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Reveries of a Schoolmaster by Francis B. Pearson
page 71 of 149 (47%)
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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