school was dismissed, and the next morning an astounding parade was shown on the walls. All of the animals Tularecito
had ever seen were there; all the birds of the hills flew above them. A rattlesnake crawled behind a cow; a coyote, his
brush proudly aloft, sniffed at the hells of a pig. There were tomcats and goats, turtles and gophers, every one of them
drawn with astounding detail and veracity.
Miss Martin was overcome with the genius of Tularecito. She praised him before the class and gave a short
lecture about each one of the creatures he had drawn. In her own mind, she considered the glory that would come to her
for discovering and fostering this genius.
“I can make lots more,” Tularecito informed her.
Miss Martin patted his broad shoulder. “So you shall,” she said. “You shall draw every day. It is a great gift
God has given you.” Then she realized the importance of what she had just said. She leaned over and looked searchingly
into his hard eyes while she repeated slowly, “It is a great gift that God has given you.” Miss Martin glanced up at the
clock and announced crisply, “Fourth year arithmetic – at the board.”
The fourth grade struggled out, seized erasers, and began to remove the animals to make room for their numbers.
They had not made two sweeps when Tularecito charged. It was a great day. Miss Martin, aided by the whole school,
could not hold him down, for the enraged Tularecito had the strength of a man, and a madman at that. The ensuing battle
wrecked the schoolroom, tipped over the desks, spilled rivers of ink, hurled bouquets of Teacher’s flowers about the
room. Miss Martin’s clothes were torn to streamers, and the big boys, on whom the burden of the battle fell, were bruised
and battered cruelly. Tularecito fought with hands, feet, teeth, and head. He admitted no honorable rules and in the end
he won. The whole school, with Miss Martin guarding its rear, fled from the building, leaving the enraged Tularecito in
possession. When they were gone, he locked the door, wiped the blood out of his eyes, and set to work to repair the
animals that had been destroyed.
That night Miss Martin called on Franklin Gomez and demanded that the boy be whipped.
Gomez shrugged. “You really wish me to whip him, Miss Martin?”
The teacher’s face was scratched; her mouth was bitter. “I certainly do,” she said. “If you had seen what he did
today, you wouldn’t blame me. I tell you he needs a lesson.”
Gomez shrugged again and called Tularecito from the bunk house. He took a heavy quirt down from the wall.
Then, while Tularecito smiled blandly at Miss Martin, Franklin Gomez beat him severely across the back. Miss Martin’s
hand made involuntary motions of beating. When it was done, Tularecito felt himself over with long, exploring fingers,
and still smiling, went back to the bunk house.
Miss Martin had watched the end of the punishment with horror. “Why, he’s an animal,” she cried. “It was just
like whipping a dog.”
Franklin Gomez permitted a slight trace of his contempt for her to show on his face. “A dog would have
cringed,” he said. “Now you have seen, Miss Martin. You say he is an animal, but surely he is a good animal. You told
him to make pictures and then you destroyed his pictures. Tularecito does not like that – “
Miss Martin tried to break in, but he hurried on.
“This Little Frog should not be going to school. He can work; he can do marvelous things with his hands, but he
cannot learn to do the simple little things of the school. He is not crazy; he is one of those whom God has not quite
finished.
“I told the superintendent these things, and he said the law required Tularecito to go to school until he is eighteen
years old. For seven years, my Little Frog will sit in the first grade because the law says he must. It is out of my hands.”
“He ought to be locked up,” Miss Martin broke in. “This creature is dangerous. You should have seen him
today.”
“No, Miss Martin, he should be allowed to go free. He is not dangerous. No one can make a garden as he can.
No one can milk so swiftly nor so gently. He is a good boy. He can break a mad horse without riding it; he can train a
dog without whipping it, but the law says he must sit in the first grade repeating ‘C-A-T, cat’ for seven years. If he had
been dangerous, he could easily have killed me when I whipped him.”
Miss Martin felt that there were things she did not understand and she hated Franklin Gomez because of them.
She felt that she had been mean and he generous. When she got to school the next morning, she found Tularecito before
her. Every possible space on the wall was covered with animals.
“You see?” he said, beaming over his shoulder at her. “Lots more. And I have a new book with others yet, but
there is no room for them on the wall.”
Miss Martin did not erase the animals. Class work was done on paper, but at the end of the term, she resigned her
position, giving ill health as her reason.
Miss Morgan, the new teacher, was very young and very pretty; too young and dangerously pretty, the aged men
of the valley thought. Some of the boys in the upper grades were seventeen years old. It was seriously doubted that a
teacher so young and so pretty could keep any kind of order in the school.