Tired of reading? Add this page to your Bookmarks or Favorites and finish it later.
|
|
It was a hot morning late in July when the school opened. I
trembled when I heard the patter of little feet down the dusty
road, and saw the growing row of dark solemn faces and
bright eager eyes facing me. First came Josie and her brothers
and sisters. The longing to know, to be a student in the
great school at Nashville, hovered like a star above this
child-woman amid her work and worry, and she studied
doggedly. There were the Dowells from their farm over
toward Alexandria,--Fanny, with her smooth black face and
wondering eyes; Martha, brown and dull; the pretty girl-wife
of a brother, and the younger brood.
There were the Burkes,--two brown and yellow lads, and
a tiny haughty-eyed girl. Fat Reuben's little chubby girl
came, with golden face and old-gold hair, faithful and solemn.
'Thenie was on hand early,--a jolly, ugly, good-hearted
girl, who slyly dipped snuff and looked after her little bow-legged
brother. When her mother could spare her, 'Tildy
came,--a midnight beauty, with starry eyes and tapering
limbs; and her brother, correspondingly homely. And then the
big boys,--the hulking Lawrences; the lazy Neills, unfathered
sons of mother and daughter; Hickman, with a stoop in
his shoulders; and the rest.
There they sat, nearly thirty of them, on the rough benches,
their faces shading from a pale cream to a deep brown, the
little feet bare and swinging, the eyes full of expectation,
with here and there a twinkle of mischief, and the hands
grasping Webster's blue-black spelling-book. I loved my school,
and the fine faith the children had in the wisdom of their
teacher was truly marvellous. We read and spelled together,
wrote a little, picked flowers, sang, and listened to stories of
the world beyond the hill. At times the school would dwindle
away, and I would start out. I would visit Mun Eddings, who
lived in two very dirty rooms, and ask why little Lugene,
whose flaming face seemed ever ablaze with the dark-red hair
uncombed, was absent all last week, or why I missed so often
the inimitable rags of Mack and Ed. Then the father, who
worked Colonel Wheeler's farm on shares, would tell me
how the crops needed the boys; and the thin, slovenly mother,
whose face was pretty when washed, assured me that Lugene
must mind the baby. "But we'll start them again next week."
When the Lawrences stopped, I knew that the doubts of the
old folks about book-learning had conquered again, and so,
toiling up the hill, and getting as far into the cabin as possible,
I put Cicero "pro Archia Poeta" into the simplest English
with local applications, and usually convinced them--for
a week or so.
|