At Last: Six Days in the Life of an Ex-Teacher

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AT LAST:

SIX DAYS IN THE LIFE OF AN EX-TEACHER

By JOHN HABBERTON

First Day

FIRST DAY.—I WAS A SCHOOL-MA'AM.

IF any one had told me, a few years ago, that the time would come when I should industriously devote five days of every seven to the teaching of stupid children and the disorganization of my own nerves, I should have classed him among the false prophets. But there came a love-affair which resulted unpleasantly; it was merely the old story of a man marrying one woman while another who loved him better was hesitating to say "yes." Coming of stock whose attachments are few but strong, I did not recover quietly and cheerily, like some feminine experts at the game of love, and our family physician, who seemed to suspect the truth, prescribed steady mental occupation as the only probable cure for my low spirits.

So I became a teacher in a public school, and the desired effect was slowly attained. I ought to have learned to love the school-room for what it did for me, but I did not. Once familiar with the routine, and successful beyond my expectation, it seemed wrong to abandon the work, particularly as the city children of whom my classes were composed were the most uninteresting of their kind, and consequently the most needy. Nevertheless, when vacation came and my family agreed that a month in the country was necessary to n physical well-being; I advertised for a boarding-house in which there were no children of any age or condition.

The place which I finally selected seemed a veritable haven of rest. It was kept by two old ladies who knew the value of peace and quietness, and whose house was in the centre of a large estate the eastern edge of which commanded a view upon which no child could intrude without first crossing the Atlantic Ocean. There was not a house in sight; yet I had scarcely swung a hammock in a little cluster of pines, and become interested in the first chapter of a novel, when I was disturbed by a childish voice exclaiming,—

"Hello!"

"Go away, little girl; go right away," said I, as I turned my head and saw a small figure consisting principally of large blue eyes, yellow hair, and dirty calico frock.

"I don't fink you's very polite," said the little creature, without moving.

"There are times when politeness is a mistake," said I. The child, still immovable, stared, and replied,—

"I's sorry for you. My gran'ma finks ev'ybody ought to be sorried for, dat wasn't brought up to speak polite to strangers. Didn't you have no gran'ma—or muvver—to teach you to talk nice?"

I rose quickly to give the little upstart one of the glances which had always been sufficient to annihilate an impudent pupil. The hammock was not in sympathy with me: it was one of those loose-netted Mexican abominations which always act just as they shouldn't, so in a second or two I found myself in a most undignified position on the great mattress of pine-needles that covered the ground.

"You did dat dreadful funny!" said the child, after a hearty peal of laughter. "Let's see if I can't do it."

Before I could recover my dimity the child had climbed into the hammock and was making frantic struggles to fall out. She was so small and light, however, that she remained like a bundle in the bottom of the net, and her struggles merely gave her her a great deal of color and made her eyes brighter. Finally she sighed,—

"I guess I'll have to get rested; after dat, you can show me how to do it" Then she composed herself in the hammock, and continued, "You can swing me, if you want to; I like to swing in hammocks."

"So do I," said I, with all the impressiveness that five years of authority over children had given me. The child looked wonderingly at me for a moment, and then merrily shouted,—

"Come along, den. I guess I can make room for you." Suiting the action to the word, the midget sat upright, and nodded invitingly.

I was beginning to be amused, though only in the manner of the cat who plays with the mouse whom she intends soon to slay. As I sat down, the child cuddled close to me, put a chubby hand in mine, and said,—

"You must hold me tight, now, so I can't drop out"

"A moment ago," said I, as I put an arm around the child, "you wanted to drop out."

"Oh, yes, but dat was den; an' dis is now. Don't you see? Now go on swingin'."

I put one foot to the ground to set the hammock in motion, and the wee thing began to sing,—

"Swing—swong, Swing—swong, Swing, ah, swingee, swing, swong!"

This ridiculous jingle continued for some moments, but finally a bar was succeeded by—

"Say! if you don't swing faster I can't keep breff enough to sing."

"That would indeed be sad," said I. "Don't you think, now, it is time for you to go home?"

"No, indeed," said the child; "we won't have dinner for ever so long."

"And do you mean to remain here until then?" I asked, with a downward glance intended to be withering.

"Why, to be sure; where else is I to go?"

"I'm sure I don't know; but I want to read and be quiet."

"Oh, well," said the child, "dere won't be any trouble 'bout dat, I guess. You can be as quiet as you want to: I can do all de talkin'."

"How thoughtful of you!" I murmured.

"Oh, is it?" said the, her eyes brightening. "I'll tell gran'ma you said dat, an' den she'll give me a penny. She's tryin' ever so hard to make me foughtful."

"I fear your grandma has a hard task before her. What is your name, little girl?"

"Alice Hope."

"Well, Alice, if you'll run away now and leave me with my book, I will be very much obliged to you."

"Is you learnin' a lesson from de book?"

"No, I'm merely reading a story."

"Oh, well, gran'ma don't fink much of people dat reads stories in de mornin', when dere's so much work to be done."

"I'm glad, then, for your grandma's sake, that I am not one of her children this summer."

"But gran'ma's awful nice. All de little girls I know would ravver have her dan deir own gran'mas. She's always got peppermint candies in her pocket"

Peppermint! every woman of the slums who ever came to me to complain of my treatment of her child chewed some candied preparation of peppermint. I could thank my visitor for awakening some most abhorrent memories. Her grandmother was probably a horrid old village crone, who managed her son's or daughter's family as if it were her own. This child, who, I was slowly realizing, was quite pretty, and with intelligent features,—had she no parents?

"Alice," said I, "why don't your mother put a clean dress on you before she lets you go out to visit strangers?"

"My muvver?" exclaimed the child, with wide-open eyes, which soon began to twinkle roguishly. "How do you s'pose she could put clothes on me, 'way down here, when she's 'way up in de sky?"

"Oh, I beg your pardon," said I, quickly and kindly. "You see, I didn't know your mother was dead."

"She isn't dead; she's just as alive as you. You don't s'pose dere's dead folks up in de sky, do you? Why, dey'd drop down an' all smash to bits. You wouldn't like to be dead if you was up dere, would you?"

"N—no; I suppose not," said I, "and I am very sorry for you, little Alice, that your mother isn't with you."

"I isn't," said the youngster, as cheerily as if losing a mother were not a matter for grief. "She don't have to be sick any more, nor be bovvered 'bout servants, which gran'ma says is dreadful, an' she can sing all she wants to, an' her clothes never gets dirty, like mine is once in a while."

"How do you know?"

"'Cause gran'ma says so; dat's how. An' my fahver says she was just de kind to enjoy heaven, 'cause she didn't ever like trouble."

"We would all be up in the sky, I suppose, if dislike of trouble would put us there. But some one ought to see that your dresses are kept clean. All the children who come to my school, no matter how poor they are, must wear clean clothes."

"Does you keep a school?" asked the child, suddenly looking very sober. "I guess I'll go 'way from you den."

"Stop, please," I eaid in haste. "Alice, dear little girl, I'm not dreadful, though I chance to be a teacher. You were telling me about your mother."

"Yes. You don't s'pose my muvver is goin' to take care of my clothes now, do you, while she's up in de sky? She can't have no nasty old wash-tubs up dere, 'cause dere wouldn't be noffin' dere to stand 'em on, you know. Say! is you got any children?"

"Only some that belong to other people."

"Wh-y-y-y! Well, if you takes care of uvver folks' little girls, an' likes to do it, you can wash my clothes for me yourself, if you want to."

"Thanks, but that's a little beyond my capacity. Do you go to school?"

"No. I don't like to go to school. School-teachers is horrid."

"Thanks again. Where did you learn your letters?"

"Don't know any letters, only what's in my name. Dey're all dat's mine. Say! can you climb is trees?"

"No: it isn't lady-like to climb trees?"

"Can you make dams?"

"No: it isn't lady-like to make dams, either."

There was a pause, and a searching, pitying look. Then the child sighed:

"I's awful sorry for you, dat you has to be lady-like. Say! it isn't not-lady-like to eat sassafras-bark, is it,—just to bite it off of de littlest branches,—de very littlest?"

"I fear it is."

"Oh, you poor fing!" she sighed, throwing her arms around my skirts. "I's awful sorry for you."

"Thanks for your sympathy, little girl." The child's embrace was so close and long that I could not help returning it. Suddenly she released me, looked soberly into my face, and asked—

"Say! it isn't not-lady-like for you to play wiff dolls, is it?"

"I—I scarcely know; I shall have to think about it."

"Well, dere's one way to find out; you can try. I'll go get my dolls an' bring 'em up here, an' you play wiff 'em, an' if you don't do it lady-like I'll tell you. You needn't be afraid I won't; for my dolls is very particular 'bout how dey's played wiff,—all of 'em but Agonies."

"Agonies?"

"Yes; Agonies is a low-downer, gran'ma says—always gettin' down on de floor and in de dirt. I can't teach her no manners at all. You stay here while I go bring 'em, an' while I'm gone you can take your fink 'bout whether it's lady-like to play wiff 'em."

The child tumbled out of the hammock and tripped away with an odd motion like the steps of a waltz, while I began to wonder how I had so patiently endured the interruption. I followed her with my eyes until she was hidden by the shrubbery. She certainly was a picturesque, merry, confiding little creature,—quite unlike the solid, suspicious beings whom it had been my daily lot to meet. Already I felt guilty at the dislike of children that had taken possession of me. But it was not all my fault: if Frank Wayne hadn't been impatient at my hesitation and married a pretty-faced doll, I should never have been tormented almost to death in a classroom and learned to hate the sight of children. 'Twas all his fault,—not mine. The thought threw me into moody musing, as the recollection of my great sorrow always did; how long it might have continued I do not know, for it was interrupted in a few moments by—

"Well, isn't you done dat fink yet? I didn't s'pose it would make you look so sad."

Raising my head quickly, I saw before me little Alice and a collection of dolls such as I did not imagine could be found outside of the play-room of an infant asylum. I endeavored to count them, but the effort ended abruptly when the child leaned over me and dropped her entire family into the hammock, most of them falling on my head and face.

"Dere!" she exclaimed. "I's like de old woman dat lived in a shoe,—I's got so many children I don't know what to do. Say! you must be careful!"—for I was struggling to extricate myself from the mass of figures, limbs, and skirts. "You'll hurt some or 'em. I don't fink you'll make a very nice muvver if you'd treat uvver children like you treat mine."

"I beg your pardon," said I, extricating myself from the hammock, "but really2"

"Dere! You's doin' it again!" shrieked the child, picking up a doll which had escaped from the hammock with me. "I do declare, if it ain't Agonies! dat child does beat all for gettin' in de dirt; when any of 'em tumbles down I just know it's Agonies, first fing."

"Where did you get the name of that doll, Alice?"

"Named her after gran'ma's cook; looks just like her,—always mussy."

I thought a moment, and then asked,—

"Is the cook's name Agnes?"

"Well," said the child half contemptuously, half despairingly, "if her name isn't Agonies, how could my doll's name be Agonies, I'd like to know?"

There seemed no appropriate answer to this question: so I said,—

"I wouldn't have misunderstood you if you had talked plainer. How old are you, Alice?"

"Five years old."

"You're old enough to speak plain, then, and I'll teach you, if you like."

"But I don't like; my fahver says he believes he would kill somebody if dey'd make me talk plain. You wouldn't like to be killed, would you,—not before you got acquainted wiff my dolls?"

"It might be advisable to die first," said I, looking at the sprawling figures that covered the bottom of the hammock. Meanwhile the doll's mother began to arrange the disordered garments of her brood, and to seat each doll decorously in the hammock. When all was done she looked along the line with an air of motherly satisfaction, and said,—

"Which one would you rather be introduced to first?"

"I think." said I, glancing along the line, "that Agnes looks like the class of children I am most used to. Her face and clothing and general appearance remind me strongly of some old acquaintances."

"Den I'm afraid." said the child, looking at me critically, "dat you wasn't well brought up. I don't like Agonies much, but I's dreadful sorry for her,—she's such a forlorn wretch. I could just cry, sometimes, when I fink about what Agonies is."

How often had I felt thus to some repellent little wretch in my class-room! The thought of it made me surprise little Alice by picking her up and kissing her,—an act which, I confess, surprised me also.

"You're a soft-hearted little dear," I said, as I released her.

"Well," she replied, "my fahver says a soft heart is better dan a hard head."

"Your papa is a discerning man," said I.

"Of course he is, if di-surnin means somefin' nice. Well, if you fink Agonies is most like you, you'd better begin playin' wiff her, 'cause it'll be her bedtime 'fore long. Just look at her foot, where de kitten pulled two of her toes off. I couldn't be sorry for her like I ought to, first time I saw her toes wasn't dere, cause dey didn't look like dey'd bleeded any: so I just rubbed some strawberry on de place to make it look like bleedin', den I cried like ey'ryfin'—why, I cried two whole hankecheffs full. I didn't spank her for about a week,—I just couldn't have de heart to do it, dough she was bein' awful bad all de whole time."

"Poor Agnes!" said I, picking up the limp, dingy doll as one would lift an unattractive kitten from the mud.

"She likes to be kissed," said the child. I did not act upon this suggestion, so Alice continued: "An' I don't fink she likes to have her name made short like you do it You oughtn't to call her 'Agnes;' you ought to say Agonies."

"Agonies?"

"Yes; dat's 'bout it, I guess."

For an hour or more my new acquaintance prattled on and played with her dolls talking to them quite as much as to me, and treating them entirely as if they were human beings. I marvelled, for a little while, that any one's imaginative faculty could be so strong, but finally I found myself drifting into sincere admiration of the child herself. I guiltily called myself to account, and reminded myself of the principal stipulation I had made in advertising for a boarding-place. What would my venerable landladies say, should they see me taking so much interest in a child whom I had never seen until that day? What peace or rest would I get if I allowed myself to be visited daily by this small visitor and her brood of dolls? I must banish her at once, empty my hammock of counterfeit humanity, and resume the quite lounging for which I had come to the country.

I waited for an appropriate moment studying the child's face in the mean time. The fresh complexion, cheerful manner, and entire lack of consciousness were so unlike what my profession doomed me to see in children that I moaned as I realised how entirely some phases of child-nature had escaped my notice and sympathy. Little Alice caught the sound, which I had imagined inaudible to any one but myself; she turned quickly and exclaimed,—

"Wonder which or my children it was dat made dat noise like as if dey wasn't happy 'bout somefin'?" Then she lodged at me with mock severity, and continued, "Why, I do believe it's you! De idea! A great big girl like you makin' such a grumble as dat! I should fink you was awful hungry an' had to wait ever so long yet for your dinner."

"I am hungry, little girl,—heart-hungry," said I, thinking aloud, rather than intending to speak so plainly.

"Well, I don't see where you spec's to get any hearts to eat," said the child. "Never heard of anybody eatin' hearts, anyhow."

"You didn't understand me rightly," said I.

"Tell me all 'bout it, den," said she, abandoning her dolls and again clasping my knees and looking up into my face. The child's countenance was like an angel's, it seemed to in so pure and full of soul. But, while I wondered whether to reply, and now, little Alice suddenly changed her pose: she relaxed her grasp, stood upright, and turned her head as if intently listening, then exclaimed,—

"Sure's I live, that's our dinner-bell. I's got to go. You can tell me all 'bout it some uvver time. Your tell can wait, don't you see? but my hungry can't wait a sine second longer, seems to me."

"You are forgetting your dolls," said 1, coldly, as the heartless infant who prefetred dinner to me started skippingly away.

"Oh, no, I isn't," she said, with a backward toss of her head. "I's leavin' 'em for you to play wiff. Dey hasn't had a chance at such a nice hammock in a long time, an' I hasn't de heart to make 'em come home."

