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| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
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of seat or peg, but many a one looked from the empty spaces to the
schoolmaster, and whispered his idle neighbour behind his hand.
Then began the hum of conning over lessons and getting them by
heart, the whispered jest and stealthy game, and all the noise and
drawl of school; and in the midst of the din sat the poor schoolmaster,
the very image of meekness and simplicity, vainly attempting to fix his
mind upon the duties of the day, and to forget his little friend. But the
tedium of his office reminded him more strongly of the willing scholar,
and his thoughts were rambling from his pupils - it was plain.
None knew this better than the idlest boys, who, growing bolder with
impunity, waxed louder and more daring; playing odd-or-even under
the master's eye, eating apples openly and without rebuke, pinching
each other in sport or malice without the least reserve, and cutting
their autographs in the very legs of his desk. The puzzled dunce, who
stood beside it to say his lesson out of book, looked no longer at the
ceiling for forgotten words, but drew closer to the master's elbow and
boldly cast his eye upon the page; the wag of the little troop squinted
and made grimaces (at the smallest boy of course), holding no book
before his face, and his approving audience knew no constraint in
their delight. If the master did chance to rouse himself and seem alive
to what was going on, the noise subsided for a moment and no eyes
met his but wore a studious and a deeply humble look; but the
instant he relapsed again, it broke out afresh, and ten times louder
than before.
Oh! how some of those idle fellows longed to be outside, and how they
looked at the open door and window, as if they half meditated rushing
violently out, plunging into the woods, and being wild boys and
savages from that time forth. What rebellious thoughts of the cool
river, and some shady bathing-place beneath willow trees with
branches dipping in the water, kept tempting and urging that sturdy
boy, who, with his shirt-collar unbuttoned and flung back as far as it
could go, sat fanning his flushed face with a spelling-book, wishing
himself a whale, or a tittlebat, or a fly, or anything but a boy at school
on that hot, broiling day! Heat! ask that other boy, whose seat being
nearest to the door gave him opportunities of gliding out into the
garden and driving his companions to madness by dipping his face
into the bucket of the well and then rolling on the grass - ask him if
there were ever such a day as that, when even the bees were diving
deep down into the cups of flowers and stopping there, as if they had
made up their minds to retire from business and be manufacturers of
honey no more. The day was made for laziness, and lying on one's
back in green places, and staring at the sky till its brightness forced
one to shut one's eyes and go to sleep; and was this a time to be
poring over musty books in a dark room, slighted by the very sun
itself? Monstrous!
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