FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67  
68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   >>   >|  
The table was tolerably well-filled, with one or two blooming damsels, and for the rest, sun-browned country boys. "Good morning," said the gentleman of the house, heartily. "Kalkilate you was pretty well played out, yesterday. Don't look as if you'd stand much hard work. You're a school teacher, I take it? Yes, I thought so. I can generally guess at a body's business the first time trying. I ain't one of the educated sort myself, but I've picked up a few ideas knocking around the world. I've got some girls now, I'd like to have learn something, but then they don't seem to take to it. I spose that kind o' hankerin' after books comes natural to some folks, and to others it don't. Me nor none of my family never seemed to set much store by that sort of thing. It's a good thing to be gifted, though. There's neighbor Green's boy, Bill, he can 'late anything after he's heerd it once, and when there's any doins' of any kind comin' off, they send him so he can tell the rest, after he gets home, all what happened. But, as I said before, it's more'n any of the rest of us can do. "And, to tell the truth, we don't need to be as wise as Solomon, here in these parts, to be as good as the best. When a man gets what you may call a little forehanded, he's bound to have his say about matters and things, whether he understands them or not. I rather guess, too, Miss," he added, good-naturedly, "if you stay long enough round here, you'll git to teachin' one scholar. There ain't many old maids around here, but there's any quantity of nice, industrious young men what want wives, and ain't a goin' far for to find them, eh, girls?" There was a good deal of tittering at this last remark, and the aforementioned youths blushed to the tips of their ears. "What singular people I have got among," thought Clemence, who could not refrain from laughing at their oddity. "What a strange fate has thrown me among them?" She was destined to learn a good deal more of their singularities, during her prolonged sojourn at the little village. A country school teacher, having to "board round," has a good chance to study human nature. Before she had been long at her new occupation, she found that she was expected to be, literally, "as wise as a serpent, and as harmless as a dove." There was no subject--religion or politics not excepted--which she was not expected thoroughly to understand and expound; she was evidently considered, from her position, as
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67  
68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

country

 

teacher

 

expected

 
school
 
thought
 

politics

 

religion

 

scholar

 
teachin
 

subject


quantity
 

excepted

 

industrious

 

understand

 

things

 

position

 

understands

 

considered

 
matters
 

forehanded


evidently

 

expound

 

naturedly

 

tittering

 

chance

 

nature

 

strange

 

laughing

 

Before

 

oddity


thrown

 

sojourn

 
village
 

prolonged

 

destined

 

singularities

 

refrain

 
aforementioned
 
youths
 

blushed


remark

 
harmless
 

serpent

 

occupation

 
Clemence
 
literally
 

singular

 

people

 

educated

 

picked