Part 8 (1/2)

CHAPTER XXVIII

PURELY PEDAGOGICAL

It was a dark, cold, rainy night in November The histled about the house, the rain beat a tattoo against the -panes and flooded the sills The big base-burner, filled with anthracite coal, was illuh itsa warmth that smiled at the storm and cold outside There was a book in the picture, also; and a pair of slippers; and a s was suspended a great laht and cheer

Thethe book, was a schoole professor to be exact Softacco

Subconsciously, as he turned the pages, he felt a pity for the poor fellows on top of freight-trains whoof the storainst the blasts that tried to wrest thes He felt a pity for the belated traveller who tries, well-nigh in vain, to urge his horses against the driving rain onward toward food and shelter

But the leaves of the book continued to turn at intervals; for the story was an engaging one, and the schoolmaster was ever responsive to well-told stories

It was nine o'clock or after, and the fury of the store outside, he opened the draft of the stove and then settled back, thinking he would be able to co In the es he heard a bell toll, or i sensation, he looked back over the page to discover a possible explanation Finding none, he s But, again, the bell tolled, and he wondered whether anything he had eaten at dinner could be held responsible for the hallucination Scarcely had he resuain tolled He could stand it no longer, and must come upon the solution of the mystery Bells do not toll at nine o'clock, and the weirdness of the affair disconcerted him The nearer he drew to the foot of the stair, in his quest for information, the more foolish he felt his question would seem to the members of the family But the question had scarce been asked when the boy of the house burst forth: ”Yes, been tolling for half an hour” Meekly he asked: ”Why are they tolling the bell?” ”Child lost” ”Whose child?” ”Little girl belonging to the Norwegians who live in the shack down there by the woods”

So, that was it! Well, it was some satisfaction to have the o back to his book He had noticed the shack in question, which was ht, with a precarious roof of tarred paper; and had heard, vaguely, that a gang of Norwegians were there to h the woods to Minnehaha Falls Beyond these bare facts he had never thought to inquire These people and their doings were outside of his world

Besides, the book and the cheery rooet on well The tolling bell broke in upon it and brought before hisabout in the storue with hi in his class, and that they ought to look after their own children He was under no obligations to theht, therefore, to break in upon the serenity of his evening

But the bell tolled on If he could have wrenched the clapper froht not have blurred before his eyes As the wind , and started to his feet It was inconceivable, he argued, that he, a grown man, should permit such incidental matters in life to so disturb his composure There were scores, perhaps hundreds, of children lost soi, too So why not be philosophical and read the book? But the words would not keep their places, and the page yielded forth no coherent thought He could endure the tension no longer He beca off the slippers, throwing the s to the closet for his gear At ten o'clock he was ready--hip-boots, slouch-hat, rubber coat, and lantern, and went forth into the stor at the scene, he took his place in the searching party of about twenty men They were to search the woods, first of all, each man to be responsible for a space about two or three rods wide and extending to the road a half-mile distant Lantern in hand, he scrutinized each stone and stuht prove to be the little one In the darkness he stuled in briers and braed ater frohs But his blood was up, for he was seeking a lost baby When he fell full-length in the swale, he got to his feet the best he could and went on Book and rooer purpose So for two hours he splashed and struggled, but had never a thought of abandoning the quest until the child should be found

At twelve o'clock they had reached the road and were about to begin the search in another section of the hen the church-bell rang

This was the signal that they should return to the starting-point to hear any tidings that ht have coe had come from police headquarters in the city, and that infor a lost child when the school!” And aent these tard the barn to arouse old ”Blackie” out of her slu ever dream, even in her palmiest days, that she could show such speed as she developed in that four-ht up to sit supinely by and see another do the driving; so he did it himself

And he drove as to the manner born

The inforh, but it furnished the about, and could be located on a certain street at such a number The name of the faan their search for the street and house The map of streets which they had hastily sketched seeuide the corners

They had adventures a plenty in pounding upon doors of wrong houses and thus arousing the fury of sleepy s One of the latter tore away a quarter-section of the schoolmaster's rubber coat, and became so interested in this that the owner escaped with no further dae After an hour filled with such experiences they finally caht house Joy flooded their hearts as the man inside called out: ”Yes, wait a minute” Once inside, questions and answers flew back and forth like a shuttle Yes, a little girl--about five years old--light hair--braided and hanging down her back--check apron ”She's the one--and ant to take her home”

Then the lady appeared, and said it was too bad to take the little one out into such a night But the schoolument doith the word-picture of the little one'sback and forth in front of the shack, her hair hanging in strings, her clothing drenched with rain and clinging to her body, her eyes upturned, and her face expressing theto and fro for seven hours and was, no doubt, doing so yet The mother-heart of the woman could not withstand such an appeal, and soon she was busy in the difficult task of trying to get the little arms into the sleeves of dress and apron

Meanwhile, the two bedraggledwith that acme of aardness of which only s and shoes The dressing of that child orthy the brush of Raphael or the s the school baby in the e she spoke as she crooned over her little one As the schoolry, and worn he was buoyant in spirit to the point of ecstasy But he was chastened, for he had stood upon the Mount of Transfiguration and knew as never before that the mission of the schoolmaster is to find and restore the lost child

CHAPTER XXIX

LONGEVITY

I' a practical joke on Atropos, and, perhaps, on Methuselah, while I'm about it I'm not partial to Atropos at the best She's such a reckless, uppish, heedless sort of tyrant She rushes into huts, palaces, and even into the grand stand, and lays about her with her scissors, snipping off threads with the uty or by your leave Not even a check-book can stay her ravages Her devastation knows neither ruth nor gentleness I don't like her, and have no coine it will daunt her, in the least, but I can have my fun, at any rate

It is now just seven o'clock in the evening, and I shall not retire before ten o'clock at the earliest So here are three good hours for me to dispose of; and I ahbor John has a cow, and he is applying the efficiency test to her He charges her with every pound of corn, bran, fodder, and hay that she eats, and doctor's bills, too, I suppose, if there are any Then he credits her with all the milk she furnishes There is quite a book-account in her naed by net results, she is a consumer or a producer If I can resurrect sufficient mathematical lore, I think I shall try to apply this efficiency test to my three hours just to see if I can prove that hours are as iht to be able, somehow, to determine whether these hours are consu whose title is ”Stories of Thrift for Young Aht to apply the efficiency test tohour of the day But, in order to do this, I must apply the test to these three hours In my dreamy moods, I like to personify an Hour and spell it with a capital I like to think of an hour as the singular of Houri which the Mohammedans call nymphs of paradise, because they were, or are, beautiful-eyed My Hour then becoh my life, and, as the poet says, _et vera incessu patuit dea_

If I show her that I appreciate her she coain just after the clock strikes, in form even more winsome than before, and smiles upon me as only a Goddess can Once, in a sullenWhen she returned she was a hag; and not till after I had done full penance did she beco hbor co but talk I could not ask what gaht smile in his face if he should say crokinole, tiddledy-winks, or button-button Later on I learned thatby a very cultivated ently, and has amanner in his fluent discussions of art, literature, archaeology, architecture, places, and peoples I was sorry to o tiddledywinks with a fair degree of amiability if, instead, I could hear such a allery I fear to play tiddledywinks lestBut thatto play on her Still, I see that I shall not soon get around to that joke if I persist in these dieneralities, as a school, these three hours are at my disposal, and Iconcerning hours II shall have other three hours to dispose of the sa three others, andIn six days I shall have eighteen such hours, and in fifty weeks nine hundred I suppose that a generous estie year would be ten hours a day for one hundred and eighty days, or eighteen hundred hours in all I ae boys will feel inclined to apply a liberal discount to this esti those felloho try to do a month's work in the week of exa Now, if eighteen hundred hours constitute a college year then e year, and it makes a deal of difference what I do with these three hours

If I had only started this joke on Atropos earlier and had applied these nine hundred hours on raduated in three years instead of four, and that surely would have been in the line of efficiency But in those days I was devoting more time and attention to Clotho than to Atropos I would fain have ignored Lachesis altogether, but shethe finals when, it seeent in her vocation I could have dispensed with reat equani to square accounts with her by playing this joke on her sister

So I have decided that I shall read a play of Shakespeare to-night, another one to-, and continue this until I have read all that he wrote In the fifty weeks of the year I can easily do this and then reread soht to be able to coood fun If those chaps back yonder could recite the Koran word for word I shall certainly be able to learn equally well some of these plays