The Mountain School-Teacher

by Melville Davisson Post

There were, however, now on this table, before the School-teacher, some objects that had not been there. There was a little worn, broken toy that had once been a wooden horse; there was a top whittled out of a spool with a hickory pin through it. There was a Barlow knife with an iron handle, the blade broken at the point; there was a brass ring tied to a cotton rib-hon; and there were little bunches of wild flowers, the stems of which were primly wrapped with black thread. These were laid out on the table beyond the cheese and the loaf. And before he sat down to eat, the School-teacher touched them.

When he had finished his supper, the

School-teacher went over to the fireplace and sat down in the armchair. He sat beside the hearth where he could see the doer. He remained for a long time without moving, except now and then he looked toward the door, and when there came to him any sound from the night outside, he listened.

The night advanced. He remained in in the chair before the fire. The log continued to burn among the ashes in the fireplace. But it no longer flamed. It burned with a deep crimson glow that flooded the hair, the face, the hands of the School-teacher. The glow thus reflected seemed to take on a deeper crimson.

It became like the crimson of blood.

The School-teacher hardly ever moved except to raise his head to listen, but he was not asleep; there was no sleep in him. The glow of the smoldering log, changing on his face, gave it an expression of agony.

The night continued to advance; the hours passed. The vagrant sounds of the world outside ceased. The profound silence of midnight arrived and passed. The temperature changed.

But the School-teacher did not go to bed.

He sat in the fantastic glow of the fire, with its agony on him. Now and then, when the playing of the light seemed to convulse his features—seemed to distort them with a deeper agony, he turned his face toward the table standing along the wall, near the door, and his eyes rested on the broken toy horse, the top, the Barlow knife, the ring and little hunches of flowers; and turned thus out of the glow of the fire, his features no longer presented the aspect of agony. Moreover, when his head was turned like that, the glow of the fire, that had been thus distorting his face, passed by him and streamed over the objects on the table, bringing them into vivid contrast with every other object in the room.

The body of the night passed.