"Seven hundred million years, my friend."
The farmer sank into his chair with a great sigh of relief.
"Thank Goad!" he gasped, "Aw thocht ye said seven million."
They say that when a man dies after a long life he looks back and mourns the things that he's left undone. I suppose that some teachers look back over a year's work and regret their sins of omission. I do not.
I know that I have had many lazy days this session; I know that there were exercises that I failed to correct, subjects that I failed to teach. I regret none of these things, for they do not count.
Rachel Smith is leaving the district, and to-day Mary Wilson shook her hand. "Weel, by bye, Rachel, ye'll have to gang to anither schule, and ye'll maybe have to work there," she said.
"Eh?" I cried, "do you mean to say, Mary Wilson, that Rachel hadn't to work in this school?"
"No very much," said Mary, "ma father says that we just play ourselves at this school."
Mary's father is right; I have converted a hard-working school into a playground. And I rejoice. These bairns have had a year of happiness and liberty. They have done what they liked; they have sung their songs while they were working at graphs, they have eaten their sweets while they read their books. They have hung on to my arms as we rambled along in search of artistic corners. It was only yesterday that Jim Jackson marched up the road to meet me at dinner-time with his gun team and gun, a log of wood mounted on a pair of perambulator wheels. As I approached I heard his command: "Men, lay the gun!" and when I was twenty yards off he shouted "Fire!"
"Please, sir," he cried, "you're killed now, but we'll take you prisoner instead." And the team lined up in two columns and escorted me back to the school to the strains of Alexander's Ragtime Band played on the mouth-organ.