awoke to find Kitty lying on his back
in the middle of the floor, chastely attired in a suit of white and pink
pajamas, going through his first exercises. He had different ones for
almost every period of the day. Just now he was stretched at length,
inflating and deflating his lungs and making strange, hoarse noises
in his throat. Rodney looked on for a moment in amusement, and
then suddenly discovering that the sunlight streaming across the
foot of his bed was very bright, that the morning air held an
invitation, and that he was most terribly hungry, he made a bound
that just cleared Kitty’s prostrate form and was ready for anything
that fate had in store. And fate, as it happened, had quite a number
of things up its sleeve.
After breakfast—and, oh, how he did enjoy that meal—he had
only to cross the road, enter through a little revolving stile in the
fence, and follow a path for a short distance across the campus to
reach the classrooms in Main Hall. He went alone because none of
the other Vests were ready. It was the custom to wait on the porch
of the cottage until the morning bell began to ring and then make a
wild dash for the hall, arriving there just as the last clang sounded;
you say ‘Good morning, sir,’ and be quick about ten minutes before
the hour, but they were not deserted. Main Hall entrance was a sort
of general meeting place for the boys, a forum where all sorts of
matters were discussed before, between, and after recitations. This
morning the wide stones held some twenty youths when Rodney
approached. Two First Formers, sticking close together for
companionship, nodded to Rodney eagerly. He had met them last
evening, and now he would have joined them if fate hadn’t sprung
its first trick just then.
“Hello, little brighteyes!” greeted a voice. The appellation was
novel to Rodney, but the voice had a familiar sound and so he
turned. The speaker was Guy Watson. He was grinning, but Rodney
didn’t like the expression back of the grin.
“Hello,” he answered quietly, and crossed over to join his
classmates.
“Not quite so airy, please,” continued Watson. “A little more
respect, sonny. Now, then, try it again.”
He lolled over in front of Rodney, a frown replacing the grin.
Rodney was puzzled. “What is it you want?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you what I don’t want, you fresh young kid. I don’t want
any of your cheek. Get that?”
“I haven’t cheeked anyone,” protested the other. “You said ‘Hello,’
and I answered you.”
The boy next him was nudging him meaningly, but Rodney was
still at a loss. Watson sneered.
“Innocent, aren’t you?” he demanded. “Don’t they teach you
manners where you live? Where is that, anyway?”
 “I live in Nebraska,” answered Rodney.
“Nebraska, eh! Out with the Indians. Well, of course you wouldn’t
know any better. So I’ll explain to you, Mr. Wild West, that here at
Maple Hill a First Former says ‘Sir’ to Third and Fourth Form fellows.
Get that?”
“Yes, thanks. How was I to know you were a Fourth Former,
though?”
There was a ripple of amusement at that and Watson flushed.
“You’re supposed to know, kid. It’s your place to find out. Now, then,
let’s try it again.”
“Try what again?”
“You know what I’m talking about! Now you say ‘Good morning,
sir,’ and be quick about it.”
“Oh! That’s it? Why, good morning, sir. How do you do?”
“Cut the flip talk, now!” warned the older boy angrily. “You’re too
smart for this place, anyway. You need taking down, you do, and I
wouldn’t be surprised if you got what you need; I wouldn’t be at all
surprised.”
“Oh, let him alone, Guy,” protested another boy. “He’s new yet.”
“And he’s fresh, too,” answered Watson. “He can’t get off any of
his funny pranks with me, though.”
“That’s just his breezy Western way,” laughed the boy who had
spoken. “He’ll get over it.”
“You bet he will! And let me tell you something, kid, whatever
your name is. You owe Doolittle for four ice-cream sodas and you’d
better trot down and settle. First Formers aren’t allowed to have
tick.”
“I don’t owe Doolittle a cent,” replied Rodney firmly. “And if he
waits for me to pay him he will wait a powerful long time.”
 “Oh, you’ll pay all right,” laughed Watson. “You thought you’d
played a funny trick, didn’t you? Well, you got stung, kid.”
Rodney shrugged his shoulders. Watson, he decided, was getting
tiresome.
“Don’t do that!” exclaimed the other sharply.
“Do what?”
“Don’t shrug your shoulders at me! You pay Doolittle what you
owe or I’ll pay you what I owe. Understand?”
“What’s the row, Guy?” asked a quiet voice. Jack Billings suddenly
appeared at Watson’s elbow.
