Elbow-Room Part 4

"Besides, the peculiar arrangement of the animal excited unpleasant remark when I drove out; and when I wanted to stop and would hitch him by the tail to a post, he had a very disagreeable way of reaching out with his hind legs and sweeping the sidewalk whenever he saw anybody that he felt as if he would like to kick.

"He was not much of a saddle-horse; not that he would attempt to throw his rider, but whenever a saddle was put on him it made his back itch, and he would always insist upon rubbing it against the first tree or fence or corner of a house that he came to; and if he could bark the rider's leg, he seemed to be better contented. The last time I rode him was upon the day of Mr. Johnson's wedding. I had on my best suit, and on the way to the festival there was a creek to be forded. When the horse got into the middle of it, he took a drink, and then looked around at the scenery. Then he took another drink, and gazed again at the prospect. Then he suddenly felt tired and lay down in the water.

By the time he was sufficiently rested I was ready to go home.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. b.u.t.tERWICK'S HORSE LIES DOWN]

"The next day he was taken sick. Patrick said it was the epizooty, and he mixed him up some turpentine in a bucket of warm feed. That night the horse had spasms, and kicked four of the best boards out of the side of the stable. Jones said that horse hadn't the epizooty, but the botts, and that the turpentine ought to have been rubbed on the outside of him instead of going into his stomach. So we rubbed him with turpentine, and next morning he hadn't a hair on his body.

"Colonel Coffin told me that if I wanted to know what really ailed that horse he would tell me. It was glanders, and if he wasn't bled he would die. So the colonel bled him for me. We took away a tubful, and the horse thinned down so that his ribs made him look as if he had swallowed a flour-barrel.

"Then I sent for the horse-doctor, and he said there was nothing the matter with the horse but heaves, and he left some medicine 'to patch up his wind.' The result was that the horse coughed for two days as if he had gone into galloping consumption, and between two of the coughs he kicked the hired man through the part.i.tion and bit our black-and-tan terrier in half.

"I thought perhaps a little exercise might improve his health, so I drove him out one day, and he proceeded in such a peculiar manner that I was afraid he might suddenly come apart and fall to pieces. When we reached the top of White House hill, which is very steep by the side of the road, he stopped, gave a sort of shudder, coughed a couple of times, kicked a fly off his side with his hind leg, and then lay down and calmly rolled over the bank. I got out of the carriage before he fell, and I watched him pitch clear down to the valley beneath, with the vehicle dragging after him. When we got to him he was dead, and the man at the farm-house close by said he had the blind staggers.

"I sold him for eight dollars to a man who wanted to make him up into knife-handles and suspender-b.u.t.tons; and since then we have walked.

I hardly think I shall buy another horse. My luck doesn't seem good enough when I make ventures of that kind."

CHAPTER V.

_SOME EDUCATIONAL FACTS_.

The public-school system of the village was reorganized during a recent summer; and in consequence of a considerable enlargement of the single school-building and the great increase of the number of scholars, it was determined to engage an additional woman-teacher in the girls' department. Accordingly, the board of directors advertised for a suitable person, instructing applicants to call upon Judge Twiddler, the chairman. A day or two later, Mrs. Twiddler advertised in a city paper for a cook, and upon the same afternoon an Irish girl came to the house to obtain the place in the kitchen. The judge was sitting upon the front porch at the time reading a newspaper; and when the girl entered the gate of the yard, he mistook her for a school-mistress, and he said to her,

"Did you come about that place?"

"Yes, sor," she answered.

"Oh, very well, then; take a seat and I'll run over a few things in order to ascertain what your qualifications are. Bound Africa."

"If you please, sor, I don't know what you mean."

"I say, bound Africa."

"Bou--bou--Begorra, I don't know what ye're referrin' to."

"Very strange," said the judge. "Can you tell me if 'amphibious' is an adverb or a preposition? What is an adverb?"

"Indade, and ye bother me intirely. I never had anything to do wid such things at my last place."

"Then it must have been a curious sort of an inst.i.tution," said the judge. "Probably you can tell me how to conjugate the verb 'to be,'

and just mention, also, what you know about Herodotus."

"Ah, yer Honor's jokin' wid me. Be done wid yer fun, now."

"Did you ever hear of Herodotus?"

"Never once in the whole coorse of my life. Do you make it with eggs?"

"This is the most extraordinary woman I ever encountered," murmured the judge. "How she ever a.s.sociated Herodotus with the idea of eggs is simply incomprehensible. Well, can you name the hemisphere in which China and j.a.pan are situated?"

