Good old mole! “Well said, old mole! can’st work i’ the ground so fast?” Let us try the next class. It is engaged on the lion, and an elderly dame has got to thirdly and lastly. Etiquette requires that the lesson should conclude with some remarks on the use of the lion.
“What is the use of the lion? The use of the lion is to ’unt. What is the use of the lion, children?”
Chorus: “To ’UNT, teacher.”
I find she means “to be hunted”: and, when the children are gone out to play, I put it to her whether she really thinks that beneficent Providence has created the lion on purpose that man should hunt him. She is a little staggered by this presentment of her own doctrine, but pleads that it is so stated in her book, and produces it. There it is in black and white! I have little doubt that a similar belief is held by fox-hunters and other sportsmen. “Crewel,” said an old keeper, when reproached for badger-baiting, “why, whativer do yo think as badgers was made for?”
In ten minutes the children return from the playground, and I am implored not to forget the babies: they are going to have an object-lesson, and the pupil-teacher is waiting for me. It is Mary Williams, whose pretty face and pretty ways make her the idol of the babies, and even draw a smile from my grimmest Sub. I yield to pressure. The babies are hot and dusty, and riotous, and have to be relieved with a song, just to blow off steam. What is next on the agenda paper? The cow? Let us have the cow. The whole class sees the picture of the cow brought down from the wall, but nevertheless we must approach the subject as tradition dictates:
P.T.: As I was coming to school this morning along High Street I heard a great noise, and there was a man in a blue frock, driving a great big animal down the road. What do you think it was, babies?
Chorus: A kyow, teacher.
(H.M.I. to head mistress, sotto voce: “If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.” Head-mistress, uncertainly: “Ye-es.”)
P.T.: Yes, a cow, and here’s a picture of a cow. (The class regard it with blank indifference born of familiarity.) Now the cow is a very useful animal:——
Billy Jones (Amicus curiæ): I seen a kyow this mornin’ as I was comin’, an’ it was a bull: and it run at a mon an’ ’orned ’im nearly, only ’ee got away—”(pauses for want of breath).