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At night, our old cook builds a huge fire of redwood logs, and then his tongue loosens and he quotes poetry by the column or talks of his experience as a preacher, actor, village schoolmaster, and vagabond. Without a cent he travels all over California, as strong and rugged as any redwood tree that grows in this wonderful valley.
My informant was the schoolmaster of Khera Kalan village. At his school he told me that the children of farmers were allowed tuition free; the children of the village people pay 1 to 3 annas a month. It is heartbreaking to see the thousands and thousands of bright-eyed boys and girls growing up amid such hopeless surroundings.
"What a queer schoolmaster!" said Ellen. "Queer enough; you may say that. His name was Starks; the boys used to call him Starksification. We did hate him, that's a fact. I'll tell you what he did to a black boy of ours you know our black Sam, Alice? I forget what he had been doing; but Starks took him so by the rims of the ears and danced him up and down upon the floor."
Haward stood for a moment gazing steadily at Hugon, but with no notice to bestow upon the bowing schoolmaster; then walked over to the harpsichord, and, sitting down, began to play an old tune, soft and slow, with pauses between the notes. When he came to the final chord he looked over his shoulder at the Colonel, standing before the mantel, with his eyes upon the fire.
When every one had brought his quota, and whole was properly arranged in small gourd shells, the schoolmaster offered up a short prayer, the substance of which was, that God and the holy prophets might preserve them from robberies and all bad people, that their provisions might never fail them, nor their limbs become fatigued.
There was a small school for the children of the post, and a soldier by the name of Delany was schoolmaster. He tried hard to make our children learn, but they did not wish to study, and spent all their spare time in planning tricks to be played upon poor Delany. It was a difficult situation for the soldier.
"That has been going on for ages," said the schoolmaster, "and the same drop of water that leaves some of its substance to form the stalactite, hanging from the roof, goes to form the stalagmite jutting up from the floor. Come, Paul, here's a seat for you. You must rest a bit." They beheld a rock formation almost like a chair, and, Paul sitting down in it, found it quite comfortable.
We went below and the table was very grand with its great frosted cake and its candles, in shiny brass sticks, and its jellies and preserves with the gleam of polished pewter among them. Mrs. Hacket and all the children, save Ruth, were waiting for us in the dining-room. "Now sit down here, all o' ye, with Michael Henry," said the schoolmaster. "The little lady will be impatient.
He was not a citizen of the disobedient republic, however, but a loyal subject of the obedient provinces, and his name was John Baptist Houwaerts, an eminent schoolmaster of Brussels. He was still more eminent as a votary of what was called "Rhetoric" and as an arranger of triumphal processions and living pictures.
When he was fourteen years old, he wrote to her his first love-letter. The village schoolmaster taught for very low wages, and was not remarkably well-qualified for his task; as was generally the case at that early period. Isaac's labor was needed on the farm all the summer; consequently, he was able to attend school only three months during the winter.
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