"Don't bother me wid yer fun, now. I can wash the china and the pans as well as anybody, and that's enough, now, isn't it?"

"Dumb! awful dumb! Don't know the country from the crockery. I'll try her once more. Name the limits of the Tropic of Capricorn, and tell me where Asia Minor is located."

"I have a brother that's one, sor; that's all I know about it."

"One? One what?"

"Didn't ye ask me afther the miners, sor? My brother Teddy works wid 'em."

"And this," said the judge, "is the kind of person to whom we are asked to entrust the education of youth. Woman, what _do_ you know?

What kind of a school have you been teaching?"

"None, sor. What should I teach school for?"

"Totally without experience, as I supposed," said the judge.

"Mrs. Ferguson had a governess teach the children when I was cookin'

for her."

"Cooking! Ain't you a school-teacher? What do you mean by proposing to stop cooking in order to teach school? Why, it's preposterous."

"Begorra, I came here to get the cook's place, sor, and that's all of it."

"Oh, by George! I see now. You ain't a candidate for the grammar school, after all. You want to see Mrs. Twiddler. Maria, come down here a minute. There's a thick-headed immigrant here wants to cook for you."

And the judge picked up his paper and resumed the editorial on "The Impending Crisis."

They obtained a good teacher, however, and the course of affairs in the girls' department was smooth enough; but just after the opening of the fall session there was some trouble in the boys' department.

Mr. Barnes, the master, read in the _Educational Monthly_ that boys could be taught history better than in any other way by letting each boy in the cla.s.s represent some historical character, and relate the acts of that character as if he had done them himself. This struck Barnes as a mighty good idea, and he resolved to put it in practice.

The school had then progressed so far in its study of the history of Rome as the Punic wars, and Mr. Barnes immediately divided the boys into two parties, one Romans and the other Carthaginians, and certain of the boys were named after the leaders upon both sides. All the boys thought it was a fine thing, and Barnes noticed that they were so anxious to get to the history lesson that they could hardly say their other lessons properly.

When the time came, Barnes ranged the Romans upon one side of the room and the Carthaginians on the other. The recitation was very spirited, each party telling about its deeds with extraordinary unction. After a while Barnes asked a Roman to describe the battle of Cannae. Whereupon the Romans hurled their copies of Wayland's Moral Science at the enemy. Then the Carthaginians made a battering-ram out of a bench and jammed it among the Romans, who retaliated with a volley of books, slates and chewed paper-b.a.l.l.s. Barnes concluded that the battle of Cannae had been sufficiently ill.u.s.trated, and he tried to stop it; but the warriors considered it too good a thing to let drop, and accordingly the Carthaginians dashed over to the Romans with another battering-ram and thumped a couple of them savagely.

Then the Romans turned in, and the fight became general. A Carthaginian would grasp a Roman by the hair and hustle him around over the desk in a manner that was simply frightful, and a Roman would give a fiendish whoop and knock a Carthaginian over the head with Greenleaf's Arithmetic. Hannibal got the head of Scipio Africa.n.u.s under his arm, and Scipio, in his efforts to break away, stumbled, and the two generals fell and had a rough-and-tumble fight under the blackboard. Caius Gracchus prodded Hamilcar with a ruler, and the latter in his struggles to get loose fell against the stove and knocked down about thirty feet of stove-pipe. Thereupon the Romans made a grand rally, and in five minutes they chased the entire Carthaginian army out of the school-room, and Barnes along with it; and then they locked the door and began to hunt up the apples and lunch in the desks of the enemy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BATTLE OF CANNae.]

After consuming the supplies they went to the windows and made disagreeable remarks to the Carthaginians, who were standing in the yard, and dared old Barnes to bring the foe once more into battle array. Then Barnes went for a policeman; and when he knocked at the door, it was opened, and all the Romans were found busy studying their lessons. When Barnes came in with the defeated troops he went for Scipio Africa.n.u.s; and pulling him out of his seat by the ear, he thrashed that great military genius with a rattan until Scipio began to cry, whereupon Barnes dropped him and began to paddle Caius Gracchus. Then things settled down in the old way, and next morning Barnes announced that history in the future would be studied as it always had been; and he wrote a note to the _Educational Monthly_ to say that in his opinion the man who suggested the new system ought to be led out and shot. The boys do not now take as much interest in Roman history as they did on that day.

The young tragedian who represented Scipio Africa.n.u.s is named Smith.

His family came to the village to live only a few weeks before the school opened. Scipio is a very enterprising and ingenious lad.