THE STORY OF AN UXDERMASTER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 3248, 4 July 1872, Page 3

THE STORY OF AN UXDERMASTER

[By MIL Ekckmajw Chatkian*.] ( Translated for the Otayo Dally Tivvx from Of. llttue <hut Deux Mmute.H. ) Chaitur vii. We were then in the month of May, 1818, a very hot and forward year ; the snow had begun to melt in March, and none remained for a long time past. From my little window, through the sprays of ivy, I saw everything becoming green on the slopes of the mountain. The broom, with its golden flowers, and the rosecoloured heaths, spread themselves as far as the foot of the rocks, where the bilberry, the bramble, and the honeysuckle clambered in profusion. Erich morning I awoke at cock-crow, before the day, and pushing open my little casement, I admirad the great woods bathed in the azure of the valley, and listened to the blackbirds, thrushes, goldfinches, and warblers singing in the distance in the flowering cherry trees, in the largo white apple trees, under the spreading oaks, and in the dark foliage of tho pines. They built their nests and rejoiced. Never had I felt more happy. This freshness of the morning which precedes the day gave me feelings of enthusiasm, and, were it not for fear of disturbing mure Hulot, who then recited her beads, It would have chanted the Tc JJeum lambimna !

Unfortunately my school diminished from day to day, my pupils went off one after the other : one minded the goats, another helped his father with wood cutting, another took his parents' donkey into Alsace to sell sabots, to tin saucepans, and to mend kettles. The hamlet of Les Roches furnished tinkers and sabot makers for the whole plain and to all the mountain. I had to remain before my empty benches, with five or six pupils, the sons of the principal people, who yawned and only waited for the time to run off to the fields. Sister Elc-onore, at this season, returned to her convent. She had been very careful not to tell me this. I could not do like her, and found mysolf at the charge of a small number of households. Among the last of the pupils who remained to me were Jacques and Philippe Hutin, the sons of the old forest guard Jdrome, who, with the municipal councillor, Nicolas Ferre, represented the superior authority at Les Roches. This old guard, a small spare man, square built, with a thin hooked nose, his moustache becoming grey, and black and piercing eyes, had altogether a look of decision. He was a native of Itiremont, in the Vosges, and each time that I went to dine or sup with him, he took pleasure in recounting to me his campaigns in Italy, Switzerland, Holland, and along the Rhine. He spoke clearly and without boosting, as is not always the cane with old soldiers. As for the inside of his house, the last in the hamlet of Les Roches, you could not have seen one cleaner and better kept in its poverty. The linen was always white, the floor well washed and swept, the crockery well scoured, the furniture bright, and the small windows transparent. It was the eldest daughter of pere Jerome, Mile. Toiuette, who looked after everything, the mother having been dead several years. This young girl of sixteen or seventeen years at most, whom the people of Les Roches called " the curly one," managed the house of her father better than a woman of thirty. She had a pretty, fresh, smiling face, beautiful blonde hair, and large clear gray eyes. She was a little being, full of courage, intelligence, and viviicity, coming, going, and tripping, like a lark, laying the tables, doing the cooking, attending to her little brothers and sisters, laughing with them, embracing them, and correcting them if necessary. One recognised in her the old French blood of the mountain, pure and bright as spring water. To do much with little, to manage when there is almost nothing, to prepare a good meal with some eggs, a few herbs, and a little salt, to find means to be always as clean and as well dressed with a linen petticoat and cotton cap, as others with silk dresses ; and then to be gay, to answer ] everything briskly, wittily, and even' with a.little malice, is what one does not. often meet with, and which a young man notises in spite of himself. I had seen these things, and sometimes thought over them, but then my ideaß did not go further than saying to myself, "This old forest-guard is very fortunate m having such a daughter." Each time that it was the turn of Jerome Hutin to entertain ni", I felt satisfied. The guard received me in a linen Mouse and large'sabots, always taking care to take off his shoes and gaiters in coming in from his rounds. If the dinner was served, we sat down at once ; if the contrary, we went to take a turn in the garden. Pere JdrOme grafted his trees. He bad better fruit than his neighbours, and in greater abundance ; he explained to me the mode of obtaining it, and dwelt with satisfaction on the improvements he had effected in culture at Les Roches, on the manuring, irrigation, destruction of caterpillars, and the liming of fruit trees —for at that time he placed lime round the old trunks to prevent the insects from lodging in them and getting up them; he stopped up carefully any wounds, to prevent them from spreading and gaining the heart of the tree. He had seen all these things practised elsewhere during his campaigns, whilst thousands of others paid no attention to them. The progress I had effected in his two boys gave him consideration and even friendship for me, so that seeing myself deserted by my pupils, it was to him I complained. He heard me gravely, and replied one day: you are right, monsieur Renaud, the greatest calamity of thia country is. taking the children

