The evening book, or, Fireside talk on morals
and manners with sketches of western life |
THE VILLAGE SCHOOL. |
 | The evening book, or, Fireside talk on morals
and manners |  |
THE VILLAGE SCHOOL.
How many of the rulers and magnates of this `wonderful country,'
look back to the district school as the nursery of the tender
germs of their greatness! How many a judge can recollect when
he earned a rap with the rattan by spelling law, lor, or jumping
over the bench when he ought to have been sitting quietly upon it!
How many a governor imbibed his first notion of the dignity of
office, from the grand air of the schoolmaster, as he paced the floor
with the whip over his shoulder, rolling his eyes magisterially, now
on this side, now on that, giving, ever and anon, a brief word of
command, or stopping, in awful silence, before some negligent
scholar. How majestic appeared that functionary, even without his
coat; how enviable the awful sway he exercised over his charge!
Some ill-considered word—some unjust judgment—some sincere
and earnest exhortation of those days, may have influenced, for good
or ill, the moral character of all present. How important, then, is
the agency of the village-school. Is it not wonderful that we
Americans, a practical people, should take so little pains to make it
what it should be!
Our little realm has been swayed by masters and mistresses of all
degrees of qualification and deficiency. When the logs were yet so
the desks unhacked; the benches four-legged; the floor
undespoiled of its knots—we had Miss Cynthia Day, a damsel of
few personal charms, and little superfluous learning. She came
amply recommended from a neighboring town, as `a young woman
of good parts and behavior,' and so indeed we found her; but her
parts were not the parts of speech.
`Silas!' she would drawl out, `Si-ilas! let them 'are what's'er
names be, dew! You'll git it, if you don't!'
She was an excellent aid at a quilting, especially as she was left-handed,
and therefore good at corners; and she sang in meeting,
with such good-will, and in so nasal a style, that it sounded as if
some one was blowing an accompaniment through a comb, as is
sometimes done at village merry-makings.
But her reign scarcely lasted out the summer. She was too
good-natured; and, moreover, took so much snuff that the little
ones sneezed and cried when they stood by her knee to say their
lessons. She was dismissed, with some civil excuses, and found a
more fitting vocation as a tailoress, to which business, indeed, she
was bred.
The winter brought us Mr. Hardcastle, a young divinity student
from a neighboring village; a sober and down-looking person, who
spoke softly, and moved with great deliberation. He had never
taught school before, and was regularly examined before the proper
functionaries. He spelt all the words in the spelling-book—that is,
all the trap-words in which the examiners sought to catch him—to
the great astonishment of all present; defined `Orthography,' and
`Ratiocination,' and did the sum on the last page of the arithmetic;
so no possible objection could be made to him. But he, poor fellow,
was too delicate in mind and body for the place; and before
and a face paler than when he came. He did not live to finish his
studies, and we have always supposed that that uproarious school
hastened his end.
The lady who succeeded him had a very angular nose, and the
thinnest of thin lips, and the sharpest of sharp eyes. She was a
disciplinarian. Woe to the unlucky damsel who blotted her copy,
or the truant wight that stayed too long when he was sent for
water! That little rattan was never still; and Miss Pinkey had an
ingenious instrument of torture, which consisted of a split quill, that
she placed on the ear of the offender, and then stuck him up on the
desk, a spectacle to the school. If the offence was rank, the quill
was exchanged for a small hickory twig, which being split and made
to pinch the ear, produced such sounds as may be heard when a pig
is caught unawares in a gate;—music which was seemingly pleasant
in the ears of Miss Pinkey. A slate held out at arm's length, or a
book balanced on the head, varied the scene occasionally; until the
school ma'am established such order in school, and such confusion
and anger in the neighborhood, that every body was glad when the
approach of winter gave an opportunity to dismiss so efficient a
teacher.
All this time the `education' of the district had not made very
encouraging progress. Reading, writing and arithmetic remained at
a low ebb, while truancy and mischief had reached a formidable
pass. It was considered high time to do something decided for the
welfare of the rising community; and accordingly steps were taken
to procure a master from a certain town in the neighborhood, where
the schools had acquired high reputation for order and progress.
The sum of sixteen dollars per month was a great deal to pay, but
the teacher in question would hear of nothing less; and as he was
of the committee as his home, the arrangement was at length made,
after much debate and difficulty. Mr. Ball was engaged, and the
school-house scrubbed out, the door new hung so that it would shut,
and every broken pane of glass either replaced, or patched so that it
was as good as new. There was some talk of new mudding the
school-house before the cold weather came on, but that could not be
carried. It was argued that with woods all round that wanted clearing,
it was never worth while to have houses made too tight.
