Macdonald and I were comparing notes to-night.
"I found that Monday was always a noisy day in school," I said; "the
bairns were always unsettled."
"I don't find that," he said; "Friday is their worst day. I don't
understand that."
"Friday was my free day," I said.
"What do you mean by free day?"
"Every bairn did what it liked."
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Macdonald.
"That's nothing," I laughed, "why, I gave them a free week once."
"What was your idea. Laziness?"
"Laziness! My dear boy, I never put in such a hard week in my life. A
boy would come out and ask for a certain kind of sum, then a girl would
bring out a writing book and ask for a setting; by the time I had
attended to these, a dozen were waiting."
"Did they all work?"
"They were all active. Dickie Gibson spent the week in sketching;
Geordie Steel read five penny dreadfuls; Janet Brown played at anagrams;
Annie Miller read _The Weekly Welcome_; Ellen Smith worked arithmetic
all week and Jock Miller wrote a novel. Jock spent half his dinner-hour
writing."
"That's what a school should be," I added.
"Ah! So you think that reading penny dreadfuls is education?"
"Everything you do is education."
"So you say, but I want to know the exact educational value of penny
dreadfuls. My idea is that they do boys harm."
"That's what the magistrates say, Macdonald. They trace all juvenile
crime to penny dreadfuls and the cinema. The British have a passion for
scapegoats. We have war with Germany. 'Who did this?' demand the public
indignantly. 'Who's going to be whopped for this?' They look round and
Haldane's rotund figure catches their eye. Haldane becomes the
scapegoat. So with poor Birrell when the Sinn Fein rebellion occurred.
So the magistrates fasten on the poor penny dreadful and the
picture-film. Obviously they do so because they are too stupid to think
out the problem of crime. Picture-houses have about as much to do with
crime as Birrell had to do with the dissatisfaction in Ireland."
"Come, come," said Macdonald impatiently, "keep to the point: what
educational value has the penny dreadful?"
"The educational value that any reading matter has. It doesn't give you
many ideas, but you can say the same thing about Barrie's novels or
Kipling's. It gives a boy a vocabulary and it exercises his
imagination."
"Wouldn't he be better reading good literature? Dickens for instance?"
"I don't see it," I said; "he isn't ripe enough to understand Dickens's
humour, and for a boy I should say Dickens is bad. His style is
grandiose and stilted, his periphrasis is the most delightful in the
world to an educated person, but it is bad for a child. About half of
_David Copperfield_ is circumlocution, but a boy should learn to speak
and write boldly. The penny dreadful goes straight to the point. 'Harold
looked straight into the blue barrel of a Colt automatic.' Translate
that into Dickensese (an ugly word to coin, I admit) and you have
something like this:--'Harold contemplated with extreme apprehension the
circular muzzle of a Cerulean blue automatic pistol of the kind
specifically manufactured by the celebrated world-famous American firm
of Colt.'"
"Poor Dickens," laughed Macdonald.
"But you see my point?" I persisted. "Circumlocution is a Victorian
nuisance. Any man who has anything to say says it simply and without
trappings. And, mind you, Macdonald, people who use circumlocution in
style use it in thought. The average man loves flowery literature, and
he loves flowery thoughts. The contest between the plain style and the
aureate style is really the old contest between realism and romance. The
romantic way to look at crime is to fix your attention on drink and
penny dreadfuls and cinema shows; the realistic way is to look bravely
at the economic division of wealth that causes poverty and disease, the
father and mother of crime."
"You're away from the point again," said Macdonald with a smile. "How
do you defend Janet Brown's week of anagrams?"
"It doesn't need any defence; it was Janet's fancy to play herself and I
fail to see that she was wasting time. You really never waste time
unless you are under coercion."
"Another rotten paradox," he laughed, "go on!"
"When I allow convention to force me to play cards I feel that I am
wasting time, for I hate the blamed things. But if I spend a day
pottering with the wheels of an old clock I am not wasting time: I am
extremely interested all the time."
"No, no! It won't do! Janet was wasting time, and you know it, in spite
of your arguing!"
"I'll tell you what's wrong with you and all your fellow educationists,
Macdonald," I said. "You've got utilitarian commercial minds. You
worship work and duty, and you have your eyes on monetary success all
the time. You look upon bairns as a foreman mechanic looks upon workmen,
and your idea of wasted time is the same as his. If I were Bruce, the
linen merchant, I should certainly accuse a girl of wasting time if I
caught her reading a novelette during working hours. Bruce has one
definite aim--production of linen. He knows exactly what he wants to
produce. You don't, and I don't. We don't know what effect puzzling out
anagrams will have on Janet's mentality. We have no right to accuse her
of wasting time."
"Don't tell me," he cried; "there is a difference between work and play.
