With the handleless tub as an elbow-rest the teacher took counsel with herself. Strategy must be employed with the intellectual conquest of the Brobdingnags. Summoning all the pedagogical dignity of which she was capable, she asked:
“Boys, don’t you want to know how to read?”
“Noap,” responded the head of the class.
“Don’t you want to know how to write?”
“Noap.”
“But, my dear boy, what would you do if you left here and went out into the world, where every one knows these things and your ignorance would be evident at every turn. What would you do?”
“Slug the whole blamed outfit!”
Mary looked at her watch. School had lasted just forty-five minutes. Had time become petrified?
XIV.
Judith Adjusts The Situation
Mary had been a member of the Yellett household for something over a week, and the intellectual conquest of her Brobdingnag pupils seemed as hopeless as on that first day. School seemed to be regarded by them as a sort of neutral territory, admirably adapted for the settlement of long-standing grudges, the pleasant exchange of practical jokes, peace and war conferences; also as a mart of trade, where fire-arms, knives, bear and elk teeth might be swapped with a greater expenditure of time and conversation than under the maternal eye. “Teacher,” as she was understood and accepted by the house of Yellett, undoubtedly filled a long-felt want. Presiding over a school of six-imp power for a week, however, had humbled Mary to the point of seriously considering a letter to the home government, meekly asking for return transportation. But this was before feminine wile had struggled with feminine vanity, and feminine wile won the day. School still continued to open at six, from which early and unusual hour it continued, without recess or interruption, till noon, when dinner pleasantly invaded the scholastic monotony, to the infinite relief of all parties concerned.