On the first Monday in November, Mr. Ball made his appearance,
dressed in a new blue suit, with a yellow waistcoat, and abundance
of shining brass buttons. His hair was brushed into a topknot or
rather a cock's comb, after the mode of twenty years ago, and his
cheeks were as red as two great Spitzenberg apples. He wore a
monstrous watch, with a very conspicuous steel chain and brass key,
and this cumbrous apparatus was frequently drawn out and consulted,
as if every moment of his time was incalculably precious—a
circumstance which had its due effect upon the company, wherever
he might happen to be. In short, Mr. Ball was a blusterer, who
was more intent on impressing those about him with a high idea of
his personal consequence, than on performing the duties expected of
him. In the school he put on a most lordly air, and at first struck
the scholars with awe; but children are too discerning to be long
deceived, and they began, before a great while, to take advantage
of the master's foibles, and to be as idle and negligent as ever.
Yet he was not altogether a King Log either. After unbending
so far as to tell the scholars long stories, in which he himself always
made a most heroic figure; and enjoying their wondering comments
and facetious remarks, he would suddenly change his tone, and
order every one to resume his studies, at the same time declaring in
understood as a threat against whoever should dare to smile in the
ranks.
This course produced some sensation among the parents, who
were a good deal puzzled to interpret a character which seemed
compounded of such incongruous qualities. Some thought `too
much book-larnin' made fools of people; others that Mr. Ball, having
had a `select-school' of his own, could not be expected to lay
out all his powers upon a district school. One good lady suspected
that the master was in love; another was afraid he drank. Theories
abounded, but no satisfactory result could be obtained, since the
conclusion of to-day was swept away by the new freak of to-morrow.
It happened that the house of Mr. Entwistle, one of the school-inspectors,
had been chosen by Mr. Ball as a home; and Mr. Entwistle
had half a dozen mischievous daughters, who were always
spreading some story of the master's queer doings. They declared
however small might be the bit of candle with which they furnished
him at bed-time, he always had light in his room until midnight;
and the story was corroborated by the notorious fact that it was impossible
to make noise enough to arouse Mr. Ball before eight o'clock
in the morning, when he swallowed the half-cold breakfast reserved
for him by Mrs. Entwistle, and had but just time to reach the school-house
before the clock struck nine. This encroachment upon country
customs produced much remark; for nothing is so universal
among settlers as very early hours both at evening and morning.
The girls at Mr. Entwistle's had made many a sly attempt to discover
what it was that occupied Mr. Ball so late at night, but never
could find an article of any description about the room, everything
being carefully shut up in a large chest with a prodigious lock, and
treasures. In vain did they raise false alarms to bring the master
down stairs; peep through the key-hole when they heard the great
lock turn; and contrive reasons why the mysterious chest must be
opened in their presence. Mr. Ball walked unconscious, and was as
if he heard them not. When asked the direct question—as we
blush to say he was more than once—as to what the great chest
had in it, he answered simply, `Nothing much.'
This was not to be endured. Any attempt at privacy is considered
prima facie evidence of guilt; and it began to be whispered
that there must be something very wrong about Mr. Ball's chest.
Now when Western people begin to suspect, they never stop
half way. No trifles are ever thought of; but if a man is suspected
of anything, it is as likely to be of stealing, counterfeiting, or any
one of the seven deadly sins, as of any venial offence. So ere long
the opinion began to be entertained that it was somebody's duty to
find out what was in the chest, in order to come at the master's
reasons for sitting up so late at night.
This idea once started, it was not difficult to decide upon the act;
and on a Saturday afternoon, when the schoolmaster was congratulating
himself upon having finished his week's work, and had locked
his door in his usual mysterious manner, he was surprised to be
called down stairs to a visitor.
The most `efficient' man in our neighborhood was Deacon Bradley;
not a bona fide deacon, but so-called because he exercised a
sort of half paternal, half spiritual jurisdiction on the score of his
own strictness, and the fact that he occasionally exhorted in meeting
when no minister was present. This worthy person had been
selected as the spokesman of those whose consciences were troubled
on account of the supposed misdeeds of Mr. Ball. He sat with
an air at once solemn and fidgetty. They felt sure that they were
in the right path, guarding the morals of the community; yet they
certainly felt a little misgiving as to how the master would relish
their interference in his affairs. So they hum'd and ha'd—to use
Mr. Ball's own account of the scene—and dwelt so long upon the
state of the weather and the prospects for next summer, that the
delinquent began to conclude the visit was intended simply as a
mark of respect, and his natural swell was doubtless not a little
increased.
At length, however, Deacon Bradley approached the real subject,
by means of some very adroit remarks upon the dreadful effects of
wickedness in general, and especially of certain particular offences
at which he more than hinted. Mr. Ball assented to all these observations
with great readiness, adding gratuitously some severe strictures
of his own on the sins in question. The deacon then touched
upon irregular habits as very apt to lead to evil; very soon came
down upon late hours as belonging to this class, and closed a somewhat
formal address by a direct charge upon the schoolmaster of
setting a bad example, and exciting the suspicion of the neighborhood,
by his odd ways of locking his door and never letting anybody
see the inside of his chest!
