“Dey meck out,” said ’Mian, and shut his firm jaws.
“My friends,” said the stranger once more, “some people think education’s a big thing, and some think it ain’t. Well, sometimes it is and sometimes it ain’t. Now, here’s this man”—he pointed down to where Bonaventure’s dishevelled crown was drooping to his knees—“claims to have taught over thirty of your children to read. Well, what of it? A man can know how to read, and be just as no account as he was before. He brags that he’s taught them to talk English. Well, what does that prove? A man might speak English and starve to death. He claims, I am told, to have taught some of them to write. But I know a man in the penitentiary that can write; he wrote too much.”
Bonaventure had lifted his head and was sitting with his eyes upon the speaker in close attention. At this last word he said:
“Ah! sir! too true, too true ah yo’ words; nevertheless, their cooelty! ’Tis not what is print’ in the books, but what you learn through the books!”
“Yes; and so you hadn’t never ought to have made the bargain you made; but, my friends, a bargain’s a bargain, and the teacher’s”—He paused invitingly, and an answer came from the audience. It was Catou who rose and said:
“Naw, sah. Naw; he don’t got to go!” But again ’Mian thundered:
“Taise toi, Catou. Shot op!”
“I say,” continued the stranger, “the mistake’s been made. Three mistakes have been made!”
“Yass!” roared Chat-oué, leaping to his feet and turning upon the assemblage a face fierce with triumph. Suspense and suspicions were past now; he was to see his desire on his enemy. But instantly a dozen men were on their feet—St. Pierre, Catou, Bonaventure himself, with a countenance full of pleading deprecation, and even Claude, flushed with anger.