The next day being a holiday, Mr. Jeminy lay in bed, watching, through
his window, the branches of an oak tree, which is last of all to leaf.
When he finally arose, the morning was already bright and hot; the
rooms were swept; all was in order.
Later in the day he followed Mrs. Grumble to the schoolhouse, carrying
a pail, soap, a scrubbing brush, and a broom. After Mr. Jeminy had
filled the pail with water at the school pump, Mrs. Grumble got down on
her knees, and began to scrub the floor. The schoolmaster went ahead
with the broom. "Sweep in all the corners," she said. "For," she
added, "it's in the corners one finds everything." As she spoke, the
brush, under her freckled hands, pushed forward a wave of soapy water,
edged with foam, like the sea.
Mr. Jeminy swept up and down with a sort of solemn joy; he even took
pride in the little mountain of brown dirt he had collected with his
broom, and watched it leap across the threshold with regret. He would
have liked to keep it. . . . Then he could have said, "Well, at least,
I took all this dirt from under the desks."
The truth is that Mr. Jeminy was not a very good teacher. Although, as
a young man, he had read, in Latin and Greek, the work of Stoics,
Gnostics, and Fathers of the Church, and although he had opinions about
everything, he was unable to teach his pupils what they wished to
learn, and they, in turn, were unable to understand what he wanted them
to know. But that was not entirely his fault, for they came to school
with such questions as: "How far is a thousand miles?"
"It is the distance between youth and age," said Mr. Jeminy. Then the
children would start to laugh.
"A thousand miles," he would begin. . . .
By the time he had explained it, they were interested in something else.
This summer morning, a dusty fall of sunlight filled the little
schoolroom with dancing golden motes. It seemed to Mr. Jeminy that he
heard the voices of innumerable children whispering together; and it
seemed to him that one voice, sweeter than all the rest, spoke in his
own heart. "Jeminy," it said, "Jeminy, what have you taught my
children?"
Mr. Jeminy answered: "I have taught them to read the works of
celebrated men, and to cheat each other with plus and minus."
"Ah," said another voice, with a dry chuckle like salt shaken in a
saltcellar, "well, that's good."
"Who speaks?" cried Mr. Jeminy.
"What," exclaimed the voice, "don't you know me, old friend? I am plus
and minus; I am weights and measures. . . ."
"Lord ha' mercy," cried Mrs. Grumble from the floor, "have you gone
mad? Whatever are you doing, standing there, with your mouth open?"
"Eh!" said Mr. Jeminy, stupidly. "I was dreaming."
A red squirrel sped across the path, and stopped a moment in the
doorway, his tail arched above his back, his bright, black eyes peering
without envy at Mrs. Grumble, as she bent above the pail of soap-suds.
Then, with a flirt of his tail, he hurried away, to hide from other
squirrels the nuts, seeds, and acorns strewn by the winds of the autumn
impartially over the earth.
In the afternoon, Mr. Jeminy went into his garden, and began to measure
off rows of vegetables. "Two rows of beans," he said, "and two of
radishes; they grow anywhere. I'll get Crabbe to give me onion sets,
cabbages, and tomato plants. Two rows of peas, and one of lettuce; I
must have fine soil for my lettuce, and I must remember to plant my
peas deeply. A row of beets. . . ."
"Where," said Mrs. Grumble, who stood beside him, holding the hoe, "are
you going to plant squash?"
". . . and carrots," continued Mr. Jeminy hurriedly. . . .
"We must certainly have a few hills of squash," said Mrs. Grumble
firmly.
"Oh," said Mr. Jeminy, "squash. . . ."
He had left it out on purpose, because he disliked it. "You see," he
said finally, looking about him artlessly, "there's no more room."
"Go away," said Mrs. Grumble.
From his seat under a tree, to which he had retired, Mr. Jeminy watched
Mrs. Grumble mark the rows, hoe the straight, shallow furrows, drop in
the seeds, and cover them with earth again. As he watched, half in
indignation, he thought: "Thus, in other times, Ceres sowed the earth
with seed, and, like Mrs. Grumble, planted my garden with squash. I
would have asked her rather to sow melons here." Just then Mrs.
Grumble came to the edge of the vegetable garden.
