FRÄULEIN’S GYMNASTICS.
“Fräulein, can you have prayers for the young ladies in the small reception-room on Christmas morning?” Miss Ashton asked with much hesitation the day before leaving.
“Ja! Ja!” answered the Fräulein, all smiles and nods.
“Very well, then, I will give the notice to-night. As Christmas is a religious festival, I shall be glad to have a religious as well as a festival observation of it. As for the matter of going to church, the young-ladies can do as they please; there need be nothing compulsory about it.”
“I mistand,” and the Fräulein congratulated herself on her correct English. “All wrong; nein! nein, all.”
“Right,” said Miss Ashton, laughing.
“Oui, Ja! Der Dank! Tanks. I learn Anglais soon. Patientia, Fräulein Ashton. I learn soon, by un by.”
In compliance with this request, after a hasty Christmas breakfast, the girls assembled in the reception-room, and waited with more curiosity than devotion the coming of the Fräulein. 192
She had not been down to breakfast, and when she made her appearance now, it was as if an odd-shaped swan was waddling into the room. From head to foot she was dressed in a fluffy white stuff, that stood out all over her like snow-feathers.
A stifled laugh greeted her, but of this she took no notice; walking slowly to the table that had been prepared for her, she turned a solemn face toward the girls, opened a German prayer-book, and began to read the service for Christmas morning, stopping when she came to the places for the chant, and, motioning to her audience to rise and join her, she sang in sweet tones music familiar to the girls, in which, with the English words they were accustomed to, they all joined.
Then down she fell upon her knees, the others following her example, and with her eyes half shut, and her little hands folded reverently upon her prayer-book, she rattled off prayer after prayer with astonishing rapidity.
Now, though the young ladies had come in anything but a solemn frame of mind, which the Fräulein’s droll appearance was not calculated to change, there was something so devotional, almost solemn, in her rapidly changing expression of face, that they became at once and unconsciously devout. Dropping on their knees, and covering their faces, they joined her “Amens” with hushed voices, and into their susceptible hearts the hallowing influence of the religious festival found ready entrance. 193
They were hardly prepared to see the Fräulein spring lightly upon her feet, to hear a merry laugh ring out, and “Good-morgen! good-morgen!” spoken with the accompaniment of a cloud of white batting, that flew off from her arms and shoulders as she laughed.
Queer little Fräulein! but good and kind as she was queer!
All day long she worked indefatigably alone in the big parlor. Not one of the girls was allowed even so much as a peep within the doors.
The day was a rarely fine one for a New England Christmas. The sun shone out of a cloudless sky; a warm south wind blew gently over the deep snow-drifts; little sparrows hopped delightedly upon the branches of the Norway spruces that grew close to the house, lifted their pretty wings as if to coax the wind and sun, while they chirped their cheerful Christmas carols, stole the late berries from the trees, and twisted their round heads so they could send loving glances up to the bevy of pretty girls that watched and smiled down upon them, as they fed them from their windows.
At seven o’clock the gong was sounded, and the young ladies in gala dresses filed into the bright parlor.
In the centre of the room was a large tree. Near it stood the Fräulein, smiling and courtesying to each one as she entered. A quaint little figure she was; yet, with all her quaintness, there was enough of 194 dignity to suppress any merriment her appearance might have caused.
The number and variety of these gifts was a marvel to them. When they were fairly distributed, the Fräulein lifted the cover of an unopened box, and took from it a gift for every teacher.
Good, happy Fräulein! Not a thoughtful word or a kind act from these to you strangers in a strange land, but you have treasured in your homesick heart, and from the Vater Land you bring to them all to-day your grateful recognition of it all!
Perhaps the happiest of them was the lame Nellie, who, yet weak and pale from her sickness, had with the Fräulein’s consent brought to the Christmas-tree little pictures which she had painted in her convalescence, as gifts to them all. She held tight to Marion’s hand. In some way, she could not have told you how, she seemed to herself to have owed to this dear friend the ability to have painted them. It was a little cross she gave Marion, but she had hung on it a wreath of lovely rosebuds, meaning, through them, to convey to Marion how her love had made the cross of her suffering beautiful.
As the vacation had commenced on the twenty-third of December, and school did not begin again until the fifth of January, there was quite a time remaining after the excitement of Christmas had passed.
The more scholarly and industrious of the girls remaining at the academy at once applied themselves to making up whatever deficiencies had occurred in their studies. 195
Marion found plenty to do, not only for herself, but also for Nellie, whose lessons had necessarily run behind during her illness.
