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95 pages

English

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. As the master of the Indian Spring school emerged from the pine woods into the little clearing before the schoolhouse, he stopped whistling, put his hat less jauntily on his head, threw away some wild flowers he had gathered on his way, and otherwise assumed the severe demeanor of his profession and his mature age- which was at least twenty. Not that he usually felt this an assumption; it was a firm conviction of his serious nature that he impressed others, as he did himself, with the blended austerity and ennui of deep and exhausted experience.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819943785
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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CRESSY
By Bret Harte
CRESSY
CHAPTER I.
As the master of the Indian Spring school emergedfrom the pine woods into the little clearing before theschoolhouse, he stopped whistling, put his hat less jauntily on hishead, threw away some wild flowers he had gathered on his way, andotherwise assumed the severe demeanor of his profession and hismature age— which was at least twenty. Not that he usually feltthis an assumption; it was a firm conviction of his serious naturethat he impressed others, as he did himself, with the blendedausterity and ennui of deep and exhausted experience.
The building which was assigned to him and his flockby the Board of Education of Tuolumne County, California, had beenoriginally a church. It still bore a faded odor of sanctity,mingled, however, with a later and slightly alcoholic breath ofpolitical discussion, the result of its weekly occupation under theauthority of the Board as a Tribune for the enunciation of partyprinciples and devotion to the Liberties of the People. There werea few dog-eared hymn-books on the teacher's desk, and theblackboard but imperfectly hid an impassioned appeal to thecitizens of Indian Spring to “Rally” for Stebbins as Supervisor.The master had been struck with the size of the black type in whichthis placard was printed, and with a shrewd perception of its valueto the round wandering eyes of his smaller pupils, allowed it toremain as a pleasing example of orthography. Unfortunately,although subdivided and spelt by them in its separate letters withpainful and perfect accuracy, it was collectively known as “Wally,” and its general import productive of vague hilarity.
Taking a large key from his pocket, the masterunlocked the door and threw it open, stepping back with a certainprecaution begotten of his experience in once finding a small butsociable rattlesnake coiled up near the threshold. A slightdisturbance which followed his intrusion showed the value of thatprecaution, and the fact that the room had been already used forvarious private and peaceful gatherings of animated nature. Anirregular attendance of yellow-birds and squirrels dismissedthemselves hurriedly through the broken floor and windows, but agolden lizard, stiffened suddenly into stony fright on the edge ofan open arithmetic, touched the heart of the master so strongly byits resemblance to some kept-in and forgotten scholar who hadsuccumbed over the task he could not accomplish, that he was seizedwith compunction.
Recovering himself, and re-establishing, as it were,the decorous discipline of the room by clapping his hands andsaying “Sho! ” he passed up the narrow aisle of benches, replacingthe forgotten arithmetic, and picking up from the desks here andthere certain fragmentary pieces of plaster and crumbling wood thathad fallen from the ceiling, as if this grove of Academus had beenshedding its leaves overnight. When he reached his own desk helifted the lid and remained for some moments motionless, gazinginto it. His apparent meditation however was simply the combinedreflection of his own features in a small pocket-mirror in itsrecesses and a perplexing doubt in his mind whether the sacrificeof his budding moustache was not essential to the professionalausterity of his countenance. But he was presently aware of thesound of small voices, light cries, and brief laughter scattered atvague and remote distances from the schoolhouse— not unlike thebirds and squirrels he had just dispossessed. He recognized bythese signs that it was nine o'clock, and his scholars wereassembling.
They came in their usual desultory fashion— thefashion of country school-children the world over— irregularly,spasmodically, and always as if accidentally; a few hand-in-hand,others driven ahead of or dropped behind their elders; some instraggling groups more or less coherent and at times only connectedby far-off intermediate voices scattered on a space of half a mile,but never quite alone; always preoccupied by something else thanthe actual business on hand; appearing suddenly from ditches,behind trunks, and between fence-rails; cropping up in unexpectedplaces along the road after vague and purposeless detours—seemingly going anywhere and everywhere but to school! Sounlooked-for, in fact, was their final arrival that the master, whohad a few moments before failed to descry a single torn straw hator ruined sun-bonnet above his visible horizon, was always startledto find them suddenly under his windows, as if, like the birds,they had alighted from the trees. Nor was their moral attitudetowards their duty any the more varied; they always arrived as iftired and reluctant, with a doubting sulkiness that perhapsafterwards beamed into a charming hypocrisy, but invariablytemporizing with their instincts until the last moment, and onlyrelinquishing possible truancy on the very threshold. Even afterthey were marshalled on their usual benches they gazed at eachother every morning with a perfectly fresh astonishment and a dailyrecurring enjoyment of some hidden joke in this tremendousrencontre.
