CHAPTER V.
On the day after his visit to the Bjornson family, Herr Badger, feeling very dull, sat alone in the cottage by the School-house.
Every one of his pupils had deserted him; for not only had the two little Bears run away, but all their companions had also played truant; and the whole of that part of the forest was filled with parents anxiously searching for their missing children—like a gigantic game of hide-and-seek.
Herr Badger called to his housekeeper to bring him the black-board, a couple of globes, and the book of conic-sections, and for some hours he amused himself happily; but at the end of that time he began to experience an almost irresistible desire to teach something.
"If I can't get anyone else, I'll call Brita," he said to himself. "I can just ask her a few easy questions suited to her limited intellect."
The housekeeper came in, curtsying respectfully, and seated herself at the table, as she was bidden.
"I must imagine I have given up school, and taken to private pupils," the Badger said to himself. "I hope she won't exasperate me, and make me lose my temper! Now take this slate," he continued aloud, "and try and do one of these simple sums. You'll soon get used to them—
"If five onions were to be boiled in six saucepans, how would you divide the onions so that there would be exactly the same quantity in each pan?"
"Chop them up," replied the housekeeper promptly.
The Badger glared. "You're not attending. I said, 'How would you divide them!'"
"You might mince them very fine, or pound them in a mortar," replied the housekeeper anxiously. "I don't know of no other way of doing it."
"Work it out on the slate, creature!—on the slate!" cried Herr Badger, thumping the table with his long ruler.
"I'd rather do it on a dish, sir," said the housekeeper, trembling. "It's more what I'm accustomed to."
Herr Badger started up in a fury. "You call yourself a private pupil?" he shouted (quite forgetting that the housekeeper had never called herself anything of the kind). "Go back to the kitchen immediately."
"I could bring you the Mole who blacks the boots, if he'd be any good," said the housekeeper humbly. "I know I'm very ignorant, but the Mole tells me he's been attending day school for years, and he reads recipes out of the cookery-book quite beautiful."
"Don't speak to me of Moles!" said the Badger crossly. "I shall take no more private pupils—they're not worth it." And he walked over to the black-board, and began to draw diagrams.
"What's the good of diagrams, without a class to explain them to?" he muttered. "I declare I believe I was too hard on those children. We can't be all equally gifted. It wouldn't be a bad idea if I went out as one of the search parties. I declare I will!" he continued, his face brightening, "and I'll make every creature I find promise to come back to school again. I must make up a class somehow, or I shall die of monotony."
He took down his old felt hat with the ear-flaps, and putting some food in a knapsack, and choosing a stout walking-stick, he flung a green cloak over his shoulders, and let himself out into the forest.