Did you never hear a fiddler fiddle? I have. I heard a fiddler fiddle,
and the hey-dey-diddle of his frolicking fiddle called back the happy
days of my boyhood. The old field schoolhouse with its batten doors
creaking on wooden hinges, its windows innocent of glass, and its great,
yawning fireplace, cracking and roaring and flaming like the infernal
regions, rose from the dust of memory and stood once more among the
trees. The limpid spring bubbled and laughed at the foot of the hill.
Flocks of nimble, noisy boys turned somersaults and skinned the cat and
ran and jumped half hammon on the old play ground. The grim old teacher
stood in the door; he had no brazen-mouthed bell to ring then as we have
now, but he shouted at the top of his voice: "Come to books!!!" And they
came. Not to come meant "war and rumors of war." The backless benches,
high above the floor, groaned under the weight of irrepressible young
America; the multitude of mischievous, shining faces, the bare legs and
feet, swinging to and fro, and the mingled hum of happy voices, spelling
aloud life's first lessons, prophesied the future glory of the State.
The curriculum of the old field school was the same everywhere--one
Webster's blue backed, elementary spelling book, one thumb-paper, one
stone-bruise, one sore toe, and Peter Parley's Travels.
The grim old teacher, enthroned on his split bottomed chair, looked
terrible as an army with banners; and he presided with a dignity and
solemnity which would have excited the envy of the United States Supreme
Court: I saw the school commissioners visit him, and heard them question
him as to his system of teaching. They asked him whether, in geography,
he taught that the world was round, or that the world was flat. With
great dignity he replied: "That depends upon whar I'm teachin'. If my
patrons desire me to teach the round system, I teach it; if they desire
me to teach the flat system, I teach that."
At the old field school I saw the freshman class, barefooted and with
pantaloons rolled up to the knees, stand in line under the ever uplifted
rod, and I heard them sing the never-to-be-forgotten b-a ba's. They sang
them in the _olden_ times, and this is the way they sang: "b-a ba, b-e
be, b-i bi-ba be bi, b-o bo, b-u bu-ba be bi bo bu."
I saw a sophomore dance a jig to the music of a dogwood sprout for
throwing paper wads. I saw a junior compelled to stand on the dunce
block, on one foot--(_a la_ gander) for winking at his sweetheart in
time of books, for failing to know his lessons, and for "various and
sundry other high crimes and misdemeanors."
A twist of the fiddler's bow brought a yell from the fiddle, and in
my dream, I saw the school come pouring out into the open air. Then
followed the games of "prisoner's base," "town-ball," "Antney-over;"
"bull-pen" and "knucks," the hand to hand engagements with yellow
jackets, the Bunker Hill and Brandywine battles with bumblebees, the
charges on flocks of geese, the storming of apple orchards and hornet's
nests, and victories over hostile "setting" hens. Then I witnessed the
old field school "Exhibition"--the _wonderful_ "exhibition"--they call
it Commencement now. Did you never witness an old field school
"exhibition," far out in the country, and listen to its music? If you
have not your life is a failure--you are a broken string in the harp of
the universe. The old field school "exhibition" was the parade ground of
the advance guard of civilization; it was the climax of great events in
the olden times; and vast assemblies were swayed by the eloquence of the
budding sockless statesmen. It was at the old field school "exhibition"
that the goddess of liberty always received a broken nose, and the
poetic muse a black eye; it was at the old field school "exhibition"
that _Greece_ and _Rome_ rose and fell, in seas of gore, about every
fifteen minutes in the day, and,
The American eagle, with unwearied flight,
Soared upward and upward, till he soared out of sight.
It was at the old field school "exhibition" that the fiddle and the bow
immortalized themselves. When the frowning old teacher advanced on the
stage and nodded for silence, instantly there _was_ silence in the vast
assembly; and when the corps of country fiddlers, "one of which I was
often whom," seated on the stage, hoisted the black flag, and rushed
into the dreadful charge on "Old Dan Tucker," or "Arkansas Traveller,"
the spectacle was sublime. Their heads swung time; their bodies rocked
time; their feet patted time; the muscles of their faces twitched
time; their eyes winked time; their teeth ground time. The whizzing
bows and screaming fiddles electrified the audience who cheered at every
brilliant turn in the charge of the fiddlers. The good women laughed for
joy; the men winked at each other and popped their fists; it was like
the charge of the Old Guard at Waterloo, or a battle with a den of
snakes. Upon the completion of the grand overture of the fiddlers the
brilliant programme of the "exhibition," which usually lasted all day,
opened with "Mary had a little lamb;" and it gathered fury until it
reached Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death!!!" The
programme was interspersed with compositions by the girls, from the
simple subject of "flowers," including "blessings brighten as they take
their flight," up to "every cloud has a silver lining;" and it was
interlarded with frequent tunes by the fiddlers from early morn till
close of day.
[Illustration: MUSIC OF THE OLD FIELD SCHOOL EXHIBITION.]
Did you never hear the juvenile orator of the old field school speak?
He was not dressed like a United States Senator; but he was dressed with
a view to disrobing for bed, and completing his morning toilet instantly;
both of which he performed during the acts of ascending and descending
the stairs. His uniform was very simple. It consisted of one pair of
breeches rolled up to the knees, with one patch on the "western
hemisphere," one little shirt with one button at the top, one "gallus,"
and one invalid straw hat. His straw hat stood guard over his place on
the bench, while he was delivering his great speech at the "exhibition."
With great dignity and eclat, the old teacher advanced on the stage and
introduced him to the expectant audience, and he came forward like a
cyclone.
[Illustration: THE OLD FIELD SCHOOL ORATOR.]
"The boy stood on the burnin' deck whence all but him had fled----The
flames that lit the battle's wreck shown 'round him o'er the dead,
yet beautiful and bright he stood----the boy stood on the burnin'
deck----and he wuz the bravest boy that ever wuz. His father told him to
keep a-stan'in' there till he told him to git off'n there, and the boy
he jist kep' a stan'in' there----and fast the flames rolled on----The
old man went down stairs in the ship to see about sump'n, an' he got
killed down there, an' the boy he didn't know it, an' he jist kept a
stan'in' there----an' fast the flames rolled on. He cried aloud: "say
father, say, if _yit_ my task is done," but his father wuz dead an'
couldn't hear 'im, an' the boy he jist kep' a stan'in' there----an' fast
the flames rolled on.----They caught like flag banners in the sky, an'
at last the ol' biler busted, an' the boy he went up!!!!!!!!"
At the close of this great speech the fiddle fainted as dead as a
herring.