“Hello,” grumbled the latter. “It’s none of your affair, Jack. This
kid’s been getting fresh, that’s all.”
“Merrill’s in my house,” responded Jack, gravely. “What’s wrong,
Merrill?”
“You’d better ask him,” answered Rodney resentfully. “He’s been
nagging me for five minutes.”
“Oh, drop it,” advised another youth. “Let up, Guy, and forget it.”
“Don’t you get fresh, too, Billy,” warned Watson, turning to the
speaker. Billy laughed.
“All right, Mister Grouch. Want me to say ‘Good morning, sir?’”
“I want you to mind your own business.” Then, turning to Jack, “If
this kid’s in your house you’d better teach him a few things, such as
respect to upper form fellows, Jack. If he opens his mouth to me
again I’ll punch his fresh young head for him!”
“Then I’ll punch yours,” said a deep voice.
Watson swung around, looked, grunted, and grinned. Phineas
Kittson, blinking hard behind his goggles, viewed him calmly.
“Merrill’s a friend of mine,” went on Kitty. “Good fellow.
Roommate, fellow Vest, and all that, Watson. Mustn’t thump him,
you know. I’d make trouble.”
The assemblage, which had been increasing every moment, burst
into a shout of laughter. “Good old Kitty!” “Don’t hurt him, Kitty!”
“How are the lungs this morning, Kitty?”
“I’ll punch you, too, if you get gay, Kittson,” Watson informed him.
Then he swept the laughing throng with his gaze. “And if any of you
other fellows are looking for trouble——”
But at that moment the bell in the tower overhead began to clang,
and Watson’s belligerent voice was drowned. The boys swarmed up
the steps and into the hall, still laughing and joking. Rodney,
following, found Jack Billings beside him in the press. Jack put an
arm over the younger boy’s shoulders.
“Keep away from Watson, Merrill,” he said kindly. “He’s got a mean
temper. And don’t answer back. And never act fresh, Merrill.”
“I didn’t! At least, I didn’t mean to. He came up and——”
“All right. You can tell me about it some time,” interrupted Jack.
“Scoot along now. If he tries to make more trouble for you, get away
from him and come to me.”
And, with a smiling and reassuring nod, Jack pushed Rodney
toward the stairway.
 CHAPTER VI
RODNEY IS DISCOVERED

“T hanks for—for what you said to Watson,” said Rodney when,

after morning school, he was once more in his room in the
cottage. Kitty, pulling a heavy sweater over his touseled head—he
had a theory that the sort of sweaters that buttoned up the front
were not as good as the old style—emitted an unintelligible reply
from the woolen folds. “It was mighty nice of you,” went on Rodney,
watching with fascination the gradual appearance of Kitty’s moonlike
face above the neck of the garment.
“Nothing at all,” panted Kitty. “If he touches you come to me.
Overbearing fellow, Merrill.”
“Y-yes. He doesn’t seem very popular either, Kittson.”
Kitty considered. “Don’t know about that. Pretty well liked, I
believe. Fellows understand him. Plays good football, you know. Too
bad, though, about his lungs.”
“What’s the matter with them? You don’t mean he—he’s
consumptive?”
“Worse,” said Kitty solemnly. “Undeveloped. Never exercises them.
Too bad. I’ve spoken to him often. Begged him. No good. Laughs at
me. Show him some time, though. Where’s pedometer?” And Kitty,
armed for the fray, strode out.
Rodney saw him a moment later from the window. Head and
shoulders back, the faded brown turtle-neck sweater enveloping
most of his body, Phineas Kittson disappeared rapidly from sight
down the street, determination in every stride. Rodney smiled as he
lounged back to the table and searched for a book.
 “Queer old duffer,” he murmured.
Later Jack Billings sought him out and heard his story of the
trouble before school. “I don’t see that you were much at fault,” he
said finally. “Still Watson had an excuse, Merrill. You see, First Form
fellows are supposed to be respectful to the upper form fellows; that
is, the Third and Fourth Formers. It isn’t necessary always to say ‘Sir’
to them, but it’s proper to be respectful. Of course, when you get to
know an upper form fellow it’s different. For instance, you needn’t
stand on ceremony with me. None of the fellows in the house do,
because we all know each other pretty well. But if I talk to a lower
form chap from one of the dormitories or another house, I expect
him to stick the ‘Sir’ on. I dare say it’s sort of a silly idea, but it’s the
custom.”
“I didn’t know about it,” said Rodney. “I wouldn’t have minded
saying ‘Sir’ to him if I’d known that was what he wanted. The trouble
is, he’s peeved with me about that—that drugstore affair. And he
says I’ve got to pay Doolittle for the sodas they drank. That isn’t fair,
because I stipulated——”
“Where do you get hold of such big words, Merrill?” laughed Jack.
“Go on. You ‘stipulated’?”
“That if the fellow didn’t have what they called for the first time I
wasn’t to pay. And Watson said chocolate and he was out of that,
and—and so it’s got nothing to do with me!”
“And you knew there was no more chocolate and knew that
Watson always asked for it,” commented Jack, smiling. “On the
whole, Merrill, I don’t think it would do you any harm to have to pay.
It was—well, it was a little bit too tricky. Don’t you think so?”
Rodney considered. “Maybe it was,” he acknowledged at last. “But
I don’t think he had any right to ask me to stand treat, Billings.”
“Yes, he had a perfect right. It’s a custom and customs are laws
that haven’t grown up. While you’re here at Maple Hill you’ll have to
play the game the way we play it, Merrill. Now, if I were you, I’d
drop down to Doolittle’s this afternoon and pay up that score. If
you’re short of cash I’ll let you have it.”
“I’ve got plenty, thanks. It wasn’t that.”
“And that reminds me of another thing you ought to know,”
continued Jack. “First Form fellows are not allowed to have credit at
the stores. It’s in the rules. Perhaps you didn’t notice it.”
“I did, but I wasn’t trying to get credit. I didn’t intend to have
them charge those sodas to me. They hadn’t any right to, either.”
“No, not according to the terms of the agreement. But you played
a pretty sharp trick on Watson and he got back at you with another.
I don’t think there’s much choice between you. Take my advice and
settle. Then keep away from Watson until he has forgotten all about
it.”
“Well,” said Rodney unwillingly. “All right. I’ll pay. And after I do
he’s got to let me alone.”
“Watson? He probably will,” returned Jack soothingly. “Don’t let
him worry you.”
“He doesn’t,” said Rodney stoutly. “I’m not going to. He’s a regular
bully, though.”
“He isn’t so bad really, Merrill, after you get to know him a little
better. He’s hot tempered and he can be as mean as a pup when he
wants to be, but—well, I’ve known Guy to do some very decent
things. Besides, Merrill, it’s a mighty good idea not to start off
disliking anyone. You usually find out later that you are wrong, and
then you’re a bit sorry. And besides that, disliking folks hurts you
more than it does them.”
First football practice was held that afternoon, and Rodney,
nothing loth, accepted Tad Mudge’s invitation to walk over with him.
Tad had taken a great liking, it appeared, to the new Vest. Tad was
only five months older than Rodney and seemed even younger. He
was a gay-spirited, happily irresponsible youth with a ready laugh
and an inexhaustible flow of conversation. Tad was in the Second
Form and roomed with Eustace Trowbridge, who was as quiet and
reserved as Tad was talkative and frank.
“Leave your books here,” instructed Tad, piling his own on the
marble slab above the big radiator in the entry of Main Hall. There
were many other piles there already and Rodney added his. “No
good going over to the house,” continued Tad. “Just wastes time and
wears out shoe leather. Come on.”
There was a winding driveway that encircled Main Hall and led on
one side to East Hall and on the other to West Hall. The third
dormitory, known as Beecher, stood nearer the front of the campus.
Tad, however, didn’t trouble to follow the curve of the gravel road,
but struck off straight for the gate. There were several small signs
near at hand bearing the words: “Keep Off The Grass.” Rodney
nodded at one.
“Don’t those mean anything, Mudge?” he inquired.
Tad glanced at them contemptuously. “Oh, those!” he answered.
“Those are for the faculty.”
A gate at the back of the campus opened into Maple Street. Tad
led the way across the leaf-strewn road and through another gate
opposite. Here a wide walk ran straight between hedges. On one
side was a stone and shingle cottage, which Tad explained was
Doctor Farron’s residence. Rodney couldn’t see much of it for the
shrubbery, but what little was visible looked very attractive. A little
further along there was a break in the hedge, and another path led
across an expanse of turf to a two story building with a copper-
roofed turret in the center. This Rodney recognized as the building
he had seen above the trees from his window.
“That’s the gym,” said Tad. “It’s a peach, too. We’ll have a look at
it after practice.”
“Are those tennis courts beyond there?” asked Rodney.
“Yes. Do you play?”
“Yes, do you?”
 “I taught McLoughlin all he knows,” laughed Tad. “We’ll have a
game some day. Take you on to-morrow morning if you like.”
“I’d like to very much. I guess you’re better than I am, though.”
Tad observed him thoughtfully and shook his head in doubt. “I
don’t know. You look dangerous, Merrill. Say, what’s your other
name? Roderick, isn’t it?”
“Rodney.”
“That so? That’s some name, isn’t it? How’d you like to go through
life with Theodore pinned to you?”
“Seems to me I’ve heard of a Theodore who made quite a stir,”
replied Rodney.
“You mean Teddy? Bet you they’d have given him a third term if
his name had been John or William. Theodore’s a beast of a name.
I’m going to call you Rod. It’s easier than Merrill.”
They had come to another street and another gate and in front of
them spread a wide field of closely cropped turf that was just
beginning to lose its summer green. Two stands flanked a blue-gray
running track, within whose oval the white lines of a newly marked
gridiron shone brightly. Already the scene was a busy one. Practice
had not actually begun, but many candidates were on hand and a
greater number of fellows were grouped and strung about the edge
of the field to look on.
“That’s a dandy field!” exclaimed Rodney admiringly as his gaze
went off across to where a line of young willows marked the further
side of the enclosure.
“Almost seven acres,” said Tad proudly. “Bet you there isn’t a
better field in the country. And look at the view!”
Rodney obeyed. From where they stood near the entrance they
could look down over the dwindling houses of the end of the village,
and follow the course of the Hudson for many miles as like a broad
blue ribbon it wound slowly and majestically northward between
sloping hills of forest and meadow.
“That’s Milon over there,” explained Tad. “And Wickerstaff further
along. If you look sharp you can see Bursley. See where the railroad
goes through a cut there? Then look above and just a little to the
right. That’s it. You can see three or four of the buildings.”
“I do, but what is it? Bursley, I mean?”
Tad stared. “Why, Bursley School!”
“Oh!” But Rodney still looked mystified. “It is—is it a good one?”
“A good one!” groaned Tad. “It’s fierce! It’s our hated enemy, Rod.
We loathe it! That is, we do theo—theo—what’s the word I want?”
“Theoretically?”
“Yep, theoretically. Between you and me and—and the
grandstand, it’s a pretty fine place. They’ve got us beaten all hollow
on buildings and such things, only we don’t acknowledge it. But they
haven’t a field that can touch this. They’ve got more fellows than we
have, but at that we manage to wallop them about as often as they
wallop us. I think they’ve done us up at football fourteen times to
our twelve. Something like that. They beat us last year and three
years ago. There was once though when we got ’em three years
running. That was when Ginger Merrill— Say, your name’s Merrill,
too, isn’t it?” Tad turned to observe Rodney curiously. “Do you play,
too?”
“Football? Not much. I’ve tried it but never made it go very well. I
like baseball though.”
“So do I! They can keep their old football; give me baseball every
time! I played substitute outfielder last year on the second nine. Not
that I don’t like to see a good game of football, though. This fellow,
Ginger Merrill, I was speaking of was a wonder! Of course I never
saw him; he was before my time; but I’ve heard fellows talk about
him. They made him captain in his Third Form year! We beat Bursley
that year and the year before and the year after. He was captain two
years and I guess that shows that he was pretty good, eh?”
“I should think so,” replied Rodney as they moved on toward the
gridiron. “He must have been popular.”
“He was. I guess he was the most popular fellow we’ve ever had
here. You want to speak soft and cast your eyes down when you
mention him. He’s a sort of Saint, Saint Ginger!” And Tad chuckled.
“Funny your name should be the same though,” he went on
presently, when they had paused at the inner edge of the running
track and Tad had acknowledged the salutations of numerous
comrades. “He doesn’t happen to be a relation of yours, does he?”
“This Ginger chap? Why, do I look like him?” Rodney smiled.
“I’ve only seen his pictures, but—but I kind of think you do—just a
little. Still I guess if you were related to him you’d know it. So would
we,” he added with a laugh. “You’d be likely to mention it!”
“Who’s the tall fellow in the funny sweater?” asked Rodney.
“That’s Doyle. He’s captain. What’s the matter with the sweater?”
“Nothing except it’s a funny color.”
“It’s just faded. It used to be light green. I suppose you know that
the school colors are green and gray? Green for the maple trees and
gray for the rocks.”