It had been the habit of the master to utilize thesepreliminary vagrancies of his little flock by inviting them onassembling to recount any interesting incident of their journeyhither; or failing this, from their not infrequent shyness inexpressing what had secretly interested them, any event that hadoccurred within their knowledge since they last met. He had donethis, partly to give them time to recover themselves in that moreformal atmosphere, and partly, I fear, because, notwithstanding hisconscientious gravity, it greatly amused him. It also diverted themfrom their usual round-eyed, breathless contemplation of himself— aregular morning inspection which generally embraced every detail ofhis dress and appearance, and made every change or deviation thesubject of whispered comment or stony astonishment. He knew thatthey knew him more thoroughly than he did himself, and shrank fromthe intuitive vision of these small clairvoyants.
“Well? ” said the master gravely.
There was the usual interval of bashful hesitation,verging on nervous hilarity or hypocritical attention. For the lastsix months this question by the master had been invariably receivedeach morning as a veiled pleasantry which might lead to balefulinformation or conceal some query out of the dreadful books beforehim. Yet this very element of danger had its fascinations. JohnnyFilgee, a small boy, blushed violently, and, without getting up,began hurriedly in a high key, “Tige ith got, ” and then suddenlysubsided into a whisper.
“Speak up, Johnny, ” said the masterencouragingly.
“Please, sir, it ain't anythin' he's seed— nor anyreal news, ” said Rupert Filgee, his elder brother, rising withfamily concern and frowning openly upon Johnny; “it's jest hisfoolishness; he oughter be licked. ” Finding himself unexpectedlyon his feet, and apparently at the end of a long speech, he coloredalso, and then said hurriedly, “Jimmy Snyder— HE seed suthin'. AskHIM! ” and sat down— a recognized hero.
Every eye, including the master's, was turned onJimmy Snyder. But that youthful observer, instantly diving his headand shoulders into his desk, remained there gurgling as if underwater. Two or three nearest him endeavored with some struggling tobring him to an intelligible surface again. The master waitedpatiently. Johnny Filgee took advantage of the diversion to beginagain in a high key, “Tige ith got thix, ” and subsided.
“Come, Jimmy, ” said the master, with a touch ofperemptoriness. Thus adjured, Jimmy Snyder came up glowingly, andbristling with full stops and exclamation points. “Seed a blackb'ar comin' outer Daves' woods, ” he said excitedly. “Nigh to me ezyou be. 'N big ez a hoss; 'n snarlin'! 'n snappin'! — like gosh!Kem along— ker— clump torords me. Reckoned he'd skeer me! Didn'tskeer me worth a cent. I heaved a rock at him— I did now! ” (indefiance of murmurs of derisive comment)— “'n he slid. Ef he'd kemup furder I'd hev up with my slate and swotted him over the snoot—bet your boots! ”
The master here thought fit to interfere, andgravely point out that the habit of striking bears as large as ahorse with a school-slate was equally dangerous to the slate (whichwas also the property of Tuolumne County) and to the striker; andthat the verb “to swot” and the noun substantive “snoot” werelikewise indefensible, and not to be tolerated. Thus admonishedJimmy Snyder, albeit unshaken in his faith in his own courage, satdown.
A slight pause ensued. The youthful Filgee, takingadvantage of it, opened in a higher key, “Tige ith”— but themaster's attention was here diverted by the searching eyes ofOctavia Dean, a girl of eleven, who after the fashion of her sexpreferred a personal recognition of her presence before she spoke.Succeeding in catching his eye, she threw back her long hair fromher shoulders with an easy habitual gesture, rose, and with a faintaccession of color said:
“Cressy McKinstry came home from Sacramento. Mrs.McKinstry told mother she's comin' back here to school. ”
The master looked up with an alacrity perhapsinconsistent with his cynical austerity. Seeing the young girlcuriously watching him with an expectant smile, he regretted it.Cressy McKinstry, who was sixteen years old, had been one of thepupils he had found at the school when he first came. But as he hadalso found that she was there in the extraordinary attitude ofbeing “engaged” to one Seth Davis, a fellow-pupil of nineteen, andas most of the courtship was carried on freely and unceremoniouslyduring school-hours with the full permission of the master'spredecessor, the master had been obliged to point out to theparents of the devoted couple the embarrassing effects of thisassociation on the discipline of the school. The result had beenthe withdrawal of the lovers, and possibly the good-will of theparents. The return of the young lady was consequently a matter ofsome significance. Had the master's protest b