Tam at once set about packing his bag.
"Are ye gaein' awa?" asked George in surprise.
"Yus," said Tam savagely, "there's far ower much argy-bargying here."
* * *
Summer holidays at last! Many a day I have longed for them, but now that
they are here I feel very very sad. For to-day some of these bairns of
mine sat on these benches for the last time. When I blow my bugle again
I shall miss familiar faces. I shall miss Violet with her bonny smile; I
shall miss Tom Macintosh with his cheery face. Vi is going to the
Secondary School, and Tom is going to the railway station. They are
sweethearts just now, and I know that both are sad at leaving.
"Never mind, Tam," I heard her say, "Aw'll aye see ye at the station,
ilka mornin' and nicht."
"We'll get merried when Aw'm station mester, Vi," said Tom hopefully,
and she smiled and blushed.
Poor Tom! I'm sorry for you my lad. In three years you will be carrying
her luggage, and she won't take any notice of you, for she is a lawyer's
daughter.
Confound realism!
Once I felt as Tom feels. I loved a farmer's daughter, and I suffered
untold agony when she told me that her father's lease expired in
seventeen years.
"Then we're flittin' to Glesga," she said, and I was wretched for a
week. She was ten then; now she is the mother of four.
Annie and her seventeen years reminds me of the professor who was
lecturing on Astronomy to a village audience.
"In seven hundred million years, my friends," he said solemnly, "the sun
will be a cold body like the moon. There will be no warmth on earth, no
light, no life ... nothing."
A chair was pushed back noisily at the back of the hall, and a big
farmer got up in great agitation.
"Excuse me, mister, but hoo lang did ye say it wud be till that
happened?"
"Seven hundred million years, my friend."
The farmer sank into his chair with a great sigh of relief.
"Thank Goad!" he gasped, "Aw thocht ye said seven million."
They say that when a man dies after a long life he looks back and mourns
the things that he's left undone. I suppose that some teachers look back
over a year's work and regret their sins of omission. I do not.
I know that I have had many lazy days this session; I know that there
were exercises that I failed to correct, subjects that I failed to
teach. I regret none of these things, for they do not count.
Rachel Smith is leaving the district, and to-day Mary Wilson shook her
hand. "Weel, by bye, Rachel, ye'll have to gang to anither schule, and
ye'll maybe have to work there," she said.
"Eh?" I cried, "do you mean to say, Mary Wilson, that Rachel hadn't to
work in this school?"
"No very much," said Mary, "ma father says that we just play ourselves
at this school."
Mary's father is right; I have converted a hard-working school into a
playground. And I rejoice. These bairns have had a year of happiness and
liberty. They have done what they liked; they have sung their songs
while they were working at graphs, they have eaten their sweets while
they read their books. They have hung on to my arms as we rambled along
in search of artistic corners. It was only yesterday that Jim Jackson
marched up the road to meet me at dinner-time with his gun team and gun,
a log of wood mounted on a pair of perambulator wheels. As I approached
I heard his command: "Men, lay the gun!" and when I was twenty yards off
he shouted "Fire!"
"Please, sir," he cried, "you're killed now, but we'll take you prisoner
instead." And the team lined up in two columns and escorted me back to
the school to the strains of _Alexander's Ragtime Band_ played on the
mouth-organ.
"Is it usual, Colonel," I asked, "for the commander of the gun team to
act as the band?"
Jim scratched his head.
"The band was all killed at Mons," he said, "and the privates aren't
musical." Then he struck up _Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soldiers_.
I know that I have brought out all the innate goodness of these bairns.
When Jim Jackson came to the school he had a bad look; if a girl
happened to push him he turned on her with a murderous scowl. Now that I
think of it I realise that Jim is always a bright cheery boy now. When I
knew him first I could see that he looked upon me as a natural enemy,
and if I had thrashed him I might have made him fear me, but the bad
look would never have left his face.
If I told anyone that I had made these bairns better I should be met
with the contemptuous glance that usually greets the man who blows his
own horn. Stupid people can never understand the man who indulges in
introspection; they cannot realise that a man can be honest with
himself. If I make a pretty sketch I never hesitate to praise it. On the
other hand I am readier than anyone else to declare one of my inferior
sketches bad. Humility is nine-tenths hypocrisy.
I do have a certain amount of honesty, and I close my log with a solemn
declaration of my belief that I have done my work well.
As for the work that the Scotch Education Department expected me to do
... well, I think the last entry in my official Log Book is a fair
sample of that.
"The school was closed to-day for the summer holidays. I have received
Form 9b from the Clerk."