PURELY PEDAGOGICAL
It was a dark, cold, rainy night in November. The wind whistled
about the house, the rain beat a tattoo against the window-panes and
flooded the sills. The big base-burner, filled with anthracite coal,
was illuminating the room through its mica windows, on all sides, and
dispensing a warmth that smiled at the storm and cold outside. There
was a book in the picture, also; and a pair of slippers; and a
smoking-jacket; and an armchair. From the ceiling was suspended a
great lamp that joined gloriously in the chorus of light and cheer.
The man who sat in the armchair, reading the book, was a
schoolmaster--a college professor to be exact. Soft music floated up
from below stairs as a soothing accompaniment to his reading.
Subconsciously, as he turned the pages, he felt a pity for the poor
fellows on top of freight-trains who must endure the pitiless
buffeting of the storm. He could see them bracing themselves against
the blasts that tried to wrest them from their moorings. He felt a
pity for the belated traveller who tries, well-nigh in vain, to urge
his horses against the driving rain onward toward food and shelter.
But the leaves of the book continued to turn at intervals; for the
story was an engaging one, and the schoolmaster was ever responsive
to well-told stories.
It was nine o'clock or after, and the fury of the storm was
increasing. As if responding to the challenge outside, he opened the
draft of the stove and then settled back, thinking he would be able
to complete the story before retiring. In the midst of one of the
many compelling passages he heard a bell toll, or imagined he did.
Brought to check by this startling sensation, he looked back over the
page to discover a possible explanation. Finding none, he smiled at
his own fancy, and then proceeded with his reading. But, again, the
bell tolled, and he wondered whether anything he had eaten at dinner
could be held responsible for the hallucination. Scarcely had he
resumed his reading when the bell again tolled. He could stand it no
longer, and must come upon the solution of the mystery. Bells do not
toll at nine o'clock, and the weirdness of the affair disconcerted
him. The nearer he drew to the foot of the stair, in his quest for
information, the more foolish he felt his question would seem to the
members of the family. But the question had scarce been asked when
the boy of the house burst forth: "Yes, been tolling for half an
hour." Meekly he asked: "Why are they tolling the bell?" "Child
lost." "Whose child?" "Little girl belonging to the Norwegians who
live in the shack down there by the woods."
So, that was it! Well, it was some satisfaction to have the matter
cleared up, and now he could go back to his book. He had noticed the
shack in question, which was made of slabs set upright, with a
precarious roof of tarred paper; and had heard, vaguely, that a gang
of Norwegians were there to make a road through the woods to
Minnehaha Falls. Beyond these bare facts he had never thought to
inquire. These people and their doings were outside of his world.
Besides, the book and the cheery room were awaiting his return. But
the reading did not get on well. The tolling bell broke in upon it
and brought before his mind the picture of a little girl wandering
about in the storm and crying for her mother. He tried to argue with
himself that these Norwegians did not belong in his class, and that
they ought to look after their own children. He was under no
obligations to them--in fact, did not even know them. They had no
right, therefore, to break in upon the serenity of his evening.
But the bell tolled on. If he could have wrenched the clapper from
out that bell, the page of his book might not have blurred before his
eyes. As the wind moaned about the house he thought he heard a child
crying, and started to his feet. It was inconceivable, he argued,
that he, a grown man, should permit such incidental matters in life
to so disturb his composure. There were scores, perhaps hundreds, of
children lost somewhere in the world, for whom regiments of people
were searching, and bells were tolling, too. So why not be
philosophical and read the book? But the words would not keep their
places, and the page yielded forth no coherent thought. He could
endure the tension no longer. He became a whirlwind--slamming the
book upon the table, kicking off the slippers, throwing the
smoking-jacket at random, and rushing to the closet for his gear. At
ten o'clock he was ready--hip-boots, slouch-hat, rubber coat, and
lantern, and went forth into the storm.
Arriving at the scene, he took his place in the searching party of
about twenty men. They were to search the woods, first of all, each
man to be responsible for a space about two or three rods wide and
extending to the road a half-mile distant. Lantern in hand, he
scrutinized each stone and stump, hoping and fearing that it might
prove to be the little one. In the darkness he stumbled over logs
and vines, became entangled in briers and brambles, and often was
deluged with water from trees as he came in contact with overhanging
boughs. But his blood was up, for he was seeking a lost baby. When
he fell full-length in the swale, he got to his feet the best he
could and went on. Book and room were forgotten in the glow of a
larger purpose. So for two hours he splashed and struggled, but had
never a thought of abandoning the quest until the child should be
found.
At twelve o'clock they had reached the road and were about to begin
the search in another section of the wood when the church-bell rang.
This was the signal that they should return to the starting-point to
hear any tidings that might have come in the meantime. Scarcely had
they heard that a message had come from police headquarters in the
city, and that information could be had there concerning a lost child
when the schoolmaster called out: "Come on, Craig!" And away went
these two toward the barn to arouse old "Blackie" out of her slumber
and hitch her to a buggy. Little did that old nag ever dream, even
in her palmiest days, that she could show such speed as she developed
in that four-mile drive. The schoolmaster was too much wrought up to
sit supinely by and see another do the driving; so he did it himself.
And he drove as to the manner born.
The information they obtained at the police station was meagre
enough, but it furnished them a clew. A little girl had been found
wandering about, and could be located on a certain street at such a
number. The name of the family was not known. With this slender
clew they began their search for the street and house. The map of
streets which they had hastily sketched seemed hopelessly inadequate
to guide them in and out of by-streets and around zigzag corners.
They had adventures a plenty in pounding upon doors of wrong houses
and thus arousing the fury of sleepy men and sleepless dogs. One of
the latter tore away a quarter-section of the schoolmaster's rubber
coat, and became so interested in this that the owner escaped with no
further damage. After an hour filled with such experiences they
finally came to the right house. Joy flooded their hearts as the man
inside called out: "Yes, wait a minute." Once inside, questions and
answers flew back and forth like a shuttle. Yes, a little
girl--about five years old--light hair--braided and hanging down her
back--check apron. "She's the one--and we want to take her home."
Then the lady appeared, and said it was too bad to take the little
one out into such a night. But the schoolmaster bore her argument
down with the word-picture of the little one's mother pacing back and
forth in front of the shack, her hair hanging in strings, her
clothing drenched with rain and clinging to her body, her eyes
upturned, and her face expressing the most poignant agony. When they
left she had thus been pacing to and fro for seven hours and was, no
doubt, doing so yet. The mother-heart of the woman could not
withstand such an appeal, and soon she was busy in the difficult task
of trying to get the little arms into the sleeves of dress and apron.
Meanwhile, the two bedraggled men were on their knees striving with
that acme of awkwardness of which only men are capable, to ensconce
the little feet in stockings and shoes. The dressing of that child
was worthy the brush of Raphael or the smile of angels. At three
o'clock in the morning the schoolmaster stepped from the buggy and
placed the sleeping baby in the mother's arms, and only the heavenly
Father knows the language she spoke as she crooned over her little
one. As the schoolmaster wended his way homeward, cold, hungry, and
worn he was buoyant in spirit to the point of ecstasy. But he was
chastened, for he had stood upon the Mount of Transfiguration and
knew as never before that the mission of the schoolmaster is to find
and restore the lost child.