Elbow-Room: A Novel Without a Plot

by Charles Heber Clark

  CHAPTER V.

  _SOME EDUCATIONAL FACTS_.

  The public-school system of the village was reorganized during arecent summer; and in consequence of a considerable enlargement ofthe single school-building and the great increase of the number ofscholars, it was determined to engage an additional woman-teacher inthe girls' department. Accordingly, the board of directors advertisedfor a suitable person, instructing applicants to call upon JudgeTwiddler, the chairman. A day or two later, Mrs. Twiddler advertisedin a city paper for a cook, and upon the same afