Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy

by Frank R. Stockton

What a welcome and joyful sound! In the winter, when the days are short, and the sun, near the end of the six school hours, sinks so low that the light in the room grows dim and gray, with what impatience, my dear child, do you wait for this signal! But it is in the long summer days that you find school most tiresome. The air in the room is hot and drowsy, and outside you can see there is a breeze blowing, for the trees are gently tossing their green boughs as if to twit you with having to work out sums in such glorious weather. And there come to your ears the pleasant sounds of the buzzing of insects and twittering of birds, and the brook splashing over the stones. Then the four walls of the school-room look very dreary, and the maps glare at you, and the black-boards frown darkly, and the benches seem very hard, and the ink-bespattered desks appear more grimy than ever.

This was the time when the heart of the Dominie would be touched with pity, and he would say in his bright way: "Now, children, I am going to read you something!"

Instantly the half-closed eyes would open, the drooping heads would be raised, the vacant faces would brighten, and the little cramped legs would be stretched out with a sigh of relief. And then the Dominie would read them something that was not only instructive, but very entertaining. Sometimes, instead of reading to them, he would set them to declaiming or reciting poetry, or they would choose sides and have a spelling match. They would get so interested that they would forget all about the birds and sunshine without. They did not even know that they were learning all this time.

For the Dominie had all sorts of pleasant ways of teaching his scholars. Not but what they had to work hard too, for nobody can accomplish anything worth having without putting a good deal of hard work in it.

You see the Dominie's portrait in the picture. The fringe of hair around his bald head was as white as snow; his black eyes were bright and merry; and he had a kindly face. His name was Morris Harvey, but everybody called him Dominie, and he liked that name best. All the village people respected and loved the old man; and every child in the village school that he taught, from the largest boy, whose legs were so long that he did not know what to do with them, down to Bessie Gay, who could scarcely reach up to the top of a desk, were very fond indeed of him.

But even under the Dominie's kindly rule, "School's out!" was always a welcome sound. What a noise there would be in the school-room for a minute; and then such a grand rush out into the open air! and such merry shouts! The Dominie would look after them with a smile. He wanted them to study, but he was glad that it was natural for them to love to play.

If little Charlie Lane had known this he would not have had such a cry the morning he went to school for the first time. He thought his mother very cruel to make him go, and, I am sorry to say, not only cried before he started, but all the way to the school-house. The Dominie took no notice of this, and Charlie soon found that school was not such a very dreadful place. And there was the nice playtime in the middle of the day. And, when school was out, the Dominie took him on his knee and gave him a big apple, and showed him a book full of bright pictures, and told him a story about every one of them.

You can see the little fellow on the Dominie's lap, looking earnestly at a picture in the book; and the old man is pleased that the child is pleased. The Dominie is sitting in his big chair, and his dinner-bag is hanging on the back of it. On the black-board over his head you see little Charlie's lesson for that day. It is on the right, and consists of the letters A, B, C, which the child has been staring at until he knows them perfectly in any book that is given to him. On the left, is a sum; and somebody has tried to draw an almanac sun on the lower part of the board. Across the top the Dominie has written a copy. You can read it plainly. It was a favorite saying of his; and a very good one too.