Poganuc People: Their Loves and Lives

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

It may be imagined that this exordium caused a sensation in the family circle.

Mrs. Higgins opened her meek blue eyes upon her husband with a surprised expression; the two boys sat with their game suspended and their mouths open, and the goose-poke and "Rollin's History" were alike abandoned in the pause of astonishment.

"Tomorrow's Saturday," said Zeph; "and Saturday afternoon there won't be no school, and I'll jest take the boys, both yoke of oxen and the sleds, and go up and move that air school'us' down to the place where't orter be. I'll wedge it up and settle it good and firm, and that'll be the end on't. Tain't no sort o' use to talk. I'm jest a-goin' to do it."

Zeph looked as if he meant it, and his family had ceased to think anything impossible that he took in hand to do. If he had announced his intention of blowing up the neighboring crag of Bluff Head, and building a castle out of the fragments, they would have expected to see it done.

So Zeph took the family Bible, and, in a high-pitched and determined voice, read the account of Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza, repeated his evening prayer, ordered all hands to bed, raked up the fire, had all snug and quiet, and stepped into bed just as the last stroke of the nine o'clock bell was resounding.

At four o'clock the next afternoon, as Hiel Jones was coming in on his high seat on the Poganuc stage, whistling cheerily, a sudden new sensation struck him. Passing over North Poganuc hill, he bethought him of the schoolhouse question, and lifted up his eyes, and lo! no schoolhouse was there. For a moment Hiel felt giddy. What was the matter with his head? He rubbed his eyes, and looked on all the other familiar objects; there was the old pine tree, there the great rock, but the schoolhouse was gone. The place where it had stood was disturbed by tramping of many feet, and a broad, smooth trail led down the hill.

"Wal, somebody hez gone and ben and done it," said Hiel, as he whipped up his horses to carry the news.

Farther on, in a convenient spot at the junction of three roads, under the shelter of a hill, stood the schoolhouse—serene as if it had grown there; while Zeph Higgins and his son Abner were just coming forward on the road toward Hiel, Zeph triumphantly whipping his oxen and shouting the word of command in an elevated voice.

Hiel drew to one side, and gave a long whistle. "Je-ru-salem," he exclaimed, "ef you hain't ben and done it!"

Zeph lifted his head with an air of as much satisfaction as his hard features could assume, and, nodding his head in the direction of the schoolhouse, said: