WHEN JACK SOAPED THE CUPS

When I was in the second grade, we had no running water in our one-room school building, so each day the teacher dispatched two students to walk to a neighboring farm. Their mission: to carry back a large can of well water for us to drink. At the back of the room sat the water cooler and 30 or more cups, each one the property of a pupil. Mine was a blue agate tin with white flecks -- a real beauty.

One fateful day, following the afternoon recess, our teacher made a discovery that filled her with consternation. Someone had taken a bar of soap and coated the rim of several cups. We kids thought it was a good practical joke. It showed some imagination and a flair for the dramatic.

Our teacher saw it in a somewhat different light. She raged and stormed at us, demanding to know the perpetrator of the nefarious deed. You would have thought the unknown culprit had committed high treason. No doubt that’s how she saw it, as a traitorous challenge to her sovereignty. She told us we would stay in our seats until the guilty one confessed.

But nobody confessed.

Dismissal time came . . . and went. There were no buses; we all walked or rode bikes to school. So we sat.

It grew late. The shadows of the trees outside stretched across our desks in patterns we had never seen before. Some of the youngest began to sniffle. They wanted to go home; they were hungry. In desperation, our teacher issued a command: "put your heads down on your desks, close your eyes, and raise your hand if you soaped the cups." It was almost like an altar call at church, only in reverse. For a long time the only sound was the old Seth Thomas clock on the wall, tick-tocking away the time.

Then at last we heard a voice. It belonged to the older sister of Jack M. Jack was a third grader brave beyond his years, a boy as drawn to trouble-making as a vulture is drawn to road-kill. "I didn’t see Jack soap the cups," Jack’s sister said, "but he’s done it at home sometimes." That was as good as a confession for the teacher. We were all released, except Jack, of course. What punishment he received I never learned. But ever since that time, I have had an illicit admiration for miscreants who hang tough in the face of tyranny.

On that day, Jack M. was my hero.