But as they went on with it, and little Franz listened and looked, it seemed to him that the master was trying to put the whole French language into their heads in that one hour. It seemed as if he wanted to teach them all he knew, before he went,—to give them all he had,—in this last lesson.
From the grammar he went on to the writing lesson. And for this, quite new copies had been prepared. They were written on clean, new slips of paper, and they were:—
France: Alsace.
France: Alsace.
All up and down the aisles they hung out from the desks like little banners, waving:—
France: Alsace.
France: Alsace.
And everybody worked with all his might,—not a sound could you hear but the scratching of pens on the "France: Alsace."
Even the little ones bent over their up and down strokes with their tongues stuck out to help them work.
After the writing came the reading lesson, and the little ones sang their ba, be, bi, bo, bu.
Right in the midst of it, Franz heard a curious sound, a big deep voice mingling with the children's voices. He turned round, and there, on the bench in the back of the room, the old blacksmith sat with a big ABC book open on his knees. It was his voice Franz had heard. He was saying the sounds with the little children,—ba, be, bi, bo, bu. His voice sounded so odd, with the little voices,—so very odd,—it made little Franz feel queer. It seemed so funny that he thought he would laugh; then he thought he wouldn't laugh, he felt—he felt very queer.
So it went on with the lessons; they had them all. And then, suddenly, the town clock struck noon. And at the same time they heard the tramp of the Prussians' feet, coming back from drill.