Rodney nodded. “What’s Bursley’s color?”
“Punk! Red and blue. There’s Cotting, our coach. They say he
discovered Ginger Merrill.”
“Discovered him? How?”
“Why, saw that he had the making of a good player and—and
trained him. Taught him all he knew, they say.”
“Rot!” said Rodney. “Stanley knew football before he ever saw
Maple Hill!”
 “Well, I don’t know. That’s what I heard.” Tad swung around
suddenly and stared at his companion. “Look here, how the dickens
do you know so much about Ginger Merrill?” he demanded in
surprise.
“Why—you told me about him, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t tell you his name was Stanley, I’d forgotten it, they
always call him Ginger; I didn’t tell you he knew football when he
came here.”
“Didn’t you? I suppose—I’ve heard lots of fellows speak of him.
What’s Cotton doing?”
“His name is Cotting,” answered Tad, still eyeing Rodney
speculatively. Finally, when the other had refused to meet his glance,
he turned to look at the coach. “He’s taking the fellow’s names. A lot
of them are new boys. Why don’t you have a try, Rod?”
“No good. Besides I’m a bit young yet for the team.”
“Cotting likes to catch them young. Stacey began in his first year,
and now look at him.”
“Where?” asked Rodney.
“I mean look where he is on the team. Only a Third Form fellow
and first string quarterback!”
“Do you mean Stacey Trowbridge?” asked Rodney in surprise.
“Of course. The chap I room with. Why not?”
“Why—why, no reason at all, except—why, somehow he seems so
—so sort of quiet and——”
“Oh, he doesn’t talk much, but he can think like—like a judge!
Jack says we have a well balanced room; says all the talking’s done
on one side and all the thinking on the other!” Tad laughed. “But
Stacey is a wonder at football. You wait till you see him drive the
team some day. I guess it’s just because he doesn’t talk much that
fellows listen when he does.” Tad was silent a brief moment. Then,
“Guess I’ll try that myself,” he added thoughtfully.
The candidates, who had gathered around the coach, were now
dispersing in squads to different parts of the field. In all there
seemed fully sixty of them, and Rodney expressed his surprise.
“Oh, most of them don’t last long,” replied Tad carelessly. “After
three or four days Cotting will make a cut, and then a lot of them
will retire to private life. Finally he gets down to about thirty-two or
three. Then he divides that bunch into two teams, a first and a
second. Watch Tyson punt. He’s got the ball now. He’s a daisy at it.
Look at that! The chap running to catch it is Wynant. He didn’t get it
though. Gordon cut in on him.”
“Does Billings play?” asked Rodney.
“No, Jack’s baseball captain this year. He’s a dandy fellow. Don’t
you like him?”
“Immensely. He gave me a lecture this noon.”
“Jack did? What about?”
“Oh, about not disliking fellows at first, till you get to know all
about them. Other things, too.”
“Who is it you dislike? Me?”
“No, that Watson chap.”
“Oh, yes, Pete was telling me about Watson ragging you before
morning school. Watson’s like that. Still—” Tad thought a moment.
“Jack’s right though. Watson isn’t a bad sort after all. I’ll tell you
something——”
But Rodney didn’t hear it just then for Tad’s voice died away. A
few feet distant Cotting, Captain Doyle, and Guy Watson were
standing just inside the side line. “There he is now,” murmured Tad.
“And he looks as though he wanted to jump on me again,” added
Rodney. “Come on. I promised Billings I’d keep away from him.”
 Rodney turned to stroll away, Tad following, when a voice called:
“Tad Mudge!”
The boys turned. Captain Doyle was coming toward them,
followed by the coach and Guy Watson. “Wait a minute, Tad,” said
Doyle.
“Want me to take your place to-day, Terry?” asked Tad.
“Not to-day, Tad.” The football captain was a tall well built boy of
eighteen with coppery-red hair, gray eyes and a pleasant and
unmistakably Irish countenance. “Introduce your friend, Tad,” he
added, with a glance at Rodney.
“This is Merrill, First Form. Rod, shake hands with Captain Doyle.”
“Glad to know you,” said the captain. Then, turning to Coach
Cotting, who had joined them, “It’s Merrill, all right, Coach.”
Cotting smiled. “Thought I wasn’t mistaken,” he said, studying
Rodney with frank interest. “Shake hands, boy. Your brother and I
were pretty good friends.”
Rodney flushed. “Yes, sir. I—I’ve heard him speak of you.”
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