It may be supposed that this attack did not meet a very amiable
response from one used to `awful rule, supremacy and sway,' and
who was conscious that he knew a good deal more of `orthography,
etymology, syntax, and prosody,' than his lecturers, to say nothing
of arithmetic and a smattering of surveying. He blustered a good
deal, and stood upon his rights, and wondered what business it was
of anybody's what he did when school was over; but the old folks
stuck to their point with such pertinacity, that Mr. Ball at length
of the fatal chest.
So he marched Mr. Entwistle and the deacon in solemn array up
to his room, and as soon as they were inside the door, turned the
key and put it in his pocket, thereby occasioning some ill-disguised
alarm on the part of the deacon, who expected nothing less than
pistols, or some other awful engine of destruction, to pop up when
the chest should open.
`Now, gentlemen,' said Mr. Ball, with more than his usual swagger,
`your doubts shall be set at rest; but, remember, that I leave
your district on Monday morning, and you may find who you will
to keep your school.'
Mr. Entwistle paused a little upon this, and would have restrained
his more zealous companion; but curiosity had so far the better of
the deacon's prudence, that he declared he felt it his duty to go on.
Whereupon the schoolmaster unlocked the mysterious chest, and
displayed a very scanty amount of shirts and stockings, with a prodigious
pile of James's novels, and a file or two of newspapers; a
phrenological head, a few candles, and a bottle of blacking with
brushes!
And this was all! The examiners stood looking down into the
half empty abyss; and, we will hope, experienced some compunctious
visitings; but they owned nothing of the kind. Mr. Entwistle
professed himself satisfied, and was about to withdraw, when he
was recalled by an exclamation from the deacon, who had taken up
some of the papers.
`A Univarsal paper!' he cried, as if horrified by the very sight.
`A Univarsal paper! Would you read such things as that?
Pretty thing for a school-teacher I should think! For my part I
would rather there should never be a teacher in the place than to
if I'd a know'd it!'
Whether the deacon's pious indignation was entirely genuine and
spontaneous, or whether it was called up to cover what he felt to be
a ridiculous position, must be left doubtful. It served his turn, by
causing Mr. Ball's angry departure to be attended by a cloud of
odium, raised by those who, professing no religion at all, were still
willing to embrace any opportunity of siding with those who did—
that being the popular tone in our particular part of the country.
It was not difficult to have it understood, that having observed cause
of suspicion, Deacon Bradley had found ample explanation of Mr.
Ball's conduct in the papers and other things found in the mysterious
chest, upon the particulars of which a prudent silence was
observed by the parties concerned.
Unfortunately for Mr. Ball's reputation, in less than a week from
the time he left us, the schoolhouse was burnt down; and as it had
been closed from his departure, it seemed the easiest thing in the
world to suppose that he and his revenge were at the bottom of the
accident. The few friends left among us by that overbearing dignitary,
thought, but hardly dared to say, that, as far as probabilities
went, it seemed quite as likely that somebody whose intent it
was to vilify the schoolmaster had been accerssory to the burning, as
that Mr. Ball should have come from his place of residence, which
was many miles off, to perform the operation, under a thousand
chances of detection. Another doubtful point.
After this disaster, the funds being low, Mr. Henry offered to let
his upper chamber for the temporary use of the district, leaving the
building of a new school-house until after harvest, when contributions
of money and labor would be much more readily obtained.
room, with a few temporary seats for the scholars, and a
board laid upon two barrels to serve as a writing-table. This
afforded some amusement, and so aided Miss Wealthy to keep order
among the refractory imps, though one boy who had lived at `the
East,' earned the ratan by saying that we had a `high school' now,
because it was up stairs; which Miss Wealthy considered an injurious
and sarcastic reflection upon the dignity of the establishment.
By way of revenging himself, the urchin called her Miss Twister,
which coming to her ears brought him another castigation; and
parties soon being formed, discord began to shake her scorpion whip
over us again. Miss Turner, however, kept her ground; pacified
the naughty boy's mother, by netting her a very curious and elaborate
cap; and vindicated her authority by such strictness in school,
that offences gradually became less frequent, and the interests of
learning advanced accordingly.
One occurrence during Miss Turner's reign she would often herself
relate with much gôut. The floor of the temporary school-room,
being only of loose boards, afforded much opportunity of
observing the doings of Mr. Henry's family, who lived and carried
on all domestic operations in the room below; and one day, when
Mrs. Henry was making an unusual clatter in cleaning her domicile,
and Miss Turner happened to be absent for a short time, the whole
school were on their knees, peeping through a wide crack in their
floor, in order to enjoy the pleasure of watching Mrs Henry, as she
dashed water upon hers. At this very point, while every eye was
fixed, and every nose pressed flat, in the desire to enjoy as much
stolen pleasure as possible, Miss Wealthy returned, and, taking the
enemy at disadvantage, administered a general corrective, before
anybody could summon wits enough to stand on the defensive.
may be imagined! and Miss Wealthy Turner's triumph!
It is really astonishing how savage and Herod-like school-keeping
makes some people. Miss Wealthy got married not long after
this; and some of us thought he was a bold man that took her.
| The evening book, or, Fireside talk on morals
and manners | |