“God” had been nothing but an oath to them before; “Christ” was a little more familiar; but I resolved to stick to the Old Testament. The girls were interested in Judith, and understood her, too, but I was obliged to suppress the profanity that was hurled at Delilah when I told the story of Samson.
That these tales produced a definite result was proved in the case of little Sammy Sullivan. After recess, on a certain Thursday, everyone came in but Sammy. When I asked where he was they all giggled, so I went outside to find him, carefully locking the door behind me in order to keep my scholars from departing in a body. I had not gone far when a something made me realize that Sammy was not out there. There was no brush, and fifty feet away I saw a slight motion among the trees. Stalking him from the back, I heard weird sounds, and there, stuck up against a yellow-pine tree, was a small boy’s cap, and standing off from it, with a sling, was the boy himself, taking careful aim at this imaginary adversary. Sammy was fighting over the battle of David and Goliath and fighting it like a male, but the flood of oaths that came rippling from his rosy lips would have shamed Satan himself.
Learning is acquired in various ways—at times, better outside the schoolhouse than within. I tiptoed away, never letting him know that I had seen him, for I felt that Sammy was getting his education.
A new school was to be opened with a grand celebration lasting from 7 P.M. until 7 A.M. Everyone for twenty miles around would be there, the men with rum and pistols in their pockets, and the women in their gowns of latest New York style. The stage driver’s wife invited me, her husband having to be on duty and so could not take her. She seemed very old to me—over thirty, at least—and I was inclined to be flattered at the invitation—until I discovered the reason for it. Her baby of eight months had been brought to the party, and I was supposed to take care of it. At the height of the merriment this frivolous woman, instead of devoting herself to me, as I had expected, thrust her crying child into my arms and went off to dance with all the beaus of the place. I was a “tenderfoot” and “schoolmarm,” and now had become “nurse.” I did not like it. I sat in the dressing room, a sorry figure, for every time I put my charge down he began to let out unearthly yells. Something had to be done, I cared not what. Gathering together a heap of women’s shawls and putting them in the bottom of a box, I laid the child upon them and, looking about for something to give him to play with, I saw a flask of whisky on a table. It might kill him, but I was past caring. I poured a little down his throat and rushed out of that room.
A few hours later, daring at last to peep into my improvised nursery, I saw my charge sleeping as peacefully as an angel.
The business of being a teacher embraced more than drilling the children in their A-B-C’s. I was supposed to be the arbiter of morals, family counselor, and was in at the births and deaths. In one or another of these capacities I was kept very busy by the Sullivan family. These children—there were six in the school—were the offspring of perhaps the poorest stock America has produced, the parents being part of the flotsam and jetsam which the swirling eddies of the mining times caught up in their mad rush and left high and dry with the lowering of the tide.
“Doc” Sullivan, so called because his uncle was an apothecary in Yreka, had a brother in the state asylum for the insane at Stockton, and he himself had spent some time in that institution. His wife, who was the washerwoman of the town, was addicted to drink.
The day before Christmas Mrs. Sullivan had stopped at the shop of Mrs. Barlow, where I boarded, and asked for whisky. She was refused—in fact, she was never able to get liquor unless some traveling salesman “hit” the town and took her on a spree. Seeing a case of Jamaica ginger on the shelf, she asked what it was, was given a bottle to taste, drank it all at one gulp, and immediately bought the dozen.
In the middle of the night I was awakened by a frightened voice calling outside my window. Snow had fallen and about five feet of it was lying on the ground in that calm, big-sided way it has in California.
“Mr. Simmons! Oh, Boston! Oh, Schoolmarm! Oh, come!” was repeated over and over, and dancing first on one foot and then the other, in her nervousness, was Sally Sullivan, a girl of sixteen.