s had been
out before the schoolhouse, and it was the sudden cessation of their
clamor that had drawn Bonaventure's attention. Some of them were still
visible, silently slipping through the gaps in the _pieux_ and
disappearing within. Bonaventure across the distance marked him beckon
persuasively to one of them. The lad stopped, came forward, and gave
his hand; and thereupon a second, a third, fourth, fifth, tenth,
without waiting for invitation, emerged again and advanced to the same
grave and silent ceremony. Two or three men who stood near did the
same. The handshaking was just ending when Bonaventure and the
stranger raised their hats to each other.

"Trust I don't intrude?"

"Sir, we are honored, not intruded, as you shall witness. Will you
give yourself the pain to enter the school-place? I say not
schoolhouse; 'tis, as its humble teacher, not fitly so nominated. But
you shall therein find a school which, the more taken by surprise, not
the less prepared."

"The State ought to build you a good schoolhouse," said the stranger,
with a slight frown that seemed official.

"Ah! sir," cried the young schoolmaster, beaming gratitude from his
whole surface, "I--I"--he smote his breast,--"I would reimburst her in
good citizen' and mother' of good citizen'! And both reading, writing,
and also ciphering,--arithmeticulating, in the English tongue, and
grammatically! But enter and investigate."

A hush fell upon the school and the audience beyond it as the two men
came in. Every scholar was in place--the little ones with bare,
dangling feet, their shapely sun-tanned ankles just peeping from
pantaloons and pantalettes of equal length; the older lads beyond
them; and off at the left the larger girls, and Sidonie. The visitor,
as his eye fell last upon her, silently and all to himself drew a long
whistle of admiration. The master stood and eyed him with unspoken but
confessed pride. A little maiden of six slipped from the bench to the
earth floor, came forward, gave her hand, and noiselessly returned.
One by one, with eyes dropped, the remaining sixteen girls followed.
It seemed for a moment as if the contagion might break out in the
audience, but the symptom passed.

There was just room on the teacher's little platform for Bonaventure
to seat his visitor a little at one side and stand behind his desk.
The fateful moment had come. The master stood nervously drawn up, bell
in hand. With a quick, short motion he gave it one