Janet has no more right to play during school hours than a mill-girl has
to read novelettes during working hours."
"The mill-girl is a wage-slave, and I don't think that dominies should
apply the ethics of wage-slavery to education. Her master, Bruce, goes
golfing and fishing on working days, only, he is economically free, and
he can do what he likes. And I don't suppose you will contend that
tending a loom is the goal of humanity. If you want to make Janet an
efficient mill-girl by all means coerce her to work in school. But,
Macdonald, I have argued a score of times that education should not aim
at turning out wage-slaves. If Janet is to be a mill-girl all your
history and grammar won't make her tend a loom any better; so far as the
loom is concerned the composing of anagrams will help her quite as much
as grammar will."
When Macdonald had gone I made up my mind that I wouldn't argue about
education with him again. I'll bring out my pack of cards when he next
visits me.
* * *
I have had a sharp attack of influenza, and have been in bed for a week.
When my temperature fell I commenced to read a book on political
philosophy, but I had to give it up. I asked Margaret to borrow a few
novels from Macdonald's school library, and I found content. I read _The
Forest Lovers_, _King Solomon's Mines_, and one of Guy Boothby's Dr.
Nikola stories, and was entranced.
When you are ill you become primitive; the emotional part of you is
uppermost, and you weep over mawkish drivel that you would laugh at when
you are well. Any snivelling parson could have persuaded me to believe
that I was a sinner, had he come to my bed-side three days ago.
Luckily no snivelling parson came, but the girls came every night.
"Aw hope ye dinna dee," said Annie.
"Ye wud need an awfu' lang coffin," said Janet as she measured me with
her eye.
"You've got a cheerful sort of bed-side manner, Jan," I said.
"Wud ye hae an oak coffin?" she asked.
"Couldn't afford it, Jan. You see I'm saving up for my marriage."
"But if ye need a coffin ye'll no need a wife."
"The wedding-cake will do for the funeral feast," I said hopefully.
"I've ordered it."
Janet laughed.
"Eh! It wud be awfu' funny to eat weddin' cake at a burial!" she cried.
"Wud'n it?"
"I don't think I would be in a position to appreciate the fun of the
thing, Janet."
"Maggie wudna see muckle fun in it either," said Gladys.
"Wud Jim Jackson be yer chief mourner?" asked Ellen.
"Possibly," I said, "but don't mention the fact to him. He'll become
unsettled. He's an ambitious youth, Jim, and his position as best man at
my marriage will merely make him long for other worlds to conquer."
"Ye wud hae a big funeral," said Janet thoughtfully.
"We wud get a holiday that day," she added brightly.
"Ah!" I said, "that settles it, Jan. Leave me to die in peace. Let me
see--this is Tuesday; if I die now that will mean Saturday for the
funeral. That's no good. What do you say to my putting off the evil day
till Friday? That will mean a holiday on Tuesday."
"But ye canna dee when ye want to!" she laughed.
"I can easily borrow some of Mrs. Thomson's rat poison."
"Syne ye wud be committin' sooicide," cried Annie, "and they wud bury ye
at nicht, and we wudna get oor holiday."
"Ah! Annie! You've raised a difficulty. I hear Jim whistling outside.
Bring him in and we'll see if he can solve the problem."
They brought Jim to my bedside. I explained the difficulty, and Jim
scratched his head.
"If ye was murdered they wudna bury ye at nicht," he said after some
deliberation.
"A brilliant idea, Jim, but who is to murder me?"
"Joe Simpson wud dae it ... quick," he answered. "He has a notion o'
Maggie."
"Aw wud get another holiday," he added, "when Joe was tried. Aw wud be a
witness."
"So wud Aw," said Annie.
"And me too," said Janet.
"Ye wudna," said Jim with scorn, "lassies canna swear, and ye have to
put yer hand on the Bible and swear when ye are a witness."
"We'll have to give up the murder idea," I said firmly: "it's unfair; I
can't have Jim getting two holidays while the girls get only one."
"We micht get another holiday when Joe was buried," suggested Ellen.
"No," said Jim, "they bury a hanged man in the jile."
"Ye'll just need to get better again," said Janet.
"You'll lose your holiday in that case, Jan."
She put her arm round my neck.
"Aw was just funnin'," she said kindly, "Aw dinna want ye to dee. Aw wud
greet."
"You would forget me in a week, Jan."
"Na Aw wudna," she protested. "Aw wud put flowers on yer grave ilka
Sabbath, and Aw wud cut oot the verse o' pottery in the paper. Aw cut
oot the verse aboot my auntie Liz."
"What was it?"
"Aw dinna mind, but it was something like this:--
"We think, when we look at yer vacant chair,
Of yer dear old face and yer grey hair,
But ye are away to the land of above
Where ye'll never more have care."
"Very nice, Jan. Now you'll better set about composing a verse for me."
