|ALL day long the little boy was with the School-teacher. The child and
the dog watched for the man to come out of the forest in the morning.
When the dog barked, the little boy would say:
“Nim, see Teacher.”
The woman standing before the door watched for the three of them to come
out of the forest in the evening. She listened for the laughter, the
voices, the barking of the dog. The sense of perfect understanding among
the three of them was to her a perpetual wonder. The child had only a
few words, the dog had none. How could the man know so well, what they
meant? It was a wonder that she turned about, and at last, out of the
deeps of her own feelings, she got an answer that she held to.
“If you love a thing enough, it's goin' to understand you.”
The relation of the School-teacher to this tiniest child was also that
of his relation to every other one. The sense of it spread throughout
the school. This school became a family. What the cheerless home
withheld, it gave. No child could have told one what that was.
The teacher understood him, would have been the answer.
The School-teacher required no built-up explanations, he required no
justification of one's act by the unfamiliar standards of another, he
required no trick, no artifice, no pretending, to get on with.
To the question, “What is he like?” a little boy had answered, “Why,
just like me.”
For some time there had been a secret in the school.
The School-teacher had talked with every child apart. The talk had been
confidential. The School-teacher had spoken with each one, even the
tiniest, as with an equal. He had spoken with him from day to day as
the occasion arose. It was the way of this secret to make the child with
whom he talked for a time unhappy. But as the School-teacher continued
each day to strengthen him, to show him how much he depended on him,
and to blow on the embers of his courage, he came at length to carry the
secret with equanimity.
On Thursday evening this secret became the common property of all. The
School-teacher was going away! There would be no more school!
On this afternoon the School-teacher had again talked with each child
apart, told him that the time of which he had spoken had now come, and
called upon him for the evidence of his courage. But, in spite of all,
when the hour arrived, the school broke down. It left the little benches
and gathered around the Schoolteacher. For a moment the Schoolteacher
hesitated, before the group of wet faces, then, one by one, he took each
child up in his arms, carried him to the window and told him something.
Something which he had not told him before. No one, outside of the
school, knew exactly what it was. But each child coming from the
School-teacher's arms was strengthened, and set out for his home, the
tears drying on his sturdy little face. An idea of what this something
was, afterwards arose. A little boy had said, “Everybody's a-goin' to
live at the School-teacher's house.” But he was in the extremity of
illness when he said it, and they thought he spoke in delirium.
It, was mid-afternoon when the Schoolteacher left the schoolhouse. He
was accompanied by the two children, Martha and David. The dog Jim went
before him and he carried the tiny boy on his shoulder. They went along
the road to the river, crossed on the stones and ascended the mountain.
The little boy fell asleep, his arms around the Schoolteacher's neck.
The two children walked beside the man.
For the most part they were silent. Finally they came to the little
clearing. The children stopped in the road, and the man went up onto the
cabin porch, the little sleeping boy in his arms. The woman at work in
the kitchen, hearing the footsteps, came out to the door. When she saw
who it was, she was surprised.
“School's out early to-day,” she said. “Yes,” replied the
School-teacher. “What's the matter?”
“It's the last day of the school.”
“Won't there be any more school?”
“No.”
The woman's lips trembled. “Then, then...” she said, and she began to
cry.
“Mary,” said the School-teacher, “have you forgotten what I told you?”
The woman sobbed,
“But it's come so soon.”
Then she looked at the little boy sleeping in the School-teacher's arms
and the tears streamed down her face.
“Now, what'll I do?” she said. “Now, what'll I do? He'll set there
by the door, him an' Jim, an' he'll look for you every morning, an'
whenever Jim barks he'll say 'Nim see Teacher,' but he won't never see
you.”
“Yes,” replied the School-teacher, “he will see me again.”
“Then you won't be so awful far away?”
“I shall never be very far away from him.”
Then he put the sleeping child into the woman's arms.
“Don't wake him,” he said, “and don't cry. Remember, Mary, that if he
should go with me, then he could not stay with you.”
He went down the road, and with the two children beside him, passed on
along the path. They went by the spring, with its keg sunk in the earth,
and up the mountain to Nicholas Parks' house. There, in the road, they
found the woman with the yellow hair, feeding the chickens, a measure of
corn in her apron.
“You're back early,” she said.
“It's the last day of the school,” replied the School-teacher.
The woman's whole body was convulsed. The corn spilled out of her apron.
Then she fled along the road, and up the path to the house. At the door
she stopped, turned about, and then huddled down by the steps, her apron
over her head.
The School-teacher bade the children await him, then he went up the
path. He passed by the woman and entered the house. Within the house, he
went over to the table by the wall, on which lay a little, worn, broken
toy, that had once been a wooden horse, a top whittled out of a spool, a
brass ring with its cotton ribbon, a Harlow knife, and little bunches
of wild flowers. These he took up, one by one, and put into the bosom of
his coat. Then he came out and closed the door. As he passed, the woman
put out her hand and touched him. And he stopped. For a moment he stood
looking down at the woman sobbing at his feet, the apron over her heed.
Then he spoke.
“Margaret,” he said, “is this how you will keep your promise to me?”
Then he went down the path, and, accompanied by the two children,
followed the road along the ridge to the little path descending the
mountain toward the mill. As the School-teacher walked he endeavored to
strengthen and encourage the two children. He bade them remember what he
had said, and not to cry. They managed not to cry when he left them at
the point where the path entered the road below. But when he was gone
out of their sight and hearing, in the direction of the schoolhouse,
they held to each other and wept.
They stood for a long time, there, in tears, holding to one another.
Then they heard sounds approaching and hid themselves. Two men rode past
in the direction of the schoolhouse. One of them carried a rifle across
the saddle before him.
A great fear fell on the two children and they followed at a distance.
They saw the two men dismount before the school-house, knock on the door
and enter. After a while they came out with the Schoolteacher.
They got on their horses and, with the School-teacher walking between
them, set out along the road in the direction of the town.