Tell Me Another Story Part 17

Although Franz was late, the school-master looked at him without the least anger, and spoke softly as he said, "Go quickly to your place, my little Franz. We have already begun without you."

Franz seated himself at his desk. Only then, his fear gone, he noticed that the master had on his best green frock coat, his finely plaited shirt and the black silk cap that he never wore except on a day when there were prizes given out in school. All the children were extraordinarily quiet. But what surprised Franz the most was to see at the back of the room, seated on the benches which were ordinarily empty, the people of the village. There was an old soldier with his tri-colored flag, the old mayor of the town, the postman, and many others. Everyone seemed sad. And the old soldier had a spelling book, ragged on the edges, that he held open on his knees, as he followed the pages through his great spectacles.

As little Franz watched all this, astonished, the school-master rose from his chair, and in the same grave, soft voice in which he had spoken to the boy, he said,

"My children, this is the last time that I shall teach your cla.s.s. The order has come from Berlin that no language but German shall be taught in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine. Your new master arrives to-morrow. To-day, you will have your last lesson in French. I pray that you will be very attentive."

Franz's last lesson in French! And he could not write it without mistakes! He remembered all the time that he had wasted, the lessons he had missed in hunting for birds' nests, or skating on the river. He thought of his books that would remind him always now, of his laziness--his grammar, his history, a present from his friend, the school-master, from whom he must part now with so much pain. In the midst of these thoughts, Franz heard his name called. It was his turn to recite.

He would have given a great deal to be able to recite the famous order of the participles, without a mistake, to give them clearly, and without a fault. But he confused them at the first word, and remained standing beside his desk, his heart trembling, not daring to raise his head. He heard the school-master speaking to him,

"I am not going to rebuke you, little Franz. You are already punished.

Every day you have said to yourself, 'Bah, I have plenty of time; to-morrow I will study.'"

"Ah, that has been the great fault in our Alsace, that of always putting off learning until another day. In the meantime, all the world has been quite right in saying of us, 'How is it that you pretend to be French, and yet are not able to read and write your own language!'

Of all who are here, my poor little Franz, you are not the only one at fault. We all must reproach ourselves."

Then the school-master told them of his longing to still teach the children the French language. He said that it would always be the most beautiful language of the world. He said that he wanted it treasured in Alsace and never forgotten, because, when a people fall into slavery it is almost like holding the key to their prison if they can speak to each other in the same tongue. Afterward he took a grammar and went over the lesson with the children. All that he read seemed suddenly quite easy to Franz; he had never attended so well, and never before had he understood how patient the school-master was in his explanations.

When the lesson was finished, writing was begun. For this last day, the master had prepared fresh copies.

_France, Alsace. France, Alsace_.

The copies were like little flags, floating all over the schoolroom from the tops of the desks. Nothing broke the great silence but the scratching of the pens upon the paper. Suddenly some May bugs flew in through the window, but no one noticed them. On the roof of the school some pigeons began to coo, and Franz thought to himself, "Will it be commanded that the birds, too, speak to us in a foreign language?"

From time to time, as Franz lifted his eyes from his paper, he saw the school-master sitting quietly in his chair, and looking all about him, as if he wanted to remember always every child and every bit of furniture in his little schoolroom. Only think, for forty years, he had been there in his place, with the playground facing him, and his cla.s.s always as full! Only the benches and the desks which had once been polished were worn from usage now; the walnut trees in the yard had grown very large, and the hop vine that he, himself, had planted twined now above the window and as far as the roof. It was breaking the heart of the school-master to leave all these things.

But he had the courage to carry on the cla.s.s to the very end. After the writing lesson, he began the lesson in history. Afterward, the little ones sang their A. B. C.'s all together and at the end of the room the old soldier took off his spectacles and, holding his spelling book in his two hands, he read off the letters with them.

Suddenly the clock in the tower of the village church sounded the hour of noon. Instantly, the trumpet call of the Prussians, returning from their drilling, burst through the windows. The school-master rose, quite pale, in his place. Never had he seemed so great to the children.

"My friends," he said, "my little friends, I--"

But he could say no more; he was not able to speak the words. He turned to the blackboard and, taking a piece of chalk, he wrote upon it,

"_Vive la France!_"

Afterward, he remained there, his head resting against the wall, and, without speaking, he made a sign with his hand.

"It is finished. You are dismissed."

TIMOTHY'S SHOES

The G.o.dmother arrived for the christening, dressed in plum-colored satin and carrying a small brown parcel.

"Fortunatus' purse!" whispered one of the guests, nudging his neighbor.