"A' richt," she laughed, "we'll mak a line each, and here's the first
one:--
"'He was goin' to be marrit, but he dee'd afore his time
"You mak the next line, Annie."
"'And Jim Jackson ate so muckle at the funeral that he got a sair
wime.'"
"Nane o' yer lip," growled Jim.
"Come on, Gladys," I said, "third line."
"'He dee'd o' effielinza, and he'll no hae ony mair pain."
"Last line, Ellen!"
"'But in the Better Land we'll maybe meet him again.'"
"There shud be something aboot 'gone but not forgotten,'" said Jim.
"When auld Rab Smith dee'd his wife had 'gone but not forgotten' in the
papers ... and the corp wasna oot o' the hoose."
"Aw've got a new frock," said Janet, and the conversation took a
cheerier direction.
On the following evening Margaret came in when they were with me.
"Come on!" cried Janet, "we'll mak Maggie kiss him!" and they seized
her.
"No," I said, "influenza is catching, and I don't want Margaret to be
ill."
"Eh!" cried Annie, "d'ye think we believe that? Aw believe she's kissed
ye a hunder times since ye was badly."
"Not a hundred, Annie," I said; "the truth is that she kissed me once; I
had just taken my dose of Gregory's Mixture, and she vowed that she
would never kiss me again."
"Aw wud chuck him up if Aw was you, Maggie," said Jean, "he tells far
ower many lees."
"Should I?" laughed Margaret.
"Aye," cried Jean with delight, "gie him back his ring!"
Margaret drew off her ring and handed it to me, and the girls clapped
their hands gleefully.
"Very good," I said resignedly, "you girls will better cancel the orders
for wedding frocks. And, Jean, just look in and tell Jim Jackson not to
buy a new dickie, will you?"
The girls looked at each other doubtfully.
"Ye're just funnin'," said Jean with a forced laugh.
"Funning? My dear Jean, when a girl hands back the engagement ring, do
you mean to tell me she is funning?"
Children live in two lands--the land of reality and the land of
make-believe. A serious look will make them jump from the one to the
other. They looked at my serious face and believed that Margaret had
really given me up. Then they glanced at Margaret; she laughed, and
their clouded faces cleared. I knew that they would try to make me
believe that they still considered I was in earnest.
"Aw'll cry in and tell Jim aboot the dickie," said Jean.
"It's a pity ye ordered the weddin' cake," said Annie.
"Ye can gie it to the Mester to christen his bairn," suggested Janet.
"It'll be ower big," said Gladys.
"Aweel," retorted Janet, "he can gie the half o't to the Mester, and
maybe the other half will do for Peter Mitchell's funeral."
"What!" I cried, "is Peter dead?"
"No exactly," said Janet hopefully, "but he's badly wi' the chronic, and
he'll maybe dee."
"That settles the question of the cake," I said, "but you have still to
settle the question of Margaret."
"She can marry Joe Simpson," suggested Ellen.
"Aye," said Jean, "and she'll hae to work oot, and feed the three black
swine. She wud be better to tak Dave Young, for he has only twa swine to
feed."
"Be an auld maid, Maggie," said Janet, "and keep a cat. A man's just a
fair scutter onywve ... especially a delicate man that taks effielinza
and lies in his bed. Ye'll be far better as an auld maid, Maggie. Ye'll
no hae ony bairns, but bairns is just a nuisance."
"I'll be an old maid then," said Margaret.
"Now you've disposed of the cake and the lady," I said, "what is to
become of me?"
"You!" said Janet. "You can be an auld bachelor and live next door to
Maggie, and she'll send a laddie ower wi' a bowl o' soup when she has
soup to her dinner."
"Aye," said Gladys, "and she'll wash yer sarks and mend yer socks for
you."
"Sounds as if I am to have all the joys of matrimony without its
sorrows," I said. "I'm afraid, Margaret, that we'll have to get married
after all. The other way is too expensive: we should require to pay the
rent of two houses."
"But," cried Annie, "if ye get married ye'll hae bairns to keep, and
they'll cost mair than the rent o' two hooses!"
"Then in Heaven's name what am I to do?" I cried in feigned perplexity.
Janet took Margaret's hand and placed it in mine.
"Just tak Maggie," she said sweetly; "and by the time ye hae bairns
Aw'll maybe be marrit mysell, and Aw'll mak my man send ye a ham when he
kills the swine."
So I placed the ring on Margaret's finger and kissed her. Then I drew
Janet's head down and kissed her too.
"Eh!" cried Annie, "that's no fair!"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Ye've kissed Jan," she laughed, "and she'll maybe tak effielinza
and--and get a holiday."
Then I kissed Annie and the others three times, and they all went out
laughing. The tears came into my eyes ... but then I was weak and ill.