"Impossible!" I cried. "You never laughed at my story at all; that is
it touched nothing whatsoever inside you."
Duncan shook his head.
"You're completely wrong this time."
"Well, why _didn't_ you laugh?" I asked.
He grinned.
"I dunno. Possibly it is because I first heard that joke in my cradle."
* * * * *
Mac's infant mistress was off duty to-day owing to an attack of
influenza, and he gladly accepted my offer to take her place.
Half-an-hour after my entry into the room Mac came in to see how I was
getting on. Most of the infants were swarming over me, and Mac
frowned. At his frown they all crept back silently to their seats.
"You seem to have the fatal gift of demoralising children," he growled.
It hadn't struck me before, but it is a fact; I do demoralise children.
Not long ago I entered a Montessori school, and I spoke not one word.
In five minutes the insets and long stairs were lying neglected in the
middle of the floor, and the kiddies were scrambling over me. I felt
very guilty for I feared that if Montessori herself were to walk in she
would be indignant. I cannot explain why I affect kiddies in this way.
It may be that intuitively they know that I do not inspire fear or
respect; it may be that they unconsciously recognise the baby in me.
Anyway, as Mac says, it is a fatal gift.
I think Miss Martin the infant mistress is a good teacher. Her infants
do not fear her, and I am sure they love her. The only person they
fear is Mac, poor dear old Mac, the most lovable soul in the world. He
tries hard to show his love for the infants but somehow they know that
behind his smile is the grim head-master who leathers Tom Murray. I
sent wee Mary Smith into Mac's room to fetch some chalk to-day, and she
wept and feared to enter. Occasionally, I believe, Mac will enter the
room, seize a wee mite who is speaking instead of working, and give him
or her a scud with the tawse. I wonder how a good soul like Mac can do
it.
I have an unlovely story of a board school. An infant mistress lay
dying, and in her delirium she cried in terror lest her head-master
should come in again and strap her dear, wee infants. It is a true
story, and it is the most damning indictment of board school education
anyone could wish for. She was a good woman who loved children, and if
fear of her head-master brought terror to her on her deathbed, what
terrors are such men inspiring in poor wee infants? The men who beat
children are exactly in the position of the men who stoned Jesus
Christ; they know not what they do, nor do they know why they do it.
* * * * *
There was a stranger in Dauvit's shop when I entered to-day, a
seedy-looking whiskered man with a threadbare coat and extremely dirty
linen. Shabby genteel would be the Scots description of him.
Dauvit asked me a casual question about London, and the stranger became
interested at once.
"Ah," he said, "you're from London, are ye? Man, yon's a great place,
a wonderful place!"