"Seed potatoes are over three dollars a bushel," she said: "it's hardly
worth while putting them in."
"Then let's not put any in," Mr. Jeminy said promptly, "for they are
difficult to weed, and when they are grown you must begin to quarrel
with insects, for whose sake alone, I almost think, they grow at all."
"The bugs fall off," said Mrs. Grumble, "with a good shaking."
"Fie," said Mr. Jeminy, "how slovenly. It is better to kill them with
lime. But it is best of all not to tempt them; then there is no need
to kill them."
And as Mrs. Grumble made no reply, he added:
"That is something God has not learned yet."
"Please," said Mrs. Grumble, "speak of God with more respect."
After supper Mr. Jeminy sat in his study reading the story of Saint
Francis, the Poor Brother of Assisi. One day, soon after the saint had
left behind him the gay affairs of town, to embrace poverty, for Jesus'
sake, and while he was still living in a hut of green branches near the
little chapel of Saint Damian, he beheld his father coming to upbraid
him for what he considered his son's obstinate folly. At once Saint
Francis, who was possessed of a quick wit, began to gather together a
number of old stones, which he tried to place one on top of the other.
But as fast as he put them up, the stones, broken and uneven, fell down
again. "Aha," cried old Bernadone, when he came up to his son, "I see
how you are wasting your time. What are you doing? I am sick of you."
"I am building the world again," said Francis mildly; "it is all the
more difficult because, for building material, I can find nothing but
these old stones."
Mr. Jeminy gave his pupils their final examination in a meadow below
the schoolhouse. There, seated among the dandelions, with voices as
shrill as the crickets, they answered his questions, and watched the
clouds, like great pillows, sail on the wind from west to east. Under
the shiny sky, among the warm, sweet fields, Mr. Jeminy looked no more
important than a robin, and not much wiser. Had the children been
older, they would have tried all the more to please him, but because
they were young, they laughed, teased each other, blew on blades of
grass, and made dandelion chains. Mr. Jeminy examined the Fifth
Reader. "Bound the United States," he said.
"On the west by the Pacific Ocean," began a red-cheeked plowboy, to
whom the ocean was no more than hearsay.
"Where is San Francisco?"
"San Francisco is in California."
"Where is Seattle?"
But no one knew. Then Mr. Jeminy thought to himself, "I am not much
wiser than that. For I think that Seattle is a little black period on
a map. But to them, it is a name, like China, or Jerusalem; it is
here, or there, in the stories they tell each other. And I believe
their Seattle is full of interesting people."
"Well, then," he said, "let me hear you bound Vermont."
That was something everybody knew.
He took the First and Second Reader through their sums. "Two apples
and two apples make . . ."
"Four apples."
"And three apples from eight apples leave . . ."
"Five apples."
When spelling time came, the children, going down to the foot, rolled
over each other in the grass, with loud shouts. At last only two were
left to dispute the letters in asparagus, elephant, constancy, and
philosophical. Then Mr. Jeminy gathered the children about him.
"The year is over," he said, "and you are free to play again. But do
not forget over the summer what you learned with so much difficulty
during the winter. Let me say to you who will not return to school: I
have taught you to read, to write, to add and subtract; you know a
little history, a little geography. Do not be proud of that. There
are many things to learn; but you would not be any happier for having
learned them.
"You will ask me what this has to do with you. I would like to teach
you to be happy. For happiness is not in owning much, but in owning
little: love, and liberty, the work of one's hands, fellowship, and
peace. These things have no value; they are not to be bought; but they
alone are worth having. Do not envy the rich man, for cares destroy
his sleep. And do not ask the poor man not to sing, for song is all he
has.
"Love poverty, and labor, the poverty of love, the wealth of the heart.
"Be wise and honest farmers.
"School is over. You may go."
The children ran away, laughing; the boys hurried off together to the
swimming hole, their casual shouts stealing after them down the road.
Mr. Jeminy, lying on his back in the grass, listened to them sadly. As
the voices grew fainter and fainter, it seemed to him as if they were
saying: "School is over, school is over." And he thought: "They are
counting the seasons. But to the old, the year is never done."
Mr. Frye, who had been sitting quietly by the road during Mr. Jeminy's
little speech to the children, now got up, and went back to the
village, shaking his head solemnly with every step.