But when I return to the town to resume my school-mastering, then the strain begins, and then the reign of complexities is renewed. When I am fully garbed in my town clothing I find myself the possessor of nineteen pockets. What they are all for is more than I can make out. If I had them all in use I'd have to have a detective along with me to help me find things. Out there on the farm two pockets quite suffice, but in the town I must have seventeen more. The difference between town and country seems to be about the difference between grubbing willows and schoolmastering. Among the willows I find two pockets are all I require; but among the children I must needs have nineteen, whether I have anything in them or not.

One of these seems to be designed for a college degree; another is an efficiency pocket; another a discipline pocket; another a pocket for methods; another for professional spirit; another for loyalty to all the folks who are in need of loyalty, and so on. I really do not know all the labels. When I was examined for a license to teach they counted my pockets, and, finding I had the requisite nineteen, they bestowed upon me the coveted document with something approaching eclat. In my teaching I become so bewildered ransacking these pockets, trying to find something that will bear some resemblance to the label, that I come near forgetting the boys and girls. But they are very nice and polite about it, and seem to feel sorry that I must look after all my pockets when I'd so much rather be teaching.

Out in the willow thicket I can go right on with my work without so much care or perplexity. Why, I don't need to do any talking out there, and so have time to do some thinking. But here I do so much talking that neither I nor my pupils have any chance for thinking. I know it is not the right way, but, somehow, I keep on doing it. I think it must be a bad habit, but I don't do it when I am grubbing willows. I seem to get to the bottom of things out there without talking, and I can't make out why I don't do the same here in the school. Out there I do things; in here I say things. I do wonder if there is any forgiveness for a schoolmaster who uses so many words and gets such meagre results.

And then the words I use here are such ponderous things. They are not the sort of human, flesh-and-blood words that I use when talking to neighbor John as we sit on top of the rail fence. These all seem so like words in a book, as if I had rehearsed them in advance. It may be just the town atmosphere, but, whatever it is, I do wish I could talk to these children about decimals in the same sort of words that I use when I am talking with John. He seems to understand me, and I think they could.

Possibly it is just the tension of town life. I know that I seem to get keyed up as soon as I come into the town. There are so many things here, and many of them are so artificial that I seem unable to relax as I do out there where there are just frogs, and moon, and chickens, and cows. When I am here I seem to have a sort of craze for things. The shop-windows are full of things, and I seem to want all of them. I know I have no use for them, and yet I get them. My neighbor Brown bought a percolator, and within a week I had one. I had gone on for years without a percolator, not even knowing about such a thing, but no sooner had Brown bought one than every sound I heard seemed to be inquiring: "What is home without a percolator?"

So I go on accumulating things, and my den is a veritable medley of things. They don't make me any happier, and they are a great bother. There are fifty-seven things right here in my den, and I don't need more than six or seven of them. There are twenty-two pictures, large and small, in this room, but I couldn't have named five of them had I not just counted them. Why I have them is beyond my comprehension. I inveigh against the mania of people for drugs and narcotics, but my mania for things only differs in kind from theirs. I have a little book called "Things of the Mind," and I like to read it. Now, if my mind only had as many things in it as my den, I'd be a far more agreeable associate for Brown and my neighbor John. Or, if I were as careful about getting things for my mind as I am in accumulating useless bric-a-brac, it would be far more to my credit.

If the germs that are lurking in and about these fifty-seven things should suddenly become as large as spiders, I'd certainly be the unhappy possessor of a flourishing menagerie, and I think my progress toward the simple life would be very promptly hastened.



CHAPTER XIII

TARGETS

In my work as a schoolmaster I find it well to keep my mind open and not get to thinking that my way is the only way, or even the best way. I think I learn more from my boys and girls than they learn from me, and so long as I can keep an open mind I am certain to get some valuable lessons from them. I got to telling the college chap about a hen that taught me a good lesson, and the first thing I knew I was going to school to this college youth, and he was enlightening me on the subject of animal psychology, and especially upon the trial-and-error theory. That set me wondering how many trials and errors that hen made before she finally succeeded in surmounting that fence. At any rate, the hen taught me another lesson besides the lesson of perseverance.

I have a high wire fence enclosing the chicken-yard, and in order to make steady the posts to which the gate is attached, I joined them at the top by nailing a board across. The hen that taught me the lesson must be both ambitious and athletic, for time after time have I found her outside the chicken-yard. I searched diligently for the place of exit, but could not find it. So, in desperation, I determined one morning to discover how that hen gained her freedom if it took all day. So I found a comfortable seat and waited. In an hour or so the hen came out into the open and took a survey of the situation. Then, presently, with skill born of experience, she sidled this way and that, advanced a little and then retreated until she found the exact location she sought, poised herself for a moment, and went sailing right over the board that connected the posts. Having made this discovery, I removed the board and used wire instead, and thus reduced the hen to the plane of obedience.

Just as soon as the hen lacked something to aim at, she could not get over the wire barrier, and she taught me the importance of giving my pupils something to aim at. I like my boys and girls, and believe they are just as smart as any hen that ever was, and that, if I'll only supply things for them to aim at, they will go high and far. Every time I see that hen I am the subject of diverse emotions. I feel half angry at myself for being so dull that a mere hen can teach me, and then I feel glad that she taught me such a useful lesson. Before learning this lesson I seemed to expect my pupils to take all their school work on faith, to do it because I told them it would be good for them. But I now see there is a better way. In my boyhood days we always went to the county fair, and that was one of the real events of the year. On the morning of that day there was no occasion for any one to call me a second time. I was out of bed in a trice, at the first call, and soon had my chores done ready for the start. I had money in my pocket, too, for visions of pink lemonade, peanuts, ice-cream, candy, and colored balloons had lured me on from achievement to achievement through the preceding weeks, and thrift had claimed me for its own. So I had money because, all the while, I had been aiming at the county fair.

We used to lay out corn ground with a single-shovel plough, and took great pride in marking out a straight furrow across the field. There was one man in the neighborhood who was the champion in this art, and I wondered how he could do it. So I set about watching him to try to learn his art. At either end of the field he had a stake several feet high, bedecked at the top with a white rag. This he planted at the proper distance from the preceding furrow and, in going across the field, kept his gaze fixed upon the white rag that topped the stake. With a firm grip upon the plough, and his eyes riveted upon the white signal, he moved across the field in a perfectly straight line. I had thought it the right way to keep my eyes fixed upon the plough until his practice showed me that I had pursued the wrong course. My furrows were crooked and zigzag, while his were straight. I now see that his skill came from his having something to aim at.

I am trying to profit by the example of that farmer in my teaching. I'm all the while in quest of stakes and white rags to place at the other side of the field to direct the progress of the lads and lasses in a straight course, and raise their eyes away from the plough that they happen to be using. I want to keep them thinking of things that are bigger and further along than grades. The grades will come as a matter of course, if they can keep their eyes on the object across the field. I want them to be too big to work for mere grades. We never give prizes in our school, especially money prizes. It would seem rather a cheap enterprise to my fine boys and girls to get a piece of money for committing to memory the "Gettysburg Speech." We respect ourselves and Lincoln too much for that. It would grieve me to know that one of my girls could be hired to read a book for an hour in the evening to a sick neighbor. I want her to have her pay in a better and more enduring medium than that. I'd hope she would aim at something higher than that.

If I can arrange the white rag, I know the pupils will do the work. There was Jim, for example, who said to his father that he just couldn't do his arithmetic, and wished he'd never have to go to school another day. When his father told me about it I began at once to hunt for a white rag. And I found it, too. We can generally find what we are looking for, if we look in dead earnest. Well, the next morning there was Jim in the arithmetic class along with Tom and Charley. I explained the absence of Harry by telling them about his falling on the ice the night before and breaking his right arm. I told them how he could get on well enough with his other studies, but would have trouble with his arithmetic because he couldn't use his arm. Now, Tom and Charley are quick in arithmetic, and I asked Tom to go over to Harry's after school and help with the arithmetic, and Charley to go over the next day, and Jim the third day. Now, anybody can see that white rag fluttering at the top of the stake across the field two days ahead. So, my work was done, and I went on with my daily duties. Tom reported the next day, and his report made our mouths water as he told of the good things that Harry's mother had set out for them to eat. The report of Charley the next day was equally alluring. Then Jim reported, and on his day that good mother had evidently reached the climax in culinary affairs. Jim's eyes and face shone as if he had been communing with the supernals.

That was the last I ever heard of Jim's trouble with arithmetic. His father was eager to know how the change had been brought about, and I explained on the score of the angel-food cake and ice-cream he had had over at Harry's, with no slight mention of my glorious white rag. The books, I believe, call this social co-operation, or something like that, but I care little what they call it so long as Jim's all right. And he is all right. Why, there isn't money enough in the bank to have brought that look to Jim's face when he reported that morning, and any offer to pay him for his help to Harry, either in money or school credits, would have seemed an insult. My neighbor John tells me many things about sheep and the way to drive them. He says when he is driving twenty sheep along the road he doesn't bother about the two who frisk back to the rear of the flock so long as he keeps the other eighteen going along. He says those two will join the others, all in good time. That helped me with those three boys. I knew that Tom and Charley would go along all right, so asked them to go over to Harry's before I mentioned the matter to Jim. When I did ask him he came leaping and frisking into the flock as if he were afraid we might overlook him. What a beautiful straight furrow he ploughed, too. His arithmetic work now must make the angels smile. I shall certainly mention sheep, the hen, and the white rag in my book on farm pedagogy.



CHAPTER XIV

SINNERS

I take unction to myself, sometimes, in the reflection that I have a soul to save, and in certain moments of uplift it seems to me to be worth saving. Some folks probably call me a sinner, if not a dreadful sinner, and I admit the fact without controversy. I do not have at hand a list of the cardinal sins, but I suspect I might prove an alibi as to some of them. I don't get drunk; I don't swear; I go to church; and I contribute, mildly, to charity. But, for all that, I'm free to confess myself a sinner. Yet, I still don't know what sin is, or what is the way of salvation either for myself or for my pupils. I grope around all the while trying to find this way. At times, I think they may find salvation while they are finding the value of x in an algebraic equation, and possibly this is true. I cannot tell. If they fail to find the value of x, I fall to wondering whether they have sinned or the teacher that they cannot find x.

I have attended revivals in my time, and have had good from them. In their pure and rarefied atmosphere I find myself in a state of exaltation. But I find myself in need of a continuous revival to keep me at my best. So, in my school work, I feel that I must be a revivalist or my pupils will sag back, just as I do. I find that the revival of yesterday will not suffice for to-day. Like the folks of old, I must gather a fresh supply of manna each day. Stale manna is not wholesome. I suspect that one of my many sins is my laziness in the matter of manna. I found the value of x in the problem yesterday, and so am inclined to rest to-day and celebrate the victory. If I had to classify myself, I'd say that I am an intermittent. I eat manna one day, and then want to fast for a day or so. I suspect that's what folks mean by a besetting sin.

During my fasting I find myself talking almost fluently about my skill and industry as a gatherer of manna, I suspect I am trying to make myself believe that I'm working in the manna field to-day, by keeping my mind on my achievement yesterday. That's another sin to my discredit, and another occasion for a revival. When I am fasting I do the most talking about how busy I am. If I were harvesting manna I'd not have time for so much talk. I should not need to tell how busy I am, for folks could see for themselves. I have tried to analyze this talk of mine about being so busy just to see whether I am trying to deceive myself or my neighbors. I fell to talking about this the other day to my neighbor John, and detected a faint smile on his face which I interpreted to be a query as to what I have to show for all my supposed industry. Well, I changed the subject. That smile on John's face made me think of revivals.

I read Henderson's novel, "John Percyfield," and enjoyed it so much that when I came upon his other book, "Education and the Larger Life," I bought and read it. But it has given me much discomfort. In that book he says that it is immoral for any one to do less than his best. I can scarcely think of that statement without feeling that I ought to be sent to jail. I'm actually burdened with immorality, and find myself all the while between the "devil and the deep sea," the "devil" of work, and the "deep sea" of immorality. I suppose that's why I talk so much about being busy, trying to free myself from the charge of immorality. I think it was Virgil who said Facilis descensus Averno, and I suppose Mr. Henderson, in his statement, is trying to save me from the inconveniences of this trip. I suppose I ought to be grateful to him for the hint, but I just can't get any great comfort in such a close situation.

I know I must work or go hungry, and I can stand a certain amount of fasting, but to be stamped as immoral because I am fasting rather hurts my pride. I'd much rather have my going hungry accounted a virtue, and receive praise and bouquets. When I am in a lounging mood it isn't any fun to have some Henderson come along and tell me that I am in need of a revival. A copy of "Baedeker" in hand, I have gone through a gallery of statues but did not find a sinner in the entire company. The originals may have been sinners, but not these marble statues. That is some comfort. To be a sinner one must be animate at the very least. I'd rather be a sinner, even, than a mummy or a statue. St. Paul wrote to Timothy: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." There was nothing of the mummy or the statue in him. He was just a straight-away sinful man, and a glorious sinner he was.

I like to think of Titian and Michael Angelo. When their work was done and they stood upon the summit of their achievements they were up so high that all they had to do was to step right into heaven, without any long journey. Tennyson did the same. In his poem, "Crossing the Bar," he filled all the space, and so he had to cross over into heaven to get more room. And Riley's "Old Aunt Mary" was another one. She had been working out her salvation making jelly, and jam, and marmalade, and just beaming goodness upon those boys so that they had no more doubts about goodness than they had of the peach preserves they were eating. Why, there just had to be a heaven for old Aunt Mary. She gathered manna every day, and had some for the boys, too, but never said a word about being busy.

When I was reading the Georgics with my boys, we came upon the word bufo (toad), and I told them with much gusto that that was the only place in the language where the word occurs. I had come upon this statement in a book that they did not have. Their looks spoke their admiration for the schoolmaster who could speak with authority. After they had gone their ways, two to Porto Rico, one to Chili, another to Brazil, and others elsewhere, I came upon the word bufo again in Ovid. I am still wondering what a schoolmaster ought to do in a case like that. Even if I had written to all those fellows acknowledging my error, it would have been too late, for they would, long before, have circulated the report all over South America and the United States that there is but one toad in the Latin language. If I hadn't believed everything I see in print, hadn't been so cock-sure, and hadn't been so ready to parade borrowed plumage as my own, all this linguistic coil would have been averted. I suppose Mr. Henderson would send me to jail again for this. I certainly didn't do my best, and therefore I am immoral, and therefore a sinner; quad erat demonstrandum.

So, I suppose, if I'm to save my soul, I must gather manna every day, and if I find the value of x to-day, I must find the value of a bigger x to-morrow. Then, too, I suppose I'll have to choose between Mrs. Wiggs and Emerson, between the Katzenjammers and Shakespeare, and between ragtime and grand opera. I am very certain growing corn gives forth a sound only I can't hear it. If my hearing were only acute enough I'd hear it and rejoice in it. It is very trying to miss the sound when I am so certain that it is there. The birds in my trees understand one another, and yet I can't understand what they are saying in the least. This simply proves my own limitations. If I could but know their language, and all the languages of the cows, the sheep, the horses, and the chickens, what a good time I could have with them. If my powers of sight and hearing were increased only tenfold, I'd surely find a different world about me. Here, again, I can't find the value of x, try as I will.

The disquieting thing about all this is that I do not use to the utmost the powers I have. I could see many more things than I do if I'd only use my eyes, and hear things, too, if I'd try more. The world of nature as it reveals itself to John Burroughs is a thousand times larger than my world, no doubt, and this fact convicts me of doing less than my best, and again the jail invites me.



CHAPTER XV

HOEING POTATOES

As I was lying in the shade of the maple-tree down there by the ravine, yesterday, I fell to thinking about my rights, and the longer I lay there the more puzzled I became. Being a citizen in a democracy, I have many rights that are guaranteed to me by the Constitution, notably life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In my school I become expansive in extolling these rights to my pupils. But under that maple-tree I found myself raising many questions as to these rights, and many others. I have a right to sing tenor, but I can't sing tenor at all, and when I try it I disturb my neighbors. Right there I bump against a situation. I have a right to use my knife at table instead of a fork, and who is to gainsay my using my fingers? Queen Elizabeth did. I certainly have a right to lie in the shade of the maple-tree for two hours to-day instead of one hour, as I did yesterday. I wonder if reclining on the grass under a maple-tree is not a part of the pursuit of happiness that is specifically set out in the Constitution? I hope so, for I'd like to have that wonderful Constitution backing me up in the things I like to do. The sun is so hot and hoeing potatoes is such a tiring task that I prefer to lounge in the shade with my back against the Constitution.

In thinking of the pursuit of happiness I am inclined to personify happiness and then watch the chase, wondering whether the pursuer will ever overtake her, and what he'll do when he does. I note that the Constitution does not guarantee that the pursuer will ever catch her—but just gives him an open field and no favors. He may run just as fast as he likes, and as long as his endurance holds out. I suspect that's where the liberty comes in. I wonder if the makers of the Constitution ever visualized that chase. If so, they must have laughed, at least in their sleeves, solemn crowd that they were. If I were certain that I could overtake happiness I'd gladly join in the pursuit, even on such a warm day as this, but the dread uncertainty makes me prefer to loll here in the shade. Besides, I'm not quite certain that I could recognize her even if I could catch her. The photographs that I have seen are so very different that I might mistake happiness for some one else, and that would be embarrassing.

If I should conclude that I was happy, and then discover that I wasn't, I scarcely see how I could explain myself to myself, much less to others. So I shall go on hoeing my potatoes and not bother my poor head about happiness. It is just possible that I shall find it over there in the potato-patch, for its latitude and longitude have never been definitely determined, so far as I am aware. I know I shall find some satisfaction over there at work, and I am convinced that satisfaction and happiness are kinsfolk. Possibly my potatoes will prove the answer to some mother's prayer for food for her little ones next winter. Who knows? As I loosen the soil about the vines I can look down the vista of the months, and see some little one in his high chair smiling through his tears as mother prepares one of my beautiful potatoes for him, and I think I can detect some moisture in mother's eyes, too. It is just possible that her tears are the consecrated incense upon the altar of thanksgiving.

I like to see such pictures as I ply my hoe, for they give me respite from weariness, and give fresh ardor to my hoeing. If each one of my potatoes shall only assuage the hunger of some little one, and cause the mother's eyes to distil tears of joy, I shall be in the border-land of happiness, to say the least. I had fully intended to exercise my inalienable rights and lie in the shade for two hours to-day, but when I caught a glimpse of that little chap in the high chair, and heard his pitiful plea for potatoes, I made for the potato-patch post-haste, as if I were responding to a hurry call. I suppose there is no more heart-breaking sound in nature than the crying of a hungry child. I have been whistling all the afternoon along with my hoeing, and now that I think of it, I must be whistling because my potatoes are going to make that baby laugh.

Well, if they do, then I shall elevate the hoeing of potatoes to the rank of a privilege. Oh, I've read my "Tom Sawyer," and know about his enterprise in getting the fence whitewashed by making the task seem a privilege. But Tom was indulging in fiction, and hoeing potatoes is no fiction. Still those whitewash artists had something of the feeling that I experience right now, only there was no baby in their picture as there is in mine, and so I have the baby as an additional privilege. I wish I knew how to make all the school tasks rank as privileges to my boys and girls. If I could only do that, they would have gone far toward a liberal education. If I could only get a baby to crying somewhere out beyond cube root I'm sure they would struggle through the mazes of that subject, somehow, so as to get to the baby to change its crying into laughter. 'Tis worth trying.

I wonder, after all, whether education is not the process of shifting the emphasis from rights to privileges. I have a right, when I go into the town, to keep my seat in the car and let the old lady use the strap. If I insist upon that right I feel myself a boor, lacking the sense and sensibilities of a gentleman. But when I relinquish my seat I feel that I have exercised my privilege to be considerate and courteous. I have a right to permit weeds and briers to overrun my fences, and the fences themselves to go to rack, and so offend the sight of my neighbors; but I esteem it a privilege to make the premises clean and beautiful, so as to add so much to the sum total of pleasure. I have a right to stay on my own side of the road and keep to myself; but it is a great privilege to go up for a half-hour's exchange of talk with my neighbor John. He always clears the cobwebs from my eyes and from my soul, and I return to my work refreshed.

I have a right, too, to pore over the colored supplement for an hour or so, but when I am able to rise to my privileges and take the Book of Job instead, I feel that I have made a gain in self-respect, and can stand more nearly erect. I have a right, when I go to church, to sit silent and look bored; but, when I avail myself of the privilege of joining in the responses and the singing, I feel that I am fertilizing my spirit for the truth that is proclaimed. As a citizen I have certain rights, but when I come to think of my privileges my rights seem puny in comparison. Then, too, my rights are such cold things, but my privileges are full of sunshine and of joy. My rights seem mathematical, while my privileges seem curves of beauty.

In his scientific laboratory at Princeton, on one occasion, the celebrated Doctor Hodge, in preparing for an experiment said to some students who were gathered about him: "Gentlemen, please remove your hats; I am about to ask God a question." So it is with every one who esteems his privileges. He is asking God questions about the glory of the sunrise, the fragrance of the flowers, the colors of the rainbow, the music of the brook, and the meaning of the stars. But I hear a baby crying and must get back to my potatoes.



CHAPTER XVI

CHANGING THE MIND

I have been reading, in this book, of a man who couldn't change his mind because his intellectual wardrobe was not sufficient to warrant a change. I was feeling downright sorry for the poor fellow till I got to wondering how many people are feeling sorry for me for the same reason. That reflection changed the situation greatly, and I began to feel some resentment against the blunt statement in the book as being rather too personal. Just as I begin to think that we have standardized a lot of things, along comes some one in a book, or elsewhere, and completely upsets my fine and comforting theories and projects me into chaos again. No sooner do I get a lot of facts all nicely settled, and begin to enjoy complacency, than some disturber of the peace knocks all my facts topsy-turvy, and says they are not facts at all, but the merest fiction. Then I cry aloud with my old friend Cicero, Ubinam gentium sumus, which, being translated in the language of the boys, means, "Where in the world (or nation) are we at?" They are actually trying to reform my spelling. I do wish these reformers had come around sooner, when I was learning to spell phthisic, syzygy, daguerreotype, and caoutchouc. They might have saved me a deal of trouble and helped me over some of the high places at the old-fashioned spelling-bees.

I have a friend who is quite versed in science, and he tells me that any book on science that is more than ten years old is obsolete. Now, that puzzles me no little. If that is true, why don't they wait till matters scientific are settled, and then write their books? Why write a book at all when you know that day after tomorrow some one will come along and refute all the theories and mangle the facts? These science chaps must spend a great deal of their time changing their intellectual clothing. It would be great fun to come back a hundred years from now and read the books on science, psychology, and pedagogy. I suppose the books we have now will seem like joke books to our great-grandchildren, if people are compelled to change their mental garments every day from now on. I wonder how long it will take us human coral insects, to get our building up to the top of the water.

Whoever it was that said that consistency is a jewel would need to take treatment for his eyes in these days. If I must change my mental garb each day I don't see how I can be consistent. If I said yesterday that some theory of science is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and then find a revision of the statement necessary to-day, I certainly am inconsistent. This jewel of consistency certainly loses its lustre, if not its identity, in such a process of shifting. I do hope these chameleon artists will leave us the multiplication table, the yardstick, and the ablative absolute. I'm not so particular about the wine-gallon, for prohibition will probably do away with that anyhow. When I was in school I could tell to a foot the equatorial and the polar diameter of the earth, and what makes the difference. Why, I knew all about that flattening at the poles, and how it came about. Then Mr. Peary went up there and tramped all over the north pole, and never said a word about the flattening when he came back. I was very much disappointed in Mr. Peary.

I know, quite as well as I know my own name, that the length of the year is three hundred and sixty-five days, five hours, forty-eight minutes, and forty-eight seconds, and if I find any one trying to lop off even one second of my hard-learned year, I shall look upon him as a meddler. That is one of my settled facts, and I don't care to have it disturbed. If any one comes along trying to change the length of my year, I shall begin to tremble for the safety of the Ten Commandments. If I believe that a grasshopper is a quadruped, what satisfaction could I possibly take in discovering that he has six legs? It would merely disturb one of my settled facts, and I am more interested in my facts than I am in the grasshopper. The trouble is, though, that my neighbor John keeps referring to the grasshopper's six legs; so I suppose I shall, in the end, get me a grasshopper suit of clothes so as to be in the fashion.

This discarding of my four-legged grasshopper and supplying myself with one that has six legs may be what the poet means when he speaks of our dead selves. He may refer to the new suit of mental clothing that I am supposed to get each day, to the change of mind that I am supposed to undergo as regularly as a daily bath. Possibly Mr. Holmes meant something like that when he wrote his "Chambered Nautilus." At each advance from one of these compartments to another, I suppose I acquire a new suit of clothes, or, in other words, change my mind. Let's see, wasn't it Theseus whose eternal punishment in Hades was just to sit there forever? That seems somewhat heavenly to me. But here on earth I suppose I must try to keep up with the styles, and change my mental gear day by day.

I think I might come to enjoy a change of suits every day if only some one would provide them for me; but, if I must earn them myself, the case is different. I'd like to have some one bestow upon me a beautiful Greek suit for Monday, with its elegance, grace, and dignity, a Roman suit for Tuesday, a science suit for Wednesday, a suit of poetry for Thursday, and so on, day after day. But when I must read all of Homer before I can have the Greek suit, the price seems a bit stiff, and I'm not so avid about changing my mind. We had a township picnic back home, once, and it seemed to me that I was attending a congress of nations, for there were people there who had driven five or six miles from the utmost bounds of the township. That was a real mental adventure, and it took some time for me to adjust myself to my new suit. Then I went to the county fair, where were gathered people from all the townships, and my poor mind had a mighty struggle trying to grasp the immensity of the thing. I felt much the same as when I was trying to understand the mathematical sign of infinity. And when I came upon the statement, in my geography, that there are eighty-eight counties in our State, the mind balked absolutely and refused to go on. I felt as did the old gentleman who saw an aeroplane for the first time. After watching its gyrations for some time he finally exclaimed: "They ain't no sich thing."

My college roommate, Mack, went over to London, once, on some errand, and of course went to the British Museum. Near the entrance he came upon the Rosetta Stone, and stood inthralled. He reflected that he was standing in the presence of a monument that marks the beginning of recorded history, that back of that all was dark, and that all the books in all the libraries emanate from that beginning. The thought was so big, so overmastering, that there was no room in his mind for anything else, so he turned about and left without seeing anything else in the Museum. Since then we have had many a big laugh together as he recounts to me his wonderful visit to the Rosetta Stone. I see clearly that in the presence of that modest stone he got all the mental clothing he could possibly wear at the time. Changing the mind sometimes seems to amount almost to surgery.

