“And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew;
But past is all his fame: the very spot
Where many a time he triumph’d, is forgot.”
Goldsmith.
In a country where so many hundreds of eminent men have begun public
life by schoolmastering, it would be a great piece of affectation in me,
if I should employ any deprecatory expressions, or apologize for any
determination to repair losses by “taking a school.” The only apology
which now seems necessary, is for the presumption of dreaming that by
such an occupation any man could make money. In truth, I knew then as
well as I know now, that school keeping was not a specific for raising
the wind, but I did not know as well as I know now, that it was not in
public esteem a literary profession. Though not learned I was fond of
books, and took to teaching as I once fondly thought of taking to book
selling, because I fancied it would bring me into connections with the
wisdom of past ages.
My schoolhouse was on the edge of a pine forest, a few hundred yards
from where a brawling springhead burst out of the embankment of rock,
some miles from any human habitation. It was not favored with any
extensive distant prospects. Could I have perched with the crows which
abounded there on the top of some eminent tree, I might have seen the
broad but turbid Roanoke, sweeping its heavy tide around a neighboring
bluff. But we were shut in to forest scenes. No one who has lived among
them can forget the moaning sound made by even a gentle wind among the
great branches of the pines; or the solitude formed by their dark
surrounding shroud; or the mosaic of sunlight and shade on the earth
when rays break through the network of boughs. But the monotony was
oppressive, and I sighed for those lighter and varied traits of nature,
which belong to a less primeval state of the world. In quiet hours, the
wild-turkey’s cry would be heard in the brake; the shrill red-bird, and
the shy wood-lark were scarcely ever wanting; and several species of
squirrel made no stranger of me, but dropped nut-shells from the hickory
over the roof of my academy.
Take a view of the aforesaid seat of learning. The hour is noon. You
might take this long house of logs for a châlet in the Emmenthal, if it
were not for certain plain indications of another climate. There is a
hum of bees through a thousand vines and dogwoods. The song of birds has
lulled at this hour of heat, except perhaps the wearisome repetition of
his double note by the chewink. But this intermission brings out more
fully the music of the brook as it murmurs over the pebbles. The
“scorpions”—start not, gentle reader at this southern name of the poor
_lacerta_—peep round the gnarled bole of the pine, where the turpentine
reflects the burning ray. Two or three switch-tailed horses are tethered
in the oasis, ready to carry home double or triple loads of the young
academicians. Hats, sunbonnets, and even coats, are hung upon the alder
branches. Under the brow of the rock is a row of dinner baskets; and two
or three jugs of milk are immersed in the darkest, coolest corner of the
spring. Two fiddles and a flute are hid away among the broad leaves of a
grape vine that clambers up the bank. All this will be obscure to such
as have never gone to an “old-field school.” Inside, the scene is more
lively but less idyllic. By counting several who never appeared, I think
I made my school to number fifteen, as a maximum. Four or five short
wooden forms, with some sloping boards for desks, and a straw-bottomed
chair for the master, made up the compliment of furniture; for I
scarcely reckon a churn-like vessel at the door, duly _toted_ on the
head of a laughing negress, every half-hour, and emptied by two or three
gourds with fantastic handles.
One thing is certain—I was as autocratic as Nicholas or Crusoe. My
voice was the sole code of laws and often the text-book. The system was
the _sic volo, sic jubeo_. The hour of beginning was denoted by my
clattering up the pebbly path on my black steed, Rhinoceros. This
dispersed the squads around the spring, and broke up the concert under
the alders. Little Nanny Lee, who was the Jenny Lind of our community,
would sometimes carol away after my ferula had given its three knocks;
but we soon fell into places. Ours was a loud school. There was no
rubric enjoining silence. There was no reading to one’s self. Hark! the
grand overture is performed by the simultaneous play of tenore and
treble instruments. One piping voice is rehearsing the alphabet and
another the “twenty pence is one and eight-pence;” another is reading of
one who unrighteously ascended the apple tree and was experimented on by
fair words, grass, and other missiles. A croak between boy and man, is
galloping over the _quadrupedante putrem sonitu_; while Mr. Blaney (we
always called him Mister,) is in a dignified soliloquy over the
trigonometrical survey of a polygonal field, with half-a-score of
instruments laid out before him. If my ear serves me, there is a _sotto
voce_ addition of uncommanded recitations, concerning cats-cradles,
tit-tat-to, and jack-straws.
Scorn not—O ye, who court the muse in Gothic quadrangles, and alcoved
libraries, where the light colors your folio through “storied window,
richly dight”—scorn not, the lowly lessons of the Red Swamp
School-house! Its windows were not all glazed, nor were the crannies of
its logs all stopped; but the sun has seldom broken in on brighter faces
than some that were radiant in that little company. Though a few were
barefoot (how otherwise could they have waded for hours in the rippling
stream!) a few were the children of wealth. Among them was one who has
since held the ear of a senate. And among them was one—alas, that she
should have had me for a master!—who made deeper wounds than she ever
knew. But Judith—thou shall not have thy cruelty exposed!