And grammar? The master troubled his head very little about that; and we still less. And arithmetic? Yes, we did a little of this, but not under that learned name. We called it sums. On Saturday evening, to finish up the week, there was a general orgy of sums. The top boys stood up and, in a loud voice, recited the multiplication table up to twelve times. When this recital was over, the whole class, the little ones included, took it up in chorus, creating such an uproar that Chicks and porkers took to flight if they happened to be there.
When all is said, our master was an excellent man who could have kept school very well but for his lack of one thing; and that was time. He managed the property of an absentee landlord. He had under his care an old castle with four towers, which had become so many pigeon-houses; he directed the getting-in of the hay, the walnuts, the apples and the oats. We used to help him during the summer. Lessons at that time were less dull. They were often given on the hay or on the straw; oftener still, lesson-time was spent in cleaning out the dove-cot or stamping on the Snails that had sallied in rainy weather from their fortresses, the tall box borders of the garden belonging to the castle.
Our master was a barber. With his light hand, which was so clever at beautifying our copies with curlicue birds, he shaved the notabilities of the place: the mayor, the parish-priest, the notary. Our master was a bell-ringer. A wedding or a christening interrupted the lessons; he had to ring a peal. A gathering storm gave us a holiday; the great bell must be tolled to ward off the lightning and the hail. Our master was a choir-singer. Our master wound up and regulated the village-clock. This was his proudest duty. Giving a glance at the sun, to tell the time more or less nearly, he would climb to the top of the steeple, open a huge cage of rafters and find himself in a maze of wheels and springs whereof the secret was known to him alone.
With such a school and such a master and such examples, what will become of my natural tastes, as yet so undeveloped? In those surroundings, they seem bound to perish, stifled forever. Yet no, the germ has life; it works in my veins, never to leave them again. It finds food everywhere, down to the cover of my penny alphabet, beautified with a crude picture of a Pigeon which I study much more eagerly than the A B C. Its round eye, with its circlet of dots, seems to smile upon me. Its wing, of which I count the feathers one by one, tells me of flights on high, among the beautiful clouds; it carries me to the beeches raising their smooth trunks above a mossy carpet studded with white mushrooms that look like eggs, dropped by some wandering hen; it takes me to the snow-clad peaks where the birds leave the starry print of their red feet. He is a fine fellow, my Pigeon-friend; he consoles me for the woes hidden behind the cover of my book. Thanks to him, I sit quietly on my bench and wait more or less till school is over.
School out-of-doors has other charms. When the master takes us to kill the Snails in the box borders, I do not always do so. My heel sometimes hesitates before coming down upon the handful which I have gathered. They are so pretty! Just think, there are yellow ones and pink, white ones and brown, all with dark spiral streaks. I fill my pockets with the handsomest, so as to feast my eyes on them at my leisure.
On hay-making days in the master’s field, I strike up an acquaintance with the Frog. Flayed and stuck at the end of a split stick, he serves as bait to tempt the Crayfish to come out of his retreat by the brook-side. On the alder-trees I catch the Hoplia, the splendid Beetle who pales the azure of the heavens. I pick the narcissus and learn to gather, with the tip of my tongue, the tiny drop of honey that lies right at the bottom of the cleft corolla. I also learn that too-long indulgence in this feast brings a headache; but this discomfort in no way impairs my admiration for the glorious white flower, which wears a narrow red collar at the throat of its funnel.
When we go to beat the walnut-trees, the barren grass-plots provide me with Locusts spreading their wings, some into a blue fan, others into a red. And thus the country school, even in the heart of winter, furnished continuous food for my interest in things. My passion for animals and plants made progress of itself.
What did not make progress was my acquaintance with my letters, greatly neglected in favor of the Pigeon. I was still at the same stage, hopelessly behindhand with the alphabet, when my father, by a chance inspiration, brought me home from the town what was to give me a start along the road of reading. It was a large print, price three cents, colored and divided into compartments in which animals of all sorts taught the A B C by means of the first letters of their names. You began with the sacred beast, the Donkey, whose name, Âne, with a big initial, taught me the letter A. The Bœuf, the Ox, stood for B; the Canard, the Duck, told me about C; the Dindon, the Turkey, gave me the letter D. And so on with the rest. A few compartments, it is true, were lacking in clearness. I had no friendly feeling for the Hippopotamus, the Kamichi, or Horned Screamer, and the Zebu, who aimed at making me say H, K, and Z. No matter; father came to my aid in hard cases; and I made such rapid progress that, in a few days, I was able to turn in good earnest the pages of my little Pigeon-book, hitherto so undecipherable. I was initiated; I knew how to spell. My parents marveled. I can explain this unexpected progress to-day. Those speaking pictures, which brought me amongst my friends the beasts, were in harmony with my tastes. I have the animals to thank for teaching me to read. Animals forever!
Luck favored me a second time. As a reward for learning to read, I was given La Fontaine’s Fables, in a popular, cheap edition, crammed with pictures, small, I admit, and very inaccurate, but still delightful. Here were the Crow, the Fox, the Wolf, the Magpie, the Frog, the Rabbit, the Donkey, the Dog, the Cat; all persons of my acquaintance. The glorious book was immensely to my taste, with its skimpy illustrations in which the animals walked and talked. As to understanding what it said, that was another story! Never mind, my lad! Put together syllables that say nothing to you as yet; they will speak to you later and La Fontaine will always remain your friend.