from school, to send them to mind goats, climb trees, take nests, and to commit every kind of offence which accustoms them no longer to respect authority. It is in this way that they become beggars, vagabonds, poachers, and fit for nothing ; but what will you have ? This has existed for years and years. Unless the parents are compelled by fines to leave their children at school, in summer as well as in winter, until they are twelve or thirteen years old, it will always continue. This is the business of the prefects, the superiors, and of the king, who trouble themselves but little about it. As for me, I hold to my boys being instructed ; they shall go to you as long aa possible. I have seen too much how terrible ignorance is, not to wish that they should know how to read, write, and calculate ; if I had had more education, in place of being simply a forest-guard, I should have been commandant, and, perhaps, a colonel, for I never was wanting in bravery and intelligence. Now, I am even embarrassed to write a simple report correctly, and this is why 1 shall remain all ray life simply a forest-guard, j notwithstanding my experience in judging of timber, and my knowledge of forests... What a misfortune !

The honest fellow understood very well that his three boys, with four or five others, were not sufficient to give mo a living six months of the year, and ended by saying to me that, in walking in all directions, as was his custom, about a league and a quarter beyond Les Roches, going down towards the Sarre-Rouge, were three largo farms of Anabaptists; that these people had a good many children to whom the oldest, who was the grandfather, taught the Bible and the Gospels, by preaching to them every Sunday ; that he had seen this several times ; that these Anabaptists had a great esteem for learning, and that the old man, whose name was Jacob, often regretted not being able to teach his children and grand children surveying, the drawing up of private deeds, bookkeeping, arithmetic, and many other things, of which not a single word is mentioned in the sacred writings, and which are, however, very necessary to know, in order to manage a farm properly. Ho added that this old Jacob had even enquired of him what sister Eleonorc taught, that he might send his grandchildren to the school of Les Roches ; but learning that it was only a question of catechism and hymns in the class of the dear sister, it had made him give up his design.

" [f you wish," he said to me, " I will go to see him, or wo will even go together, and I am sure that thia man of good sense will be satisfied to entrust to you the instruction of these children, as far as regards figures, writing, and surveying. They are people who are comfortably off, and will pay you well. What do you think of it V

I was very happy to learn this—very desirous also of profiting by it, and it was at once agreed that we should go to see the Anabaptists the next day, Thursday, to come to an understanding with them. The following day, therefore, early in the morning, the old forest guard and I were on our way through the pine woods, to go down to the farm of pere Jacob. The whole country was covered with white vapour, in the midst of which rose, like spikes of corn, the numberless tops of the pines. Wo could not see one another at four paces distance. Je'rume Hutin's dogs, even, followed jthe path behind us, because of the dew which filled the brushwood.

A few minutes after five o'clock, when the nun came out from thia sea, and all the leaves and. the grass began to glitter, I could not restrain an exclamation of delight. Wo had made a halt for a second. The guard, while lighting his pipe, laughed low, after the manner of old sportsmen, and Haid : —"This, monsieur Joan-Baptisto, ifl a walk that young people should take every day during the line season, but laziness keeps them in bed, they cloprive themselves thus of a great pleasure. See this glorious sun how it disperses the fog, one might say that it was rolling towards us, see how it advances, how it spreads out. And down there, quite away down, near the Sarre, those great white rays, it is the dew falling. In half an hour, the sun will have dried up everything, and the plain will be as clean as an elegant room where nothing is littered about ; we shall see everything distinctly, the thickets of trees, the rivers, roads, and paths, for four or five leagues. Ah ! yes, monsieur Jean-Baptiste, those are very wrong who turn round between the sheets in place of shaking themselves boldly, and jumping out. If you wish, I will come and wake you on Thursdays, and we will go fishing or bird-catch ing."

I at once accepted, being amazed at, this spectacle. We then resumed our walk, and soon, afterwards the crow of a cock warned me that we were not far from the farina. A glade became visible in the foliage, the edge oi: the forest was near,'and suddenly, in. the middle of a large clear space on a slope, in the elbow of a stream which ran bounding down to the Sarre, we saw the largest, of the farms, that of pero Jacob, with its extensive out-house, in which the trusses of hay hung between the beams ; below it were the stables and cattle-shed ; the large door of the barn to the left, on which was nailed a buzzard ; then the dwell ing- house, with three windows, the flight of stairs and door below, and four windows above ; the water-spout and troughs in the middle of the court, which was surrounded by a wall ; the large square dung heaps, regul riy placed ; in short, a good old Anabaptist farm, without useless grandeur, but where simplicity, cleanliness, and good order made you think that they must live well there, and that the people in it were not destitute.

As we came out from the wood, a large sheep dog, with long black hair, began to bark, and immediately the door of the house opened, and old Jacob himself, in a straw hat, a cassock of gray cloth, and trowsers of the same stuff, with his large white beard spread out on his chest, came out, and looked at us approaching. The guard opened a door of laths, and crossed the court, raising his wip, while the old Anabaptist called out to him, " Good morning," with an air of good humour. I was at pere Jdrome's heels, who said to this old man of eighty :—" I bring yon a man whom you know already, pere Jacob ; the schoolmaster of Les Roches, who succeeded the sister. I have spoken to him of what you said to me some time since: that you woxild not be sorry to have your grandchildren instructed in surveying and other branches of arithmetic."

