_SOME EDUCATIONAL FACTS_.
The public-school system of the village was reorganized during a
recent summer; and in consequence of a considerable enlargement of
the single school-building and the great increase of the number of
scholars, it was determined to engage an additional woman-teacher in
the girls' department. Accordingly, the board of directors advertised
for a suitable person, instructing applicants to call upon Judge
Twiddler, the chairman. A day or two later, Mrs. Twiddler advertised
in a city paper for a cook, and upon the same afternoon an Irish girl
came to the house to obtain the place in the kitchen. The judge was
sitting upon the front porch at the time reading a newspaper; and
when the girl entered the gate of the yard, he mistook her for a
school-mistress, and he said to her,
"Did you come about that place?"
"Yes, sor," she answered.
"Oh, very well, then; take a seat and I'll run over a few things in
order to ascertain what your qualifications are. Bound Africa."
"If you please, sor, I don't know what you mean."
"I say, bound Africa."
"Bou--bou--Begorra, I don't know what ye're referrin' to."
"Very strange," said the judge. "Can you tell me if 'amphibious' is an
adverb or a preposition? What is an adverb?"
"Indade, and ye bother me intirely. I never had anything to do wid
such things at my last place."
"Then it must have been a curious sort of an institution," said the
judge. "Probably you can tell me how to conjugate the verb 'to be,'
and just mention, also, what you know about Herodotus."
"Ah, yer Honor's jokin' wid me. Be done wid yer fun, now."
"Did you ever hear of Herodotus?"
"Never once in the whole coorse of my life. Do you make it with eggs?"
"This is the most extraordinary woman I ever encountered," murmured
the judge. "How she ever associated Herodotus with the idea of eggs is
simply incomprehensible. Well, can you name the hemisphere in which
China and Japan are situated?"
"Don't bother me wid yer fun, now. I can wash the china and the pans
as well as anybody, and that's enough, now, isn't it?"
"Dumb! awful dumb! Don't know the country from the crockery. I'll try
her once more. Name the limits of the Tropic of Capricorn, and tell me
where Asia Minor is located."
"I have a brother that's one, sor; that's all I know about it."
"One? One what?"
"Didn't ye ask me afther the miners, sor? My brother Teddy works wid
'em."
"And this," said the judge, "is the kind of person to whom we are
asked to entrust the education of youth. Woman, what _do_ you know?
What kind of a school have you been teaching?"
"None, sor. What should I teach school for?"
"Totally without experience, as I supposed," said the judge.
"Mrs. Ferguson had a governess teach the children when I was cookin'
for her."
"Cooking! Ain't you a school-teacher? What do you mean by proposing to
stop cooking in order to teach school? Why, it's preposterous."
"Begorra, I came here to get the cook's place, sor, and that's all of
it."
"Oh, by George! I see now. You ain't a candidate for the grammar
school, after all. You want to see Mrs. Twiddler. Maria, come down
here a minute. There's a thick-headed immigrant here wants to cook for
you."
And the judge picked up his paper and resumed the editorial on "The
Impending Crisis."
They obtained a good teacher, however, and the course of affairs in
the girls' department was smooth enough; but just after the opening of
the fall session there was some trouble in the boys' department.
Mr. Barnes, the master, read in the _Educational Monthly_ that boys
could be taught history better than in any other way by letting each
boy in the class represent some historical character, and relate the
acts of that character as if he had done them himself. This struck
Barnes as a mighty good idea, and he resolved to put it in practice.
The school had then progressed so far in its study of the history of
Rome as the Punic wars, and Mr. Barnes immediately divided the boys
into two parties, one Romans and the other Carthaginians, and certain
of the boys were named after the leaders upon both sides. All the boys
thought it was a fine thing, and Barnes noticed that they were so
anxious to get to the history lesson that they could hardly say their
other lessons properly.
When the time came, Barnes ranged the Romans upon one side of the room
and the Carthaginians on the other. The recitation was very spirited,
each party telling about its deeds with extraordinary unction. After a
while Barnes asked a Roman to describe the battle of Cannæ. Whereupon
the Romans hurled their copies of Wayland's Moral Science at the
enemy. Then the Carthaginians made a battering-ram out of a bench and
jammed it among the Romans, who retaliated with a volley of books,
slates and chewed paper-balls. Barnes concluded that the battle of
Cannæ had been sufficiently illustrated, and he tried to stop it;
but the warriors considered it too good a thing to let drop, and
accordingly the Carthaginians dashed over to the Romans with another
battering-ram and thumped a couple of them savagely.
Then the Romans turned in, and the fight became general. A
Carthaginian would grasp a Roman by the hair and hustle him around
over the desk in a manner that was simply frightful, and a Roman would
give a fiendish whoop and knock a Carthaginian over the head with
Greenleaf's Arithmetic. Hannibal got the head of Scipio Africanus
under his arm, and Scipio, in his efforts to break away, stumbled,
and the two generals fell and had a rough-and-tumble fight under the
blackboard. Caius Gracchus prodded Hamilcar with a ruler, and the
latter in his struggles to get loose fell against the stove and
knocked down about thirty feet of stove-pipe. Thereupon the Romans
made a grand rally, and in five minutes they chased the entire
Carthaginian army out of the school-room, and Barnes along with it;
and then they locked the door and began to hunt up the apples and
lunch in the desks of the enemy.
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF CANNÆ.]
After consuming the supplies they went to the windows and made
disagreeable remarks to the Carthaginians, who were standing in the
yard, and dared old Barnes to bring the foe once more into battle
array. Then Barnes went for a policeman; and when he knocked at the
door, it was opened, and all the Romans were found busy studying their
lessons. When Barnes came in with the defeated troops he went for
Scipio Africanus; and pulling him out of his seat by the ear, he
thrashed that great military genius with a rattan until Scipio began
to cry, whereupon Barnes dropped him and began to paddle Caius
Gracchus. Then things settled down in the old way, and next morning
Barnes announced that history in the future would be studied as it
always had been; and he wrote a note to the _Educational Monthly_ to
say that in his opinion the man who suggested the new system ought
to be led out and shot. The boys do not now take as much interest in
Roman history as they did on that day.
* * * * *
The young tragedian who represented Scipio Africanus is named Smith.
His family came to the village to live only a few weeks before the
school opened. Scipio is a very enterprising and ingenious lad.
Colonel Coffin's boy leaned over the fence one day and gave to me his
impressions of Scipio, a lad about fourteen years old:
"Yes, me and him are right well acquainted now; he knows more'n I do,
and he's had more experience. Bill says his father used to be a robber
(Smith, by the way, is a deacon in the Presbyterian church, and a very
excellent lawyer), and that he has ten million dollars in gold buried
in his cellar, along with a whole lot of human bones--people he's
killed. And he says his father is a conjurer, and that he makes all
the earthquakes that happen anywheres in the world. The old man'll
come home at night, after there's been an earthquake, all covered with
perspiration and so tired he kin hardly stand. Bill says it's such
hard work.
"And Bill tole me that once when a man came around there trying to
sell lightning-rods his father got mad and et him--et him right up;
and he takes bites out of everybody he comes acrost.
"That's what Bill tells me. That's all I know about it. And he tole me
that once he used to have a dog--one of these little kind of dogs--and
he was flying his kite, and just for fun he tied the kite-string
onto his dog's tail. And then the wind struck her and his dog went
a-scuddin' down the street with his hind legs in the air for about a
mile, when the kite all of a sudden begun to go up, and in about
a minute the dog was fifteen miles high and commanding a view of
California and Egypt, I think Bill said. He came down, anyhow, I know,
in Brazil, and Bill said he swum home all the way in the Atlantic
Ocean; and when he landed, his legs were all nibbled off by sharks.