The signal for my own dinner was given soon afterwards, and as I was, as yet, the only boarder, I naturally chatted with my landladies at table, and had to guard my tongue closely to keep from asking questions about my new acquaintance. To avoid committing myself, I hurried bock to me hammock, removed all the dolls, laid them side by side on the pine-leaves, found my novel, and resumed the thread of the story. I soon was absorbed in the joys and woes of the author's characters, and had forgotten Alice Hope and her make-believe family; but a little while afterwards I heard a familiar voice exclaiming,—

"Well, if I ever!"

I looked over the edge of the hammock; there stood little Alice, with a sober, puzzled face, contemplating her dolls. She stared at them a moment or two, turned gravely toward me. and said,—

"You don't understand dolls very well, do you? You've gone an' sent 'em to bed all wrong. Theres Mahjerie Daw and Missis Bond side by side; anybody ought to know dose two oughtn't ever to be togevver; dey fights awful."

"Don't be silly, little girl; they2"

"Oh, you fink I's silly, do you? Well, you'll know better one of dese days, I hope. An' dere's Captain Jinks an' Black Peter right aside of each uvver. I wonder de Captain don't frow Pete away; Pete always sleeps down at de Captain's feet—so." Suiting the action to the word, the child carefully rearranged her insensate charges.

"Alice, I like to tee little girls play with their dolls, but it isn't sensible to pretend that they are reel people."

"Goodness! You's dreadful sensible, isn't you? Don't you ever make b'lieve your dolls is real folks?"

"I haven't any dolls."

"Oh, I forgot; of course not; you's too big to have dolls, I s'pose, you poor fing! Well, don't you ever play dat real folks is what dey ain't?"

"Of course not."

"Den I guess you's had a tough time. My fahver says dat folks is nicer for what you fink 'em dan what dey is,—most folks."

"Does your father put such ideas into your innocent little head?"

"Of coarse not," said the child, contemptuously. "He says 'em to gran'ma, sometimes, an' my head most takes 'em in for itself; dat's how it is. Say you don't fink folks ain't noffin' but what dey act like, do you? 'Cause my fahver says dat ain't fair; so of course it ain't, 'cause he knows."

Slowly, bot surely, the idea took possession of me that this child's father must be either a Solon or a prig. Frank Wayne had once talked to me a great deal of stuff like that which the child had been repeating in a parrotlike manner, and it had amused me a great deal, for I really liked him and was trying to love him, but what girl who is trying to persuade herself that she is in love can have any patience with talk that sounds like ethical discussion? It all came back to me, as this mere infant prattled about matters entirely beyond her comprehension, and it forced me, as she talked, into a brown study, from which I was roused by the remark,—

"Say! do you know you look just de way I look in a lookin'-glass after I's took some medicine dat I don't like one single bit?"

I made haste to compose my face and profess some interest in the dolls. The change in my manner would have been acceptable to an adult, but Miss Alice Hope was not an adult. As I had learned in the class-room, the one task harder than to get an idea into a juvenile head is that of getting an idea out. The child returned to the subject by remarking,—

"You must have had a dreadful not-comfortable fink in your finker a little while ago. Why didn't you frow it out? I wouldn't carry not-comfortable finks, when dere's such is a lot of nice ones dat anybody can get if dey want 'em: dat's what my fahver says."

"Your father must be a very lucky man, to be able to have only pleasant thoughts. I wish I knew how he contrived to do it."

"Do you? Well, I can tell you, 'cause he told me one day. When any bovvers comes into his mind he just goes to finkin' 'bout me right away, an' all de bad finks tumbles out of his mind right off. You can do it if you want to; I don't mind havin' two people fink about me. I don't see why finkin' 'bout me makes bad finks go 'way; does you?"

"Yes, I do,—you little witch," said I, snatching her in my arms and kissing her soundly.

"Don't make me drop Dolly," she screamed. This remark cooled my admiration to such an extent that I dropped the child somewhat hastily. Apparently she did not note my change of feeling, for as she resumed attentions to her brood she continued,—

"Well,if you'll understand it I suppose it's all right, dough of course 'twould be anyhow, seein' my fahver says so."

How much more of this nonsense was I doomed to listen to? Not that I disliked it; it was amusing, rather than otherwise it was so unexpected that it might have been far less sensible without offending one who for years had found only stupidity, sullenness, or impudence in children. (There were no children in our family.) But amusing though it was, it was unfair to the child to encourage it. Evidently little Alice Hope was "running wild,"—the pet of an indulgent grandmother and a careless father,—a combination that would ruin the mind of the best child alive. She needed the formative and restraining influence of a mother, or, lacking that, kindly but close discipline by a good teachers: her own dislike of teachers, and her father's contempt for them, proved this.

Then I wished she might be in my school. She would be like a lily among weeds; but how delightful it would be, sometimes, for my weary eyes to rest upon her! How carefully, even from gratitude alone, would I endeavor to train the mind of so cheery a being! It could not be: the mere thought of transporting her to the city horrified me; but why should I not endeavor to improve her character somewhat while we were near each other? Of one thing I was certain; however distasteful my professional duties had been, I had acquired and developed a faculty for training immature minds. My progress with any special case had been slow enough to be depressing, but, as I frequently reminded myself, the material was most unpromising; the greatest Teacher who ever spoke had himself admitted that good seed could flourish only on good ground. But if I were to choose my own material upon which to world, what could be more inviting than this child who had forced herself upon my attention, and at least a little way into my heart, in spite of my efforts to exclude her and all of her kind? Perhaps here was to be my compensation for years of labor which until now had been almost disheartening. Would the results of my training last? Might they not all be undone by her grandmother, who I felt sure was a horrid old woman, and her father, who seemed to be a crank, or at least a fellow of many affectations? Well, suppose they were? The risk was no greater than with all my previous infant charges, and from the selfish stand-point alone the work promised to be its own reward.

"Alice," said I.

There was no reply. The child was leaning over one of her dolls, who had been laid at the root of the tree and covered with a handkerchief.

"Alice," I repeated.

The child turned her head, shook it slightly, frowned a little, and put her finger to her lips in a warning way. What utter nonsense! Of one thing I assured myself; I would endeavor to train her imagination and keep it from running riot. A character which began with imagination, I said to myself would become as ridiculous as a house of which a builder should first elaborate the cornice, while the foundation and frame remained bare and neglected.

"Missis Bond was sayin' her prayers before takin' her afternoon nap," said the child, rising and rejoining me. "It isn't nice to talk while anybody's sayin' deir prayers. Of course you didn't know she was sayin' 'em, else you wouldn't have done it"

"My dear little child," said I, kindly,—I was determined not to repel her by any abruptness of manner or statement,—how did you ever come to imagine that your dolls pray, or can pray?"

"Dey ain't dolls; dey's my children," said she, "an' all little children ought to say deir prayers before dey go to sleep, even to take a nap: my fahver says so. He says dere's nobody but de Lord who is sure to know all 'bout what folks need when dey is asleep."

"Your father is quite right," said I; "but be wasn't talking about make-believe people, like your dolls."

This assertion set the child to thinking, at which I was delighted; there is nothing good that may not be hoped for in the pupil who thinks. I did not disturb her. It would be time for me to speak when she reached some conclusion through the exercise of her own reasoning powers. She looked at her dolls, several of whom had already been placed in make-believe beds; then she gravely said,—

"If you don't treat make-b'lieve folks de same as you do real folks, what's de good of makin' b'lieve at all?"

"Treat your dolls as dolls,—just what they are," said I. "They are only playthings. Other little girls are satisfied with playthings just as they are; why shouldn't you be like them?"

"I ain't goin' to try to be satisfied wiff old heads, an' arms, an' bodies, an' feet, if I can't make b'lieve dey's people."

"But, dear, you know they're not people, don't you?"

"Yes, but I can forget it as soon as I begins to play wiff 'em. I don't have no good times till I do forget it. De idea of lovin' Missis Bond just de way she is! Why, if I couldn't make b'lieve 'bout her, I'd frow her in de street. Nasty old fing!"