Sometime, if I can get my stub pen limbered up I shall try my hand at writing a bit of a composition on the subject of "The Inequality of Equals." I know that the Declaration tells us that all men are born free and equal, and I shall explain in my essay that it means us to understand that while they are born equal, they begin to become unequal the day after they are born, and become more so as one changes his mind and the other one does not. I try, all the while, to make myself believe that I am the equal of my neighbor, the judge, and then I feel foolish to think that I ever tried it. The neighbors all know it isn't true, and so do I when I quit arguing with myself. He has such a long start of me now that I wonder if I can ever overtake him. One thing, though, I'm resolved upon, and that is to change my mind as often as possible.



CHAPTER XVII

THE POINT OF VIEW

Just why a boy is averse to washing his neck and ears is one of the deep problems of social psychology, and yet the psychologists have veered away from the subject. There must be a reason, and these mind experts ought to be able and willing to find it, so as to relieve the anxiety of the rest of us. It is easy for me to say, with a full-arm gesture, that a boy is of the earth earthy, but that only begs the question, as full-arm gestures are wont to do. Many a boy has shed copious tears as he sat on a bench outside the kitchen door removing, under compulsion, the day's accumulations from his feet as a prerequisite for retiring. He would much prefer to sleep on the floor to escape the foot-washing ordeal. Why, pray, should he wash his feet when he knows full well that tomorrow night will find them in the same condition? Why all the bother and trouble about a little thing like that? Why can't folks let a fellow alone, anyhow? And, besides, he went in swimming this afternoon, and that surely ought to meet all the exactions of capricious parents. He exhibits his feet as an evidence of the virtue of going swimming, for he is arranging the preliminaries for another swimming expedition to-morrow.

I recall very distinctly how strange it seemed that my father could sit there and calmly talk about being a Democrat, or a Republican, or a Baptist, or a Methodist, or about some one's discovering the north pole, or about the President's message when the dog had a rat cornered under the corn-crib and was barking like mad. But, then, parents can't see things in their right relations and proportions. And there sat mother, too, darning stockings, and the dog just stark crazy about that rat. 'Tis enough to make a boy lose faith in parents forevermore. A dog, a rat, and a boy—there's a combination that recks not of the fall of empires or the tottering of thrones. Even chicken-noodles must take second place in such a scheme of world activities. And yet a mother would hold a boy back from the forefront of such an enterprise to wash his neck. Oh, these mothers!

I have read "Adam's Diary," by Mark Twain, in which he tells what events were forward in Eden on Monday, what on Tuesday, and so on throughout the week till he came to Sunday, and his only comment on that day was "Pulled through." In the New England Primer we gather the solemn information that "In Adam's fall, we sinned all." I admit the fact freely, but beg to be permitted to plead extenuating circumstances. Adam could go to church just as he was, but I had to be renovated and, at times, almost parboiled and, in addition to these indignities, had to wear shoes and stockings; and the stockings scratched my legs, and the shoes were too tight. If Adam could barely manage to pull through, just think of me. Besides, Adam didn't have to wear a paper collar that disintegrated and smeared his neck. The more I think of Adam's situation, the more sorry I feel for myself. Why, he could just reach out and pluck some fruit to help him through the services, but I had to walk a mile after church, in those tight shoes, and then wait an hour for dinner. And I was supposed to feel and act religious while I was waiting, but I didn't.

If I could only have gone to church barefoot, with my shirt open at the throat, and with a pocket full of cookies to munch ad lib throughout the services, I am sure that the spiritual uplift would have been greater. The soul of a boy doesn't expand violently when encased in a starched shirt and a paper collar, and these surmounted by a thick coat, with the mercury at ninety-seven in the shade. I think I can trace my religious retardation back to those hungry Sundays, those tight shoes, that warm coat, and those frequent jabs in my ribs when I fain would have slept.

In my childhood there was such a host of people who were pushing and pulling me about in an effort to make me good that, even yet, I shy away from their style of goodness. The wonder is that I have any standing at all in polite and upright society. So many folks said I was bad and naughty, and applied so many other no less approbrious epithets to me that, in time, I came to believe them, and tried somewhat diligently to live up to the reputation they gave me. I recall that one of my aunts came in one day and, seeing me out in the yard most ingloriously tousled, asked my good mother: "Is that your child?" Poor mother! I have often wondered how much travail of spirit it must have cost her to acknowledge me as her very own. One thumb, one great toe, and an ankle were decorated with greasy rags, and I was far from being ornamental. I had been hulling walnuts, too, and my stained hands served to accentuate the human scenery.

This same aunt had three boys of her own, later on, and a more disreputable-looking crew it would be hard to find. I confess that I took a deal of grim satisfaction in their dilapidated ensemble, just for my aunt's benefit, of course. They were fine, wholesome, natural boys in spite of their parentage, and I liked them even while I gloried in their cuts, bruises, and dirt. At that time I was wearing a necktie and had my shoes polished but, even so, I yearned to join with them in their debauch of sand, mud, and general indifference to convention. They are fine, upstanding young chaps now, and of course their mother thinks that her scolding, nagging, and baiting made them so. They know better, but are too kind and considerate to reveal the truth to their mother.

Even yet I have something like admiration for the ingenuity of my elders in conjuring up spooks, hob-goblins, and bugaboos with which to scare me into submission. I conformed, of course, but I never gave them a high grade in veracity. I yielded simply to gain time, for I knew where there was a chipmunk in a hole, and was eager to get to digging him out just as soon as my apparent submission for a brief time had proved my complete regeneration. They used to tell me that children should be seen but not heard, and I knew they wanted to do the talking. I often wonder whether their notion of a good child would have been satisfactorily met if I had suddenly become paralyzed, or ossified, or petrified. In either of these cases I could have been seen but not heard. One day, not long ago, when I felt at peace with all the world and was comfortably free from care, a small, thumb-sucking seven-year-old asked: "How long since the world was born?" After I told him that it was about four thousand years he worked vigorously at his thumb for a time, and then said: "That isn't very long." Then I wished I had said four millions, so as to reduce him to silence, for one doesn't enjoy being routed and put to confusion by a seven-year-old.

After quite a silence he asked again: "What was there before the world was born?" That was an easy one; so I said in a tone of finality: "There wasn't anything." Then I went on with my meditations, thinking I had used the soft pedal effectively. Silence reigned supreme for some minutes, and then was rudely shattered. His thumb flew from his mouth, and he laughed so lustily that he could be heard throughout the house. When his laughter had spent itself somewhat, I asked meekly: "What are you laughing at?" His answer came on the instant, but still punctuated with laughter: "I was laughing to see how funny it was when there wasn't anything." No wonder that folks want children to be seen but not heard. And some folks are scandalized because a chap like that doesn't like to wash his neck and ears.



CHAPTER XVIII

PICNICS

The code of table etiquette in the days of my boyhood, as I now recall it, was expressed something like: "Eat what is set before you and ask no questions." We heeded this injunction with religious fidelity, but yearned to ask why they didn't set more before us. About the only time that a real boy gets enough to eat is when he goes to a picnic and, even there and then, the rounding out of the programme is connected with clandestine visits to the baskets after the formal ceremonies have been concluded. At a picnic there is no such expression as "from soup to nuts," for there is no soup, and perhaps no nuts, but there is everything else in tantalizing abundance. If I find a plate of deviled eggs near me, I begin with deviled eggs; or, if the cold tongue is nearer, I begin with that. In this way I reveal, for the pleasure of the hostesses, my unrestricted and democratic appetite. Or, in order to obviate any possible embarrassment during the progress of the chicken toward me, I may take a piece of pie or a slice of cake, thinking that they may not return once they have been put in circulation. Certainly I take jelly when it passes along, as well as pickles, olives, and cheese. There is no incongruity, at such a time, in having a slice of baked ham and a slice of angel-food cake on one's plate or in one's hands. They harmonize beautifully both in the color scheme and in the gastronomic scheme. At a picnic my boyhood training reaches its full fruition: "Eat what is set before you and ask no questions." These things I do.

That's a good rule for reading, too, just to read what is set before you and ask no questions. I'm thinking now of the reader member of my dual nature, not the student member. I like to cater somewhat to both these members. When the reader member is having his inning, I like to give him free rein and not hamper him by any lock-step or stereotyped method or course. I like to lead him to a picnic table and dismiss him with the mere statement that "Heaven helps those who help themselves," and thus leave him to his own devices. If Southey's, "The Curse of Kehama," happens to be nearest his plate, he will naturally begin with that as I did with the deviled eggs. Or he may nibble at "The House-Boat on the Styx" while some one is passing the Shakespeare along. He may like Emerson, and ask for a second helping, and that's all right, too, for that's a nourishing sort of food. Having partaken of this generously, he will enjoy all the more the jelly when it comes along in the form of "Nonsense Anthology." The more I think of it the more I see that reading is very like a picnic dinner. It is all good, and one takes the food which is nearest him, whether pie or pickles.