"I wish father'd buy me a dog, so's I could send him up that way. But
I never have any luck. Bill said that where they used to live he went
out on the roof one day to fly his kite, and he sat on top of the
chimbly to give her plenty of room, and while he was sitting there
thinking about nothing, the old man put a keg of powder down below
in the fire-place to clean the soot out of the chimbly. And when he
touched her off, Bill was blowed over agin the Baptist church steeple,
and he landed on the weather-cock with his pants torn, and they
couldn't git him down for three days, so he hung there, going round
and round with the wind, and he lived by eating the crows that came
and sat on him, because they thought he was made of sheet-iron and put
up there on purpose.
"He's had more fun than enough. He was telling me the other day about
a sausage-stuffer his brother invented. It was a kinder machine that
worked with a treadle; and Bill said the way they did in the fall was
to fix it on the hog's back, and connect the treadle with a string,
and then the hog'd work the treadle and keep on running it up and down
until the machine cut the hog all up fine and shoved the meat into the
skins. Bill said his brother called it 'Every Hog His Own Stuffer,'
and it worked splendid. But I do' know. 'Pears to me 'sif there
couldn't be no machine like that. But anyway, Bill said so.
"And he told me about an uncle of his out in Australia who was et by a
big oyster once; and when, he got inside, he stayed there until he'd
et the oyster. Then he split the shell open and took half a one for a
boat, and he sailed along until he met a sea-serpent, and he killed it
and drawed off its skin, and when he got home he sold it to an engine
company for a hose, for forty thousand dollars, to put out fires with.
Bill said that was actually so, because he could show me a man who
used to belong to the engine company. I wish father'd let me go out
to find a sea-serpent like that; but he don't let me have a chance to
distinguish myself.
"Bill was saying only yesterday that the Indians caught him once and
drove eleven railroad spikes through his stomach and cut off his
scalp, and it never hurt him a bit. He said he got away by the
daughter of the chief sneaking him out of the wigwam and lending him a
horse. Bill says she was in love with him; and when I asked him to let
me see the holes where they drove in the spikes, he said he daresn't
take off his clothes or he'd bleed to death. He said his own father
didn't know it, because Bill was afraid it might worry the old man.
"And Bill tole me they wasn't going to get him to go to Sunday-school.
He says his father has a brass idol that he keeps in the garret, and
Bill says he's made up his mind to be a pagan, and to begin to go
naked, and carry a tomahawk and a bow and arrow, as soon as the warm
weather comes. And to prove it to me, he says his father has this town
all underlaid with nitro-glycerine, and as soon as he gets ready he's
going to blow the old thing out, and bust her up, let her rip, and
demolish her. He said so down at the dam, and tole me not to tell
anybody, but I thought they'd be no harm in mentioning it to you.
"And now I believe I must be going. I hear Bill a-whistling. Maybe
he's got something else to tell me."
The Smith boy will be profitable to the youth of the community.
* * * * *
Barnes, the pedagogue, is a worthy man who has seen trouble. Precisely
what was the nature of the afflictions which had filled his face with
furrows and given him the air of one who has been overburdened with
sorrows was not revealed until Mr. Keyser told the story one evening
at the grocery-store. Whether his narrative is strictly true or not
is uncertain. There is a bare possibility that Mr. Keyser may have
exaggerated grossly a very simple fact.
"Nobody ever knew how it got in there," said Mr. Keyser, clasping his
hands over his knee and spitting into the stove. "Some thought Barnes
must've swallowed a tadpole while drinking out of a spring and it
subsequently grew inside him, while others allowed that maybe he'd
accidentally eaten frogs' eggs some time and they'd hatched out.
But anyway, he had that frog down there inside of him settled and
permanent and perfectly satisfied with being in out of the rain. It
used to worry Barnes more'n a little, and he tried various things to
git rid of it. The doctors they give him sickening stuff, and over and
over agin emptied him; and then they'd hold him by the heels and shake
him over a basin, and they'd bait a hook with a fly and fish down his
throat hour after hour, but that frog was too intelligent. He never
even gave them a nibble; and when they'd try to fetch him with an
emetic, he'd dig his claws into Barnes's membranes and hold on until
the storm was over.
"Not that Barnes minded the frog merely being in there if he'd only a
kept quiet. But he was too vociferous--that's what Barnes said to me.
