The Puddleford Papers Part 18

Here was a parliamentary entanglement that occupied an hour; but the "Colonel" settled it at last, by reminding the president "that it was _two_ negatives that made one affirmative--not one;" and the Squire said "so he believed he had seen it laid down inter the books."

But I cannot attempt to report the proceedings of this miscellaneous body.

The business occupied some four or five hours, and was finally brought to a close. A new school board was elected, and your humble servant was one of the number; positively the first office that was ever visited upon him.

The great question with two of the members of our board, in hiring a teacher, was the price. Qualification was secondary. The first application was made by a long-armed, red-necked, fiery-headed youth of about nineteen years, who had managed to run himself up into the world about six feet two inches, and who had not worn off his flesh by hard study, and who carried about him digestive organs as strong as the bowels of a thras.h.i.+ng-machine.

He "wanted a school, 'cause he had nothing else to do in the winter months."

He was accordingly introduced to our School Inspectors; the only one of whom I knew was Bates. The other two were rather more frightened at the presentation than the applicant himself.

Bates proposed first to try the gentleman in geography and history.

"Where's Bunker Hill?" inquired Bates, authoritatively.

"Wal, 'bout that," said Strickett--our applicant called his name Izabel Strickett--"'bout that, why, it's where the battle was fit, warn't it?"

"Jes so," replied Bates; "and where was that?"

"Down at the east'ard."

"Who did the fightin' there?"

"Gin'rul Was.h.i.+ngton fit all the revolution."

"Where's Spain?"

"Where?" repeated Strickett--"Spain? where is it?"

"Yes! where?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: JIM BUZZARD AND THE AGER.

"Them 'ere doctors don't get any of their stuff down my throat. If I can't stand it as long as the _ager_, then I'll give in."--Page 186.]

"Wal, now," exclaimed Strickett, looking steadily on the floor, "I'll be darn'd if that ere hain't just slipped my mind."

"Where's Turkey?"

"O, yes," said Strickett, "Turkey--the place they _call_ Turkey--if you'd ask'd me in the street, I'd told you right off, but I've got so fruster'd I don't know nothin';" and thinking a moment, he exclaimed, "it's where the Turks live. I thought I know'd."

"How many States are there in the Union?"

"'Tween twenty-live and thirty--throwin' out Canady."

Bates then attempted an examination in reading and spelling. "Spell hos!"

said Bates.

"H--o--s."

"Thunder!" roared Bates. Bates _did_ know how to spell horse. He had seen notices of stray horses, and a horse was the most conspicuous object in Puddleford, excepting, of course, Squire Longbow. "H--o--s! that's a hos-of-a-way to spell hos!" and Bates looked at Strickett very severely, feeling a pride of his own knowledge.

Strickett said "he us'd the book when he teach'd school--he didn't teach out of his head--and he didn't believe the 'spectors themselves could spell Ompompanoosuck right off, without getting stuck."

Izabel's examination was something after this sort, through the several English branches; yet a majority of the Board of School Inspectors decided to give him a certificate, if we said so, as he was to teach our school, and we were more interested than they in his qualifications; and whether the Inspectors knew what his qualifications really were, "this deponent saith not." Strickett "sloped."

The next application was by letter. The epistle declared that the applicant "brok'd his arm inter a saw-mill, and he couldn't do much out-door work till it heal'd up agin, and if we'd hire him to carry on our school, he tho't he would make it go well 'nough,"--but the School Board decided that all-powerful as sympathy might be, it could scarcely drive a district school under such orthography, syntax, and prosody.

Next appeared Mrs. Beagle, in behalf of her "Sah-Jane." "She know'd Sah-Jane, and she know'd Sah-Jane was jist the thing for the Puddleford school; and if we only know'd Sah-Jane as well as she know'd Sah-Jane, we'd have her, cost what it might." She said "Sah-Jane was a most s'prisin'

gal--she hung right to her books, day _and_ night--and she know'd she had a sleight at teachin'. Mr. Giblett's folks told Mr. Brown's folks, so she heer'd, that if they ever _did_ get Sah-Jane into that ere school, she'd make a buzzin' that would tell some."

Sah-Jane's case was, however, indefinitely postponed. Some objections, among other things, on the score of age, were suggested. This roused the wrath of Mrs. Beagle, and she "guessed her Sah-Jane was old enough to teach a Puddleford school--if she tho't she warn't, she'd bile her up in-ter soap-grease, and sell her for a s.h.i.+llin' a quart!--and as for the _de_-strict board, they'd better go to a school-marm themselves, and larn somethin', or be 'lected over agin, she didn't care which;" and Mrs. Beagle left at a very quick step, her face much flushed and full of cayenne and vengeance.

There were a great many more applications, and at last the board hired--I say the _board_--_I_ didn't. But the other members overruled me, and price, not qualification, settled the question at last.

This was the way the machinery was worked in our school district, during the very early days of Puddleford. As the stream never rises above the fountain-head, education was quite feeble. But we do better now--there is less friction on our gudgeons, and if Puddleford should turn out a President one of these days, it would be nothing more than what our glorious inst.i.tutions have before "ground out" under more discouraging circ.u.mstances.

CHAPTER XV.

Venison Styles again.--Sermon on Nature.--Funeral Songs of the Birds.--Their Flight and Return.--His Theory of Government.--Sakoset.--The Indians.

Venison Styles, rough and rugged as he was, had acquired much knowledge in a wild way, and could, in that way, stagger a philosopher. No man had a nicer insight into nature. Birds and brooks, hills and valleys, trees and flowers, were all his study. He had no faith in science, except just so far as it came within his own experience. "Book larnin'," he said, "was all very well; but lookin' natur' in the face, and listening to what she said, was a deal better." I remember one of his sermons, which he delivered to me one bright October afternoon, when the woods were all russet and gold, the squirrels chattering in the trees, the nuts dropping, the partridges whirring and drumming, and the soft autumnal light was faintly struggling along the aisles of the forest. "You see," said Venison, "how all natur' is talkin', and if you will only listen, can tell enymost what she says.

There," he continued, "just hear that robin pecking away on that ere c.o.ke bush. Hear him pipe away so melancholy-like--'All goin'! all goin'!' he says. How low and fine that yaller-bird sings--a kinder fun'ral song. The jay is sad-like, and acts just as though he felt winter comin'. That crow, sailin' through the air, croaks awful gloomy-like and holler--and all these ere crickets and insects jine in so sad and downcast. 'Tain't their spring song. They are down onter another key now. They begin to feel frost inter their bones. They know what's comin'."

"Know!" said I; "what do birds know about winter, till it comes." I wanted to draw the old philosopher out.

"Know! know!" continued Venison. "Birds think and talk--yes, they do--_they_ know. I've heerd 'em talk to one another, from tree-top to tree-top, across these woods many a time--lay plans many a day. What makes 'em flockin' around us to-day, and soarin' around in companies, if they don't understand each other? They go round and round for a week or two, visit this wood and that, jabber, and fret, and fume, pick up a straggler here, 'nother there, and when they get a good ready, and are flock'd, off they go, travellin' south. Hain't they got col'nels, captins, and laws?--they are jest as much of a body as our school de-strict is, and every bird knows what he is about, what he is going to do, and how, too."

"Why don't all the blackbirds go into one flock, Venison?" said I.

"There 'tis! there 'tis!" replied Venison; "if 'twas all chance, they would. But it jest ain't chance. Natur' has 'lowed them to fix it. There,"

he continued, "goes a flock now--they've got a captin among 'em, leading 'em on--he knows every one under him--and they are jest around visitin'

their friends before goin' off--that's all."

"Do you think they will come back again, Venison?" I inquired.

"Back again! back again!" he exclaimed, looking up to me with surprise.

"Why, man, this is their home--they were born 'here. This is their ground, hereabouts. They know every tree, and mash, and river for miles 'round.

You'll hear 'em chatterin' and gabblin' by next April 'gain."

"Doubtful," I replied.

"Well, now," said Venison, "I've tried that. Down to where I live, the blackbirds and robins are thick as spatter. They make it all ring round me.

I caught a dozen or more of each in a net one fall, cut off one toe all round, and let 'em go. Jim Spikes bet they wouldn't come back; I bet they would. I wanted to try it, you see. When spring came on again there the fellers were, sure enough, or most on 'em, on hand, ready for summer's business again. Jim gin in--he did."

"I should think they would stray away, Venison," said I.

"Don't you believe in a G.o.d!" broke out Venison, in an animated tone. "When He made 'em, He put a compa.s.s inter their heads that can't get out of fix, and they run jest as straight by it as my dog does by his nose--and a dog's nose is _his_ compa.s.s, you know."