When any one asks me what I am reading, I become much embarrassed. I may be reading a catalogue of books at the time, or the book notices in some magazine, but such reading may not seem orthodox at all to the one who asks the question. My reading may be too desultory or too personal to be paraded in public. I don't make it a practice to tell all the neighbors what I ate for breakfast. I like to saunter along through the book just as I ride in a gondola when in Venice. I'm not going anywhere, but get my enjoyment from merely being on the way. I pay the gondolier and then let him have his own way with me. So with the book. I pay the money and then abandon myself to it. If it can make me laugh, why, well and good, and I'll laugh. If it causes me to shed tears, why, let the tears flow. They may do me good. If I ever become conscious of the number of the page of the book I am reading, I know there is something the matter with that book or else with me. If I ever become conscious of the page number in David Grayson's "Adventures in Contentment," or "The Friendly Road," I shall certainly consult a physician. I do become semiconscious at times that I am approaching the end of the feast, and feel regret that the book is not larger.

I have spasms and enjoy them. Sometimes, I have a Dickens spasm, and read some of his books for the nth time. I have frittered away much time in my life trying to discover whether a book is worth a second reading. If it isn't, it is hardly worth a first reading, I don't get tired of my friend Brown, so why should I put Dickens off with a mere society call? If I didn't enjoy Brown I'd not visit him so frequently; but, liking him, I go again and again. So with Dickens, Mark Twain, and Shakespeare. The story goes that a second Uncle Remus was sitting on a stump in the depths of a forest sawing away on an old discordant violin. A man, who chanced to come upon him, asked what he was doing. With no interruption of his musical activities, he answered: "Boss, I'se serenadin' m' soul." Book or violin, 'tis all the same. Uncle Remus and I are serenading our souls and the exercise is good for us.

I was laid by with typhoid fever for a few weeks once, and the doctor came at eleven o'clock in the morning and at five o'clock in the afternoon. If he happened to be a bit late I grew impatient, and my fever increased. He discovered this fact, and was no more tardy. He was reading "John Fiske" at the time, and Grant's "Memoirs," and at each visit reviewed for me what he had read since the previous visit. He must have been glad when I no longer needed to take my history by proxy, for I kept him up to the mark, and bullied him into reciting twice a day. I don't know what drugs he gave me, but I do know that "Fiske" and "Grant" are good for typhoid, and heartily commend them to the general public. I am rather glad now that I had typhoid fever.

I listen with amused tolerance to people who grow voluble on the weather and their symptoms, and often wish they would ask me to prescribe for them. I'd probably tell them to become readers of William J. Locke. But, perhaps, their symptoms might seem preferable to the remedy. A neighbor came in to borrow a book, and I gave her "Les Miserables," which she returned in a day or so, saying that she could not read it. I knew that I had overestimated her, and that I didn't have a book around of her size. I had loaned my "Robin Hood," "Rudder Grange," "Uncle Remus," and "Sonny" to the children round about.

I like to browse around among my books, and am trying to have my boys and girls acquire the same habit. Reading for pure enjoyment isn't a formal affair any more than eating. Sometimes I feel in the mood for a grapefruit for breakfast, sometimes for an orange, and sometimes for neither. I'm glad not to board at a place where they have standardized breakfasts and reading. If I feel in the mood for an orange I want an orange, even if my neighbor has a casaba melon. So, if I want my "Middlemarch," I'm quite eager for that book, and am quite willing for my neighbor to have his "Henry Esmond." The appetite for books is variable, the same as for food, and I'd rather consult my appetite than my neighbor when choosing a book as a companion through a lazy afternoon beneath the maple-tree, I refuse to try to supervise the reading of my pupils. Why, I couldn't supervise their eating. I'd have to find out whether the boy was yearning for porterhouse steak or ice-cream, first; then I might help him make a selection. The best I can do is to have plenty of steak, potatoes, pie, and ice-cream around, and allow him to help himself.



CHAPTER XIX

MAKE-BELIEVE

The text may be found in "Over Bemerton's," by E. V. Lucas, and reads as follows: "A gentle hypocrisy is not only the basis but the salt of civilized life." This statement startled me a bit at first; but when I got to thinking of my experience in having a photograph of myself made I saw that Mr. Lucas has some warrant for his statement. There has been only one Oliver Cromwell to say: "Paint me as I am." The rest of us humans prefer to have the wart omitted. If my photograph is true to life I don't want it. I'm going to send it away, and I don't want the folks who get it to think I look like that. If I were a woman and could wear a disguise of cosmetics when sitting for a picture the case might not be quite so bad. The subtle flattery of the photograph is very grateful to us mortals whether we admit it or not. My friend Baxter introduced me once as a man who is not two-faced, and went on to explain that if I had had two faces I'd have brought the other instead of this one. And that's true. I expect the photographer to evoke another face for me, and hence my generous gift of money to him. I like that chap immensely. He takes my money, gives me another face, bows me out with the grace of a finished courtier, and never, by word or look, reveals his knowledge of my hypocrisy.

As a boy I had a full suit of company manners which I wore only when guests were present, and so was always sorry to have guests come. I sat back on the chair instead of on its edge; I didn't swing my legs unless I had a lapse of memory; I said, "Yes, ma'am," and, "No, ma'am," like any other parrot, just as I did at rehearsal; and, in short, I was a most exemplary child save for occasional reactions to unlooked-for situations. The folks knew I was posing, and were on nettles all the while from fear of a breakdown; the guests knew I was posing, and I knew I was posing. But we all pretended to one another that that was the regular order of procedure in our house. So we had a very gratifying concert exercise in hypocrisy. We said our prayers that night just as usual.

With such thorough training in my youth it is not at all strange that I now consider myself rather an adept in the prevailing social usages. At a musicale I applaud fit to blister my hands, even though I feel positively pugnacious. But I know the singer has an encore prepared, and I feel that it would be ungracious to disappoint her. Besides, I argue with myself that I can stand it for five minutes more if the others can. Professor James, I think it is, says that we ought to do at least one disagreeable thing each day as an aid in the development of character. Being rather keen on character development, I decide on a double dose of the disagreeable while opportunity favors. Hence my vigorous applauding. Then, too, I realize that the time and place are not opportune for an expression of my honest convictions; so I choose the line of least resistance and well-nigh blister my hands to emphasize my hypocrisy.

At a formal dinner I have been known to sink so low into the depths of hypocrisy as to eat shrimp salad. But when one is sitting next to a lady who seems a confirmed celibate, and who seems to find nothing better than to become voluble on the subject of her distinguished ancestors, even shrimp salad has its uses. Now, under normal conditions my perverted and plebeian taste regards shrimp salad as a banality, but at that dinner I ate it with apparent relish, and tried not to make a wry face. But, worst of all, I complimented the hostess upon the excellence of the dinner, and extolled the salad particularly, although we both knew that the salad was a failure, and that the dinner itself convicted the cook of a lack of experience or else of a superfluity of potations.

When the refreshments are served I take a thimbleful of ice-cream and an attenuated wafer, and then solemnly declare to the maid that I have been abundantly served. In the hallowed precincts that I call my den I could absorb nine rations such as they served and never bat an eye. And yet, in making my adieus to the hostess, I thank her most effusively for a delightful evening, refreshments included, and then hurry grumbling home to get something to eat. Such are some of the manifestations of social hypocrisy. These all pass current at their face value, and yet we all know that nobody is deceived. Still it is great fun to play make-believe, and the world would have convulsions if we did not indulge in these pleasing deceptions. In the clever little book "Molly Make-Believe" the girl pretends at first that she loves the man, and later on comes to love him to distraction, and she lived happy ever after, too. When, in my fever, I would ask about my temperature, the nurse would give a numeral about two degrees below the real record to encourage me, and I can't think that St. Peter will bar her out just for that.

The psychologists give mild assent to the theory that a physical attitude may generate an emotion. If I assume a belligerent attitude, they claim that, in time, I shall feel really belligerent; that in a loafing attitude I shall presently be loafing; and that, if I assume the attitude of a listener, I shall soon be listening most intently. This seems to be justified by the experiences of Edwin Booth on the stage. He could feign fighting for a time, and then it became real fighting, and great care had to be taken to avert disastrous consequences when his sword fully struck its gait. I believe the psychologists have never fully agreed on the question whether the man is running from the bear because he is scared or is scared because he is running.

I dare say Mr. Shakespeare was trying to express this theory when he said: "Assume a virtue, though you have it not." That's exactly what I'm trying to have my pupils do all the while. I'm trying to have them wear their company manners continually, so that, in good time, they will become their regular working garb. I'm glad to have them assume the attitudes of diligence and politeness, thinking that their attitudes may generate the corresponding emotions. It is a severe strain on a boy at times to seem polite when he feels like hurling missiles. We both know that his politeness is mere make-believe, but we pretend not to know, and so move along our ways of hypocrisy hoping that good may come.

There is a telephone-girl over in the central station, wherever that is, who certainly is beautiful if the voice is a true index. Her tones are dulcet, and her voice is so mellow and well modulated that I visualize her as another Venus. I suspect that, when she began her work, some one told her that her tenure of position depended upon the quality of her voice. So, I imagine, she assumed a tonal quality of voice that was really a sublimated hypocrisy, and persisted in this until now that quality of voice is entirely natural. I can't think that Shakespeare had her specially in mind, but, if I ever have the good fortune to meet her, I shall certainly ask her if she reads Shakespeare. Now that I think of it, I shall try this treatment on my own voice, for it sorely needs treatment. Possibly I ought to take a course of training at the telephone-station.

I am now thoroughly persuaded that Mr. Lucas gave expression to a great principle of pedagogy in what he said about hypocrisy, and I shall try to be diligent in applying it. If I can get my boys to assume an arithmetical attitude, they may come to have an arithmetical feeling, and that would give me great joy. I don't care to have them express their honest feelings either about me or the work, but would rather have them look polite and interested, even if it is hypocrisy. I'd like to have all my boys and girls act as if they consider me absolutely fair, just, and upright, as well as the most kind, courteous, generous, scholarly, skillful, and complaisant schoolmaster that ever lived, no matter what they really think.



CHAPTER XX

BEHAVIOR

If I only knew how to teach English, I'd have far more confidence in my schoolmastering. But I don't seem to get on. The system breaks down too often to suit me. Just when I think I have some lad inoculated with elegant English through the process of reading from some classic, he says, "might of came," and I become obfuscated again. I have a book here in which I read that it is the business of the teacher so to organize the activities of the school that they will function in behavior. Well, my boys' behavior in the use of English indicates that I haven't organized the activities of my English class very effectively. I seem to be more of a success in a cherry-orchard than in an English class. My cherries are large and round, a joy to the eye and delightful to the taste. The fruit expert tells me they are perfect, and so I feel that I organized the activities in that orchard efficiently. In fact, the behavior of my cherry-trees is most gratifying. But when I hear my pupils talk or read their essays, and find a deal of imperfect fruit in the way of solecisms and misspelled words, I feel inclined to discredit my skill in organizing the activities in this human orchard.

I think my trouble is (and it is trouble), that I proceed upon the agreeable assumption that my pupils can "catch" English as they do the measles if only they are exposed to it. So I expose them to the objective complement and the compellative, and then stand aghast at their behavior when they make all the mistakes that can possibly be made in using a given number of words. I have occasion to wonder whether I juggle these big words merely because I happen to see them in a book, or whether I am trying to be impressive. I recall how often I have felt a thrill of pride as I have ladled out deliberative subjunctives, ethical datives, and hysteron proteron to my (supposedly) admiring Latin pupils. If I were a soldier I should want to wear one of those enormous three-story military hats to render me tall and impressive. I have no desire to see a drum-major minus his plumage. The disillusionment would probably be depressing. Liking to wear my shako, I must continue to talk of objective complements instead of using simple English.

I had watched men make a hundred barrels, but when I tried my skill I didn't produce much of a barrel. Then I knew making barrels is not violently infectious. But I suspect that it is quite the same as English in this respect. My behavior in that cooper-shop, for a time, was quite destructive of materials, until I had acquired skill by much practice.

If I could only organize the activities in my English class so that they would function in such behavior as Lincoln's "Letter to Mrs. Bixby," I should feel that I might continue my teaching instead of devoting all my time to my cherry-orchard. Or, if I could see that my pupils were acquiring the habit of correct English as the result of my work, I'd give myself a higher grade as a schoolmaster. My neighbor over here teaches agriculture, and one of his boys produced one hundred and fifty bushels of corn on an acre of ground. That's what I call excellent behavior, and that schoolmaster certainly knows how to organize the activities of his class. My boy's yield of thirty-seven bushels, mostly nubbins, does not compare favorably with the yield of his boy, and I feel that I ought to reform, or else wear a mask. Here is my boy saying "might of came," and his boy is raising a hundred and fifty bushels of corn per acre.

If I could only assemble all my boys and girls twenty years hence and have them give an account of themselves for all the years after they left school, I could grade them with greater accuracy than I can possibly do now. Of course, I'd simply grade them on behavior, and if I could muster up courage, I might ask them to grade mine. I wonder how I'd feel if I'd find among them such folks as Edison, Burbank, Goethals, Clara Barton, and Frances Willard. My neighbor John says the most humiliating experience that a man can have is to wear a pair of his son's trousers that have been cut down to fit him. I might have some such feelings as that in the presence of pupils who had made such notable achievements. But, should they tell me that these achievements were due, in some good measure, to the work of the school, well, that would be glory enough for me. One of my boys was telling me only yesterday of a bit of work he did the day before in the way of revealing a process in chemistry to a firm of jewellers and hearing the superintendent say that that bit of information is worth a thousand dollars to the establishment. If he keeps on doing things like that I shall grade his behavior one of these days.

I suppose Mr. Goethals must have learned the multiplication table, once upon a time, and used it, too, in constructing the Panama Canal. He certainly made it effective, and the activities of that class in arithmetic certainly did function. I tell my boys that this multiplication table is the same one that Mr. Goethals has been using all the while, and then ask them what use they expect to make of it. One man made use of this table in tunnelling the Alps, and another in building the Brooklyn Bridge, and it seems to be good for many more bridges and tunnels if I can only organize the activities aright.

I was standing in front of St. Marks, there in Venice, one morning, regaling myself with the beauty of the festive scene, and talking to a friend, when four of my boys came strolling up, and they seemed more my boys than ever before. What a reunion we had! The folks all about us didn't understand it in the least, but we did, and that was enough. I forgot my coarse clothes, my well-nigh empty pockets, my inability to buy the many beautiful things that kept tantalizing me, and the meagreness of my salary. These were all swallowed up in the joy of seeing the boys, and I wanted to proclaim to all and sundry; "These are my jewels." Those boys are noble, clean, upstanding fellows, and no schoolmaster could help being proud of them. Such as they nestle down in the heart of the schoolmaster and cause him to know that life is good.

I was sorry not to be able to share my joy with my friend who stood near, but that could not be. I might have used words to him, but he would not have understood. He had never yearned over those fellows and watched them, day by day, hoping that they might grow up to be an honor to their school. He had never had the experience of watching from the schoolhouse window, fervently wishing that no harm might come to them, and that no shadows might come over their lives. He had never known the joy of sitting up far into the night to prepare for the coming of those boys the next day. He had never seen their eyes sparkle in the classroom when, for them, truth became illumined. Of course, he stood aloof, for he couldn't know. Only the schoolmaster can ever know how those four boys became the focus of all that wondrous beauty on that splendid morning. If I had had my grade-book along I would have recorded their grades in behavior, for as I looked upon those glorious chaps and heard them recount their experiences I had a feeling of exaltation, knowing that the activities of our school had functioned in right behavior.



CHAPTER XXI

FOREFINGERS

This left forefinger of mine is certainly a curiosity. It looks like a miniature totem-pole, and I wish I had before me its life history. I'd like to know just how all these seventeen scars were acquired. It seems to have come in contact with about all sorts and sizes of cutlery. If only teachers or parents had been wise enough to make a record of all my bloodletting mishaps, with occasions, causes, and effects, that record would afford a fruitful study for students of education. The pity of it is that we take no account of such matters as phases or factors of education. We keep saying that experience is the best teacher, and then ignore this eloquent forefinger. I call that criminal neglect arising from crass ignorance. Why, these scars that adorn many parts of my body are the foot-prints of evolution, if, indeed, evolution makes tracks. The scars on the faces of those students at Heidelberg are accounted badges of honor, but they cannot compare with the big scar on my left knee that came to me as the free gift of a corn-knife. Those students wanted their scars to take home to show their mothers. I didn't want mine, and made every effort to conceal it, as well as the hole in my trousers. I got my scar as a warning. I profited by it, too, for never were there two cuts in exactly the same place. In fact, they were widely, if not wisely, distributed. They are the indices of the soaring sense of my youthful audacity. And yet neither parents nor teachers ever graded my scars.

I recall quite distinctly that, at one time, I proclaimed boldly over one entire page of a copy-book, that knowledge is power, and became so enthusiastic in these numerous proclamations that I wrote on the bias, and zigzagged over the page with fine abandon. But no teacher ever even hinted to me that the knowledge I acquired from my contest with a nest of belligerent bumblebees had the slightest connection with power. When I groped my way home with both eyes swollen shut I was never lionized. Indeed, no! Anything but that! I couldn't milk the cows that evening, and couldn't study my lesson, and therefore, my newly acquired knowledge was called weakness instead of power. They did not seem to realize that my swollen face was prominent in the scheme of education, nor that bumblebees and yellow-jackets may be a means of grace. They wanted me to be solving problems in common (sometimes called vulgar) fractions. I don't fight bumblebees any more, which proves that my knowledge generated power. The emotions of my boyhood presented a scene of grand disorder, and those bumblebees helped to organize them, and to clarify and define my sense of values. I can philosophize about a bumblebee far more judicially now than I could when my eyes were swollen shut.

I went to the town to attend a circus one day, and concluded I'd celebrate the day with eclat by getting my hair cut. At the conclusion of this ceremony the tonsorial Beau Brummel, in the most seductive tones, suggested a shampoo. I just couldn't resist his blandishments, and so consented. Then he suggested tonic, and grew quite eloquent in recounting the benefits to the scalp, and I took tonic. I felt quite a fellow, till I came to pay the bill, and then discovered that I had but fifteen cents left from all my wealth. That, of course, was not sufficient for a ticket to the circus, so I bought a bag of peanuts and walked home, five miles, meditating, the while, upon the problem of life. My scalp was all right, but just under that scalp was a seething, soundless hubbub. I learned things that day that are not set down in the books, even if I did get myself laughed at. When I get to giving school credits for home work I shall certainly excuse the boy who has had such an experience as that from solving at least four problems in vulgar fractions, and I shall include that experience in my definition of education, too.

I have tried to back-track Paul Laurence Dunbar, now and then, and have found it good fun. Once I started with his expression, "the whole sky overhead and the whole earth underneath," and tried to get back to where that started. He must have been lying on his back on some grass-plot, right in the centre of everything, with that whole half-sphere of sky luring his spirit out toward the infinite, with a pillow that was eight thousand miles thick. If I had been his teacher I might have called him lazy and shiftless as he lay there, because he was not finding how to place a decimal point, I'm glad, on the whole, that I was not his teacher, for I'd have twinges of conscience every time I read one of his big thoughts. I'd feel that, while he was lying there growing big, I was doing my best to make him little. When I was lying on my back there in the Pantheon in Rome, looking up through that wide opening, and watching a moving-picture show that has no rival, the fleecy clouds in their ever-changing forms against that blue background of matchless Italian sky, those gendarmes debated the question of arresting me for disorderly conduct. My conduct was disorderly because they couldn't understand it. But, if Raphael could have risen from his tomb only a few yards away, he would have told those fellows not to disturb me while I was being so liberally educated. Then, that other time, when my friend Reuben and I stood on the very prow of the ship when the sea was rolling high, swinging us up into the heights, and then down into the depths, with the roar drowning out all possibility of talk—well, somehow, I thought of that copy-book back yonder with its message that "Knowledge is power." And I never think of power without recalling that experience as I watched that battle royal between the power of the sea and the power of the ship that could withstand the angry buffeting of the waves, and laugh in glee as it rode them down. I know that six times nine are fifty-four, but I confess that I forgot this fact out there on the prow of that ship. Some folks might say that Reuben and I were wasting our time, but I can't think so. I like, even now, to stand out in the clear during a thunder-storm. I want the head uncovered, too, that the wind may toss my hair about while I look the lightning-flashes straight in the eye and stand erect and unafraid as the thunder crashes and rolls and reverberates about me. I like to watch the trees swaying to and fro, keeping time to the majestic rhythm of the elements. To me such an experience is what my neighbor John calls "growing weather," and at such a time the bigness of the affair causes me to forget for the time that there are such things as double datives.

One time I spent the greater part of a forenoon watching logs go over a dam. It seems a simple thing to tell, and hardly worth the telling, but it was a great morning in actual experience. In time those huge logs became things of life, and when they arose from their mighty plunge into the watery deeps they seemed to shake themselves free and laugh in their freedom. And there were battles, too. They struggled and fought and rode over one another, and their mighty collisions produced a very thunder of sound. I tried to read the book which I had with me, but could not. In the presence of such a scene one cannot read a book unless it is one of Victor Hugo's. That copy-book looms up again as I think of those logs, and I wonder whether knowledge is power, and whether experience is the best teacher. But, dear me! Here I've been frittering away all this good time, and these papers not graded yet!



CHAPTER XXII

STORY-TELLING

My boys like to have me tell them stories, and, if the stories are true ones, they like them all the better. So I sometimes become reminiscent when they gather about me and let them lead me along as if I couldn't help myself when they are so interested. In this way I become one of them. I like to whittle a nice pine stick while I talk, for then the talk seems incidental to the whittling and so takes hold of them all the more. In the midst of the talking a boy will sometimes slip into my hand a fresh stick, when I have about exhausted the whittling resources of the other. That's about the finest encore I have ever received. A boy knows how to pay a compliment in a delicate way when the mood for compliments is on him, and if that mood of his is handled with equal delicacy great things may be accomplished.

Well, the other day as I whittled the inevitable pine stick I let them lure from me the story of Sant. Now, Sant was my seatmate in the village school back yonder, and I now know that I loved him whole-heartedly. I didn't know this at the time, for I took him as a matter of course, just as I did my right hand. His name was Sanford, but boys don't call one another by their right names. They soon find affectionate nicknames. I have quite a collection of these nicknames myself, but have only a hazy notion of how or where they were acquired. When some one calls me by one of these names, I can readily locate him in time and place, for I well know that he must belong in a certain group or that name would not come to his lips. These nicknames that we all have are really historical. Well, we called him Sant, and that name conjures up before me one of the most wholesome boys I have ever known. He was brimful of fun. A heartier, more sincere laugh a boy never had, and my affection for him was as natural as my breathing. He knew I liked him, though I never told him so. Had I told him, the charm would have been broken.

In those days spelling was one of the high lights of school work, and we were incited to excellence in this branch of learning by head tickets, which were a promise of still greater honor, in the form of a prize, to the winner. The one who stood at the head of the class at the close of the lesson received a ticket, and the holder of the greatest number of these tickets at the end of the school year bore home in triumph the much-coveted prize in the shape of a book as a visible token of superiority. I wanted that prize, and worked for it. Tickets were accumulating in my little box with exhilarating regularity, and I was nobly upholding the family name when I was stricken with pneumonia, and my victorious career had a rude check. My nearest competitor was Sam, who almost exulted in my illness because of the opportunity it afforded him for a rich harvest of head tickets. In the exuberance of his joy he made some remark to this effect, which Sant overheard. Up to this time Sant had taken no interest in the contests in spelling, but Sam's remark galvanized him into vigorous life, and spelling became his overmastering passion. Indeed, he became the wonder of the school, and in consequence poor Sam's anticipations were not realized. Day after day Sant caught the word that Sam missed, and thus added another ticket to his collection. So it went until I took my place again, and then Sant lapsed back into his indifference, leaving me to look after Sam myself. When I tried to face him down with circumstantial evidence he seemed pained to think that I could ever consider him capable of such designing. The merry twinkle in his eye was the only confession he ever made. Small wonder that I loved Sant. If I were writing a testimonial for myself I should say that it was much to my credit that I loved a boy like that.

As a boy my risibilities were easily excited, and I'm glad that, even yet, I have not entirely overcome that weakness. If I couldn't have a big laugh, now and then, I'd feel that I ought to consult a physician. My boys and girls and I often laugh together, but never at one another. Sant had a deal of fun with my propensity to laugh. When we were conning our geography lesson, he would make puns upon such names as Chattahoochee and Appalachicola, and I would promptly explode. Then, enter the teacher. But I drop the mantle of charity over the next scene, for his school-teaching was altogether personal, and not pedagogical. He didn't know that puns and laughter were the reactions on the part of us boys that caused us to know the facts of the book. But he wanted us to learn those facts in his way, and not in our own. Poor fellow! Requiescat in pace, if he can.

Sant was the first one of our crowd to go to college, and we were all proud of him, and predicted great things for him. We all knew he was brilliant and felt certain that the great ones in the college would soon find it out. And they did; for ever and anon some news would filter through to us that Sant was battening upon Latin, Greek, mathematics, science, and history. Of course, we gave all the credit to our little school, and seemed to forget that the Lord may have had something to do with it. When we proved by Sant's achievements that our school was ne plus ultra, I noticed that the irascible teacher joined heartily in the chorus. I intend to get all the glory I can from the achievements of my pupils, but I do hope that they may not be my sole dependence at the distribution of glory. Yes, Sant graduated, and his name was written high upon the scroll. But he could not deliver his oration, for he was sick, and a friend read it for him. And when he arose to receive his diploma he had to stand on crutches. They took him home in a carriage, and within a week he was dead. The fires of genius had burned brightly for a time and then went out in darkness, because his father and mother were first cousins.

At the conclusion of this story, the boys were silent for a long time, and I knew the story was having its effect. Then there was a slight movement, and one of them put into my hand another pine stick. I whittled in silence for a time, and then told them of a woman I know who is well-known and highly esteemed in more than one State because of her distinctive achievements. One day I saw her going along the street leading by the hand a little four-year-old boy. He was the picture of health, and rollicked along as only such a healthy little chap can. He was eager to see all the things that were displayed in the windows, but to me he and the proud mother were the finest show on the street. She beamed upon him like another Madonna, and it seemed to me that the Master must have been looking at some such glorious child as that when he said; "Suffer the little children to come unto me."

A few weeks later I was riding on the train with that mother, and she was telling me that the little fellow had been ill, and told how anxious she had been through several days and nights because the physicians could not discover the cause of his illness. Then she told how happy she was that he had about recovered, and how bright he seemed when she kissed him good-by that morning. I saw her several times that week and at each meeting she gave me good news of the little boy at home.

Inside of another month that noble little fellow was dead. Apparently he was his own healthy, happy little self, and then was stricken as he had been before. The pastor of the church of which the parents are members told me of the death scene. It occurred at about one o'clock in the morning, and the mother was worn and haggard from anxiety and days of watching. The members of the family, the physician, and the pastor were standing around the bed, but the mother was on her knees close beside the little one, who was writhing in the most awful convulsions. Then the stricken mother looked straight into heaven and made a personal appeal to God to come and relieve the little fellow's sufferings. Again and again she prayed: "Oh, God, do come and take my little boy." And the Angel of Death, in answer to that prayer, came in and touched the baby, and he was still.

The mother of that child may or may not know that the grandfather of that child came into that room that night, though he had been long in his grave, and murdered her baby—murdered him with tainted blood. That grandfather had not lived a clean life, and so broke a mother's heart and forced her in agony to pray for the death of her own child.

When I had finished I walked quietly away, leaving the boys to their own thoughts, and as I walked I breathed the wish that my boys may live such clean, wholesome, upright, temperate lives that no child or grandchild may ever have occasion to reproach them, or point the finger of scorn at them, and that no mother may ever pray for death to come to her baby because of a taint in their blood.



CHAPTER XXIII

GRANDMOTHER

My grandmother was about the nicest grandmother that a boy ever had, and in memory of her, I am quite partial to all the grandmothers. I like Whistler's portrait of his mother there in the Luxembourg—the serene face, the cap and strings, and the folded hands—because it takes me back to the days and to the presence of my grandmother. She got into my heart when I was a boy, and she is there yet; and there she will stay. The bread and butter that she somehow contrived to get to us boys between meals made us feel that she could read our minds. I attended a banquet the other night, but they had no such bread and butter as we boys had there in the shade of that apple-tree. It was real bread and real butter, and the appetite was real, too, and that helped to invest grandmother with a halo. Sometimes she would add jelly, and that caused our cup of joy to run over. She just could not bear a hungry look on the face of a boy, and when such a look appeared she exorcised it in the way that a boy likes. What I liked about her was that she never attached any conditions to her bread and butter—no, not even when she added jelly, but her gifts were as free as salvation. The more I think of the matter, the more I am convinced that her gifts were salvation, for I know, by experience, that a hungry boy is never a good boy, at least, not to excess.

Whatever the vicissitudes of life might be to me, I knew that I had a city of refuge beside grandmother's big armchair, and when trouble came I instinctively sought that haven, often with rare celerity. In that hallowed place there could be no hunger, nor thirst, nor persecution. In that place there was peace and plenty, whatever there might be elsewhere. I often used to wonder how she could know a boy so well. I would be aching to go over to play with Tom, and the first thing I knew grandmother was sending me over there on some errand, telling me there was no special hurry about coming back. My father might set his foot down upon some plan of mine ever so firmly, but grandmother had only to smile at him and he was reduced to a degree of limpness that contributed to my escape. I have often wondered whether that smile on the face of grandmother did not remind him, of some of his own boyish pranks.

We boys knew, somehow, what she expected of us, and her expectation was the measuring rod with which we tested our conduct. Boy-like, we often wandered away into a far country, but when we returned, she had the fatted calf ready for us, with never a question as to our travels abroad. In that way foreign travel lost something of its glamour, and the home life made a stronger appeal. She made her own bill of fare so appetizing that we lost all our relish for husks and the table companions connected with them. She never asked how or where we acquired the cherry-stains on our shirts, but we knew that she recognized cherry-stains when she saw them. The next day our shirts were innocent of foreign cherry-stains, and we experienced a feeling of righteousness. She made us feel that we were equal partners with her in the enterprise of life, and that hoeing the garden and eating the cookies were our part of the compact.

When we went to stay with her for a week or two we carried with us a book or so of the lurid sort, but returned home leaving them behind, generally in the form of ashes. She found the book, of course, beneath the pillow, and replaced it when she made the bed, but never mentioned the matter to us. Then, in the afternoon, while we munched cookies she would read to us from some book that made our own book seem tame and unprofitable. She never completed the story, however, but left the book on the table where we could find it easily. No need to tell that we finished the story, without help, in the evening, and the next day cremated the other book, having found something more to our liking. One evening, as we sat together, she said she wished she knew the name of Jephthah's daughter, and then went on with her knitting as if she had forgotten her wish. At that age we boys were not specially interested in daughters, no matter whose they were; but that challenge to our curiosity was too much for us, and before we went to bed we knew all that is known of that fine girl.

That was the beginning of our intimate, personal knowledge of Bible characters—Ruth, Esther, David, and the rest; but grandmother made us feel that we had known about them all along. I know, even yet, just how tall Ruth was, and what was the color of her eyes and hair; and Esther is the standard by which I measure all the queens of earth, whether they wear crowns or not.

One day when we went over to play with Tom we saw a peacock for the first time, and at supper became enthusiastic over the discovery. In the midst of our rhapsodizing grandmother asked us if we knew how those beautiful spots came to be in the feathers of the peacock. We confessed our ignorance, and like Ajax, prayed for light. But we soon became aware that our prayer would not be answered until after the supper dishes had been washed. Our alacrity in proffering our services is conclusive evidence that grandmother knew about motivation whether she knew the word or not. We suggested the omission of the skillets and pans for that night only, but the suggestion fell upon barren soil, and the regular order of business was strictly observed.

Then came the story, and the narrator made the characters seem lifelike to us as they passed in review. There were Jupiter and Juno; there were Argus with his hundred eyes, the beautiful heifer that was Io, and the crafty Mercury. In rapt attention we listened until those eyes of Argus were transferred to the feathers of the peacock. If Mercury's story of his musical pipe closed the eyes of Argus, grandmother's story opened ours wide, and we clamored for another, as boys will do. Nor did we ask in vain, and we were soon learning of the Flying Mercury, and how light and airy Mercury was, seeing that an infant's breath could support him. After telling of the wild ride of Phaeton and his overthrow, she quoted from John G. Saxe:

"Don't set it down in your table of forces That any one man equals any four horses. Don't swear by the Styx! It is one of old Nick's Diabolical tricks To get people into a regular 'fix,' And hold 'em there as fast as bricks!"

Be it said to our credit that after such an evening dish-washing was no longer a task, but rather a delightful prelude to another mythological feast. We wandered with Ulysses and shuddered at Polyphemus; we went in quest of the Golden Fleece, and watched the sack of Troy; we came to know Orpheus and Eurydice and Pyramus and Thisbe; and we sowed dragon's teeth and saw armed men spring up before us. Since those glorious evenings with grandmother the classic myths have been among my keenest delights. I read again and again Lowell's extravaganza upon the story of Daphne, and can hear grandmother's laugh over his delicious puns. I can hear her voice as she reads Shelley's musical Arethusa, and then turns to his Skylark to compare their musical qualities. I feel downright sorry for the boy who has no such grandmother to teach him these poems, but not more sorry than I do for those boys who took that Diamond Dick book with them when they went visiting. Even now, when people talk to me of omniscience I always think of grandmother.



CHAPTER XXIV

MY WORLD

"The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers, For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be A pagan suckled in a creed out-worn— So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; And hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."

—Wordsworth.

I have heard many times that this is one of the best of Wordsworth's many sonnets, and in the matter of sonnets, I find myself compelled to depend upon others for my opinions. I'm sorry that such is the case, for I'd rather not deal in second-hand judgments if I could help it. About the most this sonnet can do for me is to make me wonder what my world is. I suppose that the size of my world is the measure of myself, and that in my schoolmastering I am simply trying to enlarge the world of my pupils. I saw a gang-plough the other day that is drawn by a motor, and that set me to thinking of ploughs in general and their evolution; and, by tracing the plough backward, I saw that the original one must have been the forefinger of some cave-dweller.

When his forefinger got sore, he got a forked stick and used that instead; then he got a larger one and used both hands; then a still larger one, and used oxen as the motive power; and then he fitted handles to it, and other parts till he finally produced a plough. But the principle has not been changed, and the gang-plough is but a multifold forefinger. It is great fun to loose the tether of the mind and let it go racing along, in and out, till it runs to earth the original plough. Whether the solution is the correct one makes but little difference. If friend Brown cannot disprove my theory, I am on safe ground, and have my fun whether he accepts or rejects my findings.

This is one way of enlarging one's world, I take it, and if this sort of thing is a part of the process of education, I am in favor of it, and wish I knew how to set my boys and girls going on such excursions. I wish I might have gone to school to Agassiz just to get my eyes opened. If I had, I'd probably assign to my pupils such subjects as the evolution of a snowflake, the travels of a sunbeam, the mechanism of a bird's wing, the history of a dewdrop, the changes in a blade of grass, and the evolution of a grain of sand. If I could only take them away from books for a month or so, they'd probably be able to read the books to better advantage when they came back. I'd like to take them on a walking trip over the Alps and through rural England and Scotland for a few weeks.

If they could only gather broom, heather, shamrock, and edelweiss, they would be able to see clover, alfalfa, arbutus, and mignonette when they came back home. If they could see black robins in Wales and Germany, the robin redbreast here at home would surely be thought worthy of notice. If they could see stalactites and stalagmites in Luray Cave, their world would then include these formations. One of my boys was a member of an exploring expedition in the Andes, and one night they were encamped near a glacier. This glacier protruded into a lake, and on that particular night the end of that river of ice broke off and thus formed an iceberg. The glacier was nearly a mile wide, and when the end broke off the sound was such as to make the loudest thunder seem a whisper by comparison. It was a rare experience for this young fellow to be around where icebergs are made, and vicariously I shared his experience.