Description
A Native of Winby (in 1891 Collection )
I.
On the teacher’s desk, in the little roadside school-house, there was
a bunch of Mayflowers, beside a dented and bent brass bell, a small
Worcester’s Dictionary without any cover, and a worn morocco-covered
Bible. These were placed in an orderly row, and behind them was a
small wooden box which held some broken pieces of blackboard crayon.
The teacher, whom no timid new scholar could look at boldly, wore her
accustomed air of authority and importance. She might have been
nineteen years old,–not more,–but for the time being she scorned the
frivolities of youth.
The hot May sun was shining in at the smoky small-paned windows;
sometimes an outside shutter swung to with a creak, and eclipsed the
glare. The narrow door stood wide open, to the left as you faced the
desk, and an old spotted dog lay asleep on the step, and looked wise
and old enough to have gone to school with several generations of
children. It was half past three o’clock in the afternoon, and the
primer class, settled into the apathy of after-recess fatigue,
presented a straggling front, as they stood listlessly on the floor.
As for the big boys and girls, they also were longing to be at
liberty, but the pretty teacher, Miss Marilla Hender, seemed quite as
energetic as when school was begun in the morning.
The spring breeze blew in at the open door, and even fluttered the
primer leaves, but the back of the room felt hot and close, as if it
were midsummer. The children in the class read their lessons in those
high-keyed, droning voices which older teachers learn to associate
with faint powers of perception. Only one or two of them had an
awakened human look in their eyes, such as Matthew Arnold delighted
himself in finding so often in the school-children of Fr
Product ID: 9781776803224
Sku: 9781776803224