A taciturn frog he wouldn't have cared about so much. But how would
you like to have one down inside of you there a-whooping every now and
then in the most ridiculous manner? Maybe, for instance, Barnes'd be
out taking tea with a friend, and just when everybody else was quiet
it'd suddenly occur to his frog to tune-up, and the next minute you'd
hear something go 'Blo-o-o-ood-a-noun! Blo-oo-oo-ood-a-noun!' two or
three times, apparently under the table. Then the folks would ask if
there was an aquarium in the house or if the man had a frog-pond in
the cellar, and Barnes'd get as red as fire and jump up and go home.
"And often when he'd be setting in church, perhaps in the most solemn
part of the sermon, he'd feel something give two or three quick kinder
jerks under his vest, and presently that reptile would bawl right out
in the meeting 'Bloo-oo-oo-ood-a-noun! Bloo-oo-oo-ood-a-nou-ou-oun!'
and keep it up until the sexton would come along and run out two or
three boys for profaning the sanctuary. And at last he'd fix it on
poor old Barnes, and then tell him that if he wanted to practice
ventriloquism he'd better wait till after church. And then the frog'd
give six or seven more hollers, so that the minister would stop and
look at Barnes, and Barnes'd get up and skip down the aisle and go
home furious about it.
"It had a deep voice for an ordinary frog--betwixt a French horn and a
bark-mill. And Mrs. Barnes told me herself that often, when John'd get
comfortably fixed in bed and just dropping off into a nap, the frog'd
think it was a convenient time for some music; and after hopping
about a bit, it'd all at once grind out three or four awful
'Bloo-oo-ood-a-nouns' and wake Mrs. Barnes and the baby, and start
things up generally all around the house. And--would you believe
it?--if that frog felt, maybe, a little frisky, or p'raps had some
tune running through its head, it'd keep on that way for hours. It
worried Barnes like thunder.
"I dunno whether it was that that killed his wife or not; but anyhow,
when she died, Barnes wanted to marry agin, and he went for a while to
see Miss Flickers, who lives out yer on the river road, you know. He
courted her pretty steady for a while, and we all thought there was
goin' to be a consolidation. But she was telling my wife that one
evening Barnes had just taken hold of her hand and told her he
loved her, when all of a sudden something said,
'Bloo-oo-oo-ood-a-nou-ou-oun!'
"'What on earth's that?' asked Miss Flickers, looking sorter scared.
"'I dunno,' said Barnes; 'it sounds like somebody making a noise in
the cellar.' Lied, of course, for he knew mighty well what it was.
[Illustration: MR. BARNES PROPOSES]
"''Pears to me 'sif it was under the sofa,' says she.
"'Maybe it wasn't anything, after all,' says Barnes, when just then
the frog, he feels like running up the scales again, and he yells out,
'Bloo-oo-ood-a-nou-ou-ou-oun!'
"'Upon my word,' says Miss Flickers, 'I believe you've got a frog in
your pocket, Mr. Barnes; now, haven't you?'
"Then he gets down on his knees and owns up to the truth, and swears
he'll do his best to git rid of the frog, and all the time he is
talking the frog is singing exercises and scales and oratorios inside
of him, and worse than ever, too, because Barnes drank a good deal of
ice-water that day, and it made the frog hoarse--ketched cold, you
know.
"But Miss Flickers, she refused him. Said she might've loved him, only
she couldn't marry any man that had continual music in his interior.
"So Barnes, he was the most disgusted man you ever saw. Perfectly sick
about it. And one day he was lying on the bed gaping, and that frog
unexpectedly made up its mind to come up to ask Barnes to eat more
carefully, maybe, and it jumped out on the counterpane. After looking
about a bit it came up and tried three or four times to hop back,
but he kept his mouth shut, and killed the frog with the back of a
hair-brush. Ever since then he runs his drinking-water through a
strainer, and he hates frogs worse than you and me hate pison. Now,
that's the honest truth about Barnes; you ask him if it ain't."
Then Keyser bought some tobacco and went home.