The Junior English class in the Warren High School was reading Macbeth
under the guidance of a teacher who had just come to take the place of
Miss Foster, the regular teacher, who was ill. They had reached the
second act.
“Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,” read John Harris.
“What does that mean, Miss Kirk?”
Miss Kirk did not really know, for she was not a student of Shakespeare
and she had not had time to prepare the lesson. She considered hastily,
however, and made what she hoped was a shrewd guess.
“They wore knitted doublets in those days,” she said, “and of course
they would ravel out with wear and use. So the women used to knit them
up again when they needed it, in the sleeves for instance, just as we
darn hose now.”
John finished Macbeth’s speech, and sat down quite satisfied that he
understood it. But Harold Newcome, the minister’s son, waved his hand
vigorously, and Miss Kirk let him speak.
“Father and I read this over last night together,” he averred, “and we
found a different meaning from that. We found that sleave is a Scotch
word and means the silk before it’s spun into thread.”
Miss Kirk was shrewd enough to say, “That is a passage upon which the
authorities disagree. You may go on, Constance.” Harold, while
unconvinced, was silenced for the time being.
The class reached the third scene. “He should have old turning of the
key,” read Mary Bond. “Miss Kirk, I think there must be a misprint
here—I don’t make sense of it.”
“There is,” Miss Kirk replied, bluffing as before. “It should read, ‘He
should grow old turning the key.’ Go on.”
“But that isn’t it,” Harold cried out in his eagerness. “That expression
is just like one the girls use when they say, ‘You mean old thing.’”
“Harold, please get permission to speak next time,” Miss Kirk
admonished. “And don’t interrupt the reading.”
They reached the lines,
“Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight With a new Gorgon.”
“What is a Gorgon?” some one asked.
“Jennie, can you tell?” Miss Kirk was growing cautious. Jennie could
not, so she asked first one and then another. Harold, although he could
have told, shook his head, and waited with a sardonic smile to hear what
Miss Kirk would say. Feeling obliged to answer her own question, Miss
Kirk at last hazarded,
“It is a kind of weapon they had in those days. Tomorrow I want you all
to look up all the words you do not know.”
At this, Harold closed his book with a bang and grinned broadly. Miss
Kirk looked at him severely, and said,
“Harold, open your book and read the next lines.”
“Excuse me,” he answered, “I don’t believe I will. I’m learning so much
from your wonderful definitions that I think I’d rather listen to you.”
“Harold Newcome, open your book this instant. Do you mean to do as I
say?”
“I certainly do not. You don’t know as much as we do about this play.
You haven’t even read the notes at the back of the book, I bet.”
“You may leave the room this instant,” Miss Kirk commanded in a rage.
“Will you do that?”
“I certainly will, with pleasure,” and Harold left with a mocking bow.
At recess he gathered a group about him and explained his teacher’s
ignorant mistakes. The other pupils enjoyed the joke thoroughly, and did
not trouble that night to prepare the next day’s English lesson, feeling
that they could either bluff or excuse themselves with so “easy” a
teacher. Miss Kirk found them disrespectful and inattentive, listening
to her comments and instructions with amused smiles. Her work was a
total failure, and in a few days she had to give up to a more able
substitute, whose preparation was such as to command respect.