Reveries of a Schoolmaster by Francis B. Pearson
page 71 of 149 (47%)
page 71 of 149 (47%)
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ones next winter. Who knows? As I loosen the soil about the vines I
can look down the vista of the months, and see some little one in his high chair smiling through his tears as mother prepares one of my beautiful potatoes for him, and I think I can detect some moisture in mother's eyes, too. It is just possible that her tears are the consecrated incense upon the altar of thanksgiving. I like to see such pictures as I ply my hoe, for they give me respite from weariness, and give fresh ardor to my hoeing. If each one of my potatoes shall only assuage the hunger of some little one, and cause the mother's eyes to distil tears of joy, I shall be in the border-land of happiness, to say the least. I had fully intended to exercise my inalienable rights and lie in the shade for two hours to-day, but when I caught a glimpse of that little chap in the high chair, and heard his pitiful plea for potatoes, I made for the potato-patch post-haste, as if I were responding to a hurry call. I suppose there is no more heart-breaking sound in nature than the crying of a hungry child. I have been whistling all the afternoon along with my hoeing, and now that I think of it, I must be whistling because my potatoes are going to make that baby laugh. Well, if they do, then I shall elevate the hoeing of potatoes to the rank of a privilege. Oh, I've read my "Tom Sawyer," and know about his enterprise in getting the fence whitewashed by making the task seem a privilege. But Tom was indulging in fiction, and hoeing potatoes is no fiction. Still those whitewash artists had something of the feeling that I experience right now, only there was no baby in their picture as there is in mine, and so I have the baby as an additional privilege. I wish I knew how to make all the school tasks rank as privileges to my boys and girls. If I could only do that, |
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