The old man looked at me with his grey eyes, to the depths of ray soul, his lips closed, and his cheeks wrinkled; and then he said, opening the door : —" Gome in messieurs, come in ! This is certainly a thing which interests me lam not sorry to know this young man." Hs promised nothing, nor answered yes or no ;he was a prudent man. We then entered, and I saw for the first time the large hall of an Anabaptist farm, with its two rows of benches, its large table— well scoured —the rows of pots on shelves

near the stove for curdling the milk, and the old clock in a corner. The dog had come in, and pere Jacob opened the door again, and made him go out while wo seated ourselves. At this moment we heard other doors open outside, those of the (stables ; the horses and cattle then rushed into the court yard, leaping, gallopping and running to the trough, the boys shouting to drive the cattle. The grandfather, leaning out of one of the windows, called to a woman, then came and seated himself opposite us on the bench, and said, smiling— *' You set out early this morning. These are only our beasts going to the pastures." The woman had come in—a little mother, quite wrinkled, in a woollen jacket, a small pettico it, and black cap, her round mouth pursed up, and her cheeks rusty, like the vino loaves at the end of autumn.

" Hero, Salome," said the old man to her, "here is the schoolmaster of Les Roches. Pt're Jdrome brings him to us ; he speaks of instructing our grandchildren in arithmetic. What do you think of it T

"You must send for Christel and David," said this old grandmother. "You will arrange it together."

And going out immediately, she sent two.boys to find their uncles at tho neighbouring farms. They came at once, gravely, all dressed in the same manner, having a calm expression, and full beards, even quite behind the ears. The rmdfather told them in two words who was, and what 1 came to propose to them, and I immediately recognised by the faces of these honest people that they consented with pleasure. "You see," said the grandfather Jacob, smiling, " that my two eldest, who left eighteen years ago for America, never cease writing tv their brothers and bro-thers-in-law to send the young ones there ; that land of the besl quality sells for nothing ; that they have thousands of acres near the river Wabash, in the State of Illinois—woods, meadows, and liclds, where wheat, grass, and potatoes grow abundantly, but that arms are wanting, and that we could do nothing better than send all of our children to join them. I Only, they recommend us strongly to give them instruction, because in America a man only passes for what ho is worth. We ask nothing better ; is it not so, Christul and David f "Yes," said the two sons, " only we must understand one another about the price." Pore Jerome resumed, and proceeded to discuss this article, saying that as I could not come to dine and sup at the three farms, on account of tho distance, and that in consequence, board remaining at my cost, it should be added to tho charge for the school. Thtise Anabaptists listened, and discussed everything with a serious air. They recognised the sound reasons, and shook their heads when the old forester gave any not so good. Finally we agreed, that I should receive forty sous a month for each pupil whom they should send me, and that 1 should teach them not only surveying and arithmetic, but also book-keeping and the measuring of timber. Pore Jacob ended by brightening up with conversation ; ho placed his old wrinkled hand on my shoulder, saying, " We have known you for some time, momieur Renaud ; wo were already aware of what you were worth from tho time you held the evening school with Pure Guillaumo at CheuoFendu." I thought he was going to speak to me of my misfortune with Mile. Zalie IJauquel, but he Raid nothing—and exclaimed " You are a good schoolmaster. The i one of our religion, who spends every j winter here, knows nothing beyond his four rules ; you are another man; only j before settling the bargain, promise us j something elso. "What is that, monsieur Jacob/" I said to him. "It is, not to attempt to convert our children." I became quite red. " What are you thinking of I" then, I said, almost angry; "it would be an abomination." " Ah ! said he, the reason is, that at one time, now ten or twelve mouths since, the dear sister of Les Roches tried to gain our two eldest little girls, Lcsnel and Christine, now married in America, And later, near Ilalsach, something similar occurred with the daughters of our two sons-in-law ; they gave them little images of the Virgin and medals, and spoke to them of confession." j "Yes, it is the truth," said the two | sons. !

"Oh, well ! as for mo," I said to them, " I am an upright man ; you may bo easy." The old guard laughed, exclaiming— " What an odd idea you have, grandfather Jacob ! You do not know M. Renaud, you tako him for another." " I have your word," said the grandfather to me, gravely, " that in enough." Then, taking tho flask of kirschenwasaer from the cupboard, they filled little goblets, and everything being settled in this way, after having touched glasses and shaken hands, pere Jerome and I left together for Les Roches. On our way it was arranged that the days on which I should dine at the three farms, I was to go and take my meals with tho old guard, paying fifteen sous a day. In this way, I calculated at once, that there would still rem&in to me fifteen francs profit, from nine pupils at forty sous. I h<'ul never been in a better position, even at tho time of my great prosperity at CheneFendu ; I should be able to send at least five francs a month to my poor father ! This idea rejoiced and affected me.