"A mere trifle for the boy," said the fairy G.o.dmother, laying the parcel down on the table. "It is a very common gift to come from my hands, but I trust it will prove useful."

She untied the string of the parcel and gave the baby's mother--what do you think?

A small pair of strong leather shoes, copper-tipped and heeled!

"They'll never wear out, my dear," she said. "And, after all, my little gift is not quite so shabby as it looks. These shoes, have another quality besides that of not wearing out. The little feet that are in them cannot very easily go wrong."

"Mrs. G.o.dmother's broomstick is at the door," shouted some one. So the fairy G.o.dmother took her departure.

As years went by and her family increased, the mother learned the full value of the fairy shoes. Her nine boys wore them in turn, but they never wore them out. So long as these shoes were on their feet, they were pretty sure to go where they were sent and to come back when they were wanted. So, at last, the fairy shoes descended to the ninth and youngest boy, and became Timothy's.

Now the eighth boy had very small feet and had worn the shoes rather longer than the others, and Timothy got them somewhat later than usual. Even though she was very conscientious, Timothy's mother found it hard not to spoil the youngest in the family. Master Timothy was wilful, and his feet became used to taking their own way before he stepped into the fairy shoes. He played truant from school, and was late for dinner so often that at length his mother decided that something must be done about Timothy. One morning the leather of the fairy shoes was brightly blacked and the copper tips polished, and Timothy wore them for the first time.

"Now, Timothy, dear, I know you will be a good boy," his mother said.

"And mind you don't loiter or play truant, for if you do, these shoes will pinch you horribly, and you'll be sure to be found out."

Timothy looked as if he didn't believe it. He was off like an arrow from a bow, and he gave not one more thought to what his mother had said.

The winter had been very cold, the spring had been fitful and stormy, but May had suddenly burst upon the country with one broad, bright smile of sunshine and flowers. If Timothy had loitered on the way to school when the frost nipped his nose, and the ground was muddy, and the March winds crept up his jacket sleeves, it was hard to hurry now when every nook had a flower and every bush a bird.

It was wrong to play truant, but still it was very tempting.

_Twir-r-r-r_, up to the sky flew the larks. Down in the marsh below the king-cups blossomed, as shining as gold.

Once or twice Timothy stopped, but his shoes pinched him and he ran on all the more willingly because a bright b.u.t.terfly went before him. But where the path ran on above the marsh, and he looked down and saw the king-cups, he dismissed all thoughts of school. The bank was long and steep, but that did not matter to him. King-cups he must have; no other flowers would do. He threw his school bag on the gra.s.s, and began to scramble down the bank.

Timothy turned his feet toward the king-cups, but his shoes seemed resolved to go to school. As he persisted in going toward the marsh, he had such twitches and twinges as the fairy shoes pinched him that it seemed as if his feet would be wrenched off. But Timothy was a resolute little fellow, and he managed to drag himself, shoes and all, down to the marsh.

Then he could not find a king-cup within reach. Not one grew on the safe edge, but, like so many Will-o'-the-wisps, they shone out of the depths of the treacherous bogs. Timothy wandered round the marsh; _pinch, jerk_, every step hurt more than the one before. At last, desperate with pain and disappointment, he fairly jumped into a patch of the flowers that looked fairly near, and was at once ankle deep in water. But, to Timothy's delight, the wet mud soaked the shoes off his feet, and he was able to wade about among the rushes, reeds, and king-cups, happy.

And he was none the worse, although he ought to have been. He moved about very cautiously, feeling his way with a stick from tussock to tussock of reedy gra.s.s, wondering why his eight brothers had never thought of taking off the fairy shoes when they grew troublesome.

At last, though, Timothy began to feel tired. He hurt his foot on a sharp stump. A fat green frog jumped up in his face and so startled him that he nearly fell backwards in the water. He had gathered more king-cups than he could hold. So he scrambled out of the marsh, climbed up the bank, cleaned himself as well as he could, and thought he would go on to school.

Now, with all his faults, Timothy was not a coward or a liar. With a quaking heart he made up his mind to tell the teacher that he had played truant. He was trying to make up his mind just exactly what he would say first and had got no farther than, "Please, ma'am--" when he found himself in the schoolroom, and under the teacher's very eye.

Timothy did not see her frown; he did not hear the children's t.i.tters.

His eyes were fixed upon the schoolroom floor, where--beside Timothy's desk--stood the fairy shoes, very muddy, and with a yellow king-cup sticking up out of each.

"You've been in the marsh, Timothy," said his teacher. "Put on your shoes."

So Timothy put them on, and when his lessons were over, he let his shoes take him straight home.

FALL

THE THREE APPLES