The Fräulein found them together over their books much oftener than she thought was for their good. Having been thoroughly educated in the German methods of teaching, she was a firm believer in vacation benefits, also in muscular training, which she considered quite as essential for girls as for boys. In her imperfect English, and also by personal illustration, she had tried, ever since her connection with this school, to awaken the teachers, Miss Ashton in particular, to a greater sense of its importance. To be sure, there was a gymnasium in the building, and a regular teacher, who faithfully put her pupils through the exercises commonly allowed to girls. But these seemed to the Fräulein to be only a beginning of what might be done; so, now, finding herself for a time in sole authority in the school, she at once, as soon as Christmas was over, began to put her girls through what she considered so essential to their health.
She made her first attempt upon Marion and Nellie. Finding them both bent nearly double over their books, Nellie very pale, with dark rings under her eyes, and Marion with flushed cheeks and too bright eyes, she at once routed them from their books, made them stand up before her, and said,—
“Now, do”—and her English word failing her, she drew a long breath from the bottom of her chest, and motioned to them to imitate her. 196
Marion, never having attempted anything of the kind before, did so partially, and Nellie could only produce something that sounded like a gurgle in her small throat.
The Fräulein shook her head impatiently, and repeated the process over and over again, Marion gaining a little every time, but Nellie soon discouraged and tired.
“Bard! bard! nicht right—aushauchen tief—so, thus:” (deep breaths from the Fräulein). Then, seeming suddenly to remember that the girls did not know why she made the request, she tried in an anglicized German, which no one could by any possibility have understood, to explain it to them. She tapped her own head, took up a book, appeared to read it, while she moved the leaves in time with her long inhalations and exhalations.
“Bon scholars! long—so!” Then suddenly she said, “Patientia!” and vanished from the room. In a few minutes the corridor was full of noisy girls, who came direct to Marion’s room, and in obedience to the Fräulein’s directions arranged themselves in a circle.
They had only the vaguest idea what they had been called for, but they knew the Fräulein always gave them “a jolly good time,” and came willingly. Merry enough they were for the next hour, and much to the Fräulein’s surprise, for they were quicker than German girls, they made so much progress that, after the second lesson, a plan that was 197 to tell much in future for the well-being of the academy was fully developed.
The Fräulein drew up a paper in German, in which she detailed not only the benefits physically resulting from her system of deep breathing, but also the help it would be in resting the excited nerves with which so many of the young girls came into the recitation-room. Then, before presenting it to Miss Ashton, she roused the enthusiasm of her class by telling them how much she needed their help, as examples of the great good to be derived from her gymnastics. And the result was that they had not only the amusement of the exercises to help them pass the vacation, but also the benefit resulting from it, and the hope that through them it would become a part of the school-life.
When Miss Ashton returned, she was not a little surprised at the gain she so quickly recognized, nor was she slow in availing herself of its aid.
She had always felt that nothing was more necessary for a good working head than a perfect physical balance, and for that reason she allowed and encouraged a greater amount of amusement, which was relaxation from study, than was common in what is called a finishing school. It was almost the only boast in which she indulged, that, during the twenty years of her care of the academy as principal, she had never had a case of fatal sickness, or, indeed, of any severe enough to excite alarm.
During the fall she obliged the girls, as long as 198 the weather would allow, to spend hours every day in the open air, giving them their choice of exercise,—walking, riding, boating, botanizing, geologizing, any and every thing that would bring to them rest and change. In winter there was dancing in the large hall, there were compulsory gymnastics, there were skating on the pond, coasting on the hills back of the academy, or, not so seldom as it might have been supposed would be the case among girls, snowballing in the most approved boy-fashion.
Indeed, once upon a time it was reported that, having come out, as she generally made a point of doing whenever any amusement was going on, to witness the sport, a girl more audacious than any of the others ventured to throw a snow-ball in the direction of her august person, and it was received with such a merry laugh, that another followed, and another, and another, until she was as ermine-covered as if she were dressed for a court reception; and not a girl among the laughing crowd but loved her better and respected her more.
“My best recitations,” she was often heard to say, “come after the best frolics. Give me pupils with steady nerves, bright eyes, and sweet, clear voices, and I will show you a school where they study well, and the deportment is of the best.
“I am never so anxious about my girls as when the weather shuts them in-doors, and the cold makes them want to hug the radiators.”
It was on account of the good common-sense by 199 which this method of regulation was carried on, that the school was sought far and near; to this, in a great measure, it owed its success.
The gymnastic teacher already employed was a good one for the old methods; but there was something so inspiring in the Fräulein’s enthusiasm on the theory of long breaths, that Miss Ashton made it at once a part of daily practice, and put her in as teacher for those classes.
Watching the result of the experiment, it took Miss Ashton but a short time to satisfy herself as to its immediate benefits; and as for the girls themselves, they were so amused and strengthened by the lessons that, after a little practice, it became a favorite diversion, and you would find them often in merry groups, inhaling and exhaling, perhaps not in exact accordance with the Fräulein’s rules, but gaining at least in proportion to their enjoyment. As for the Fräulein, a very happy and proud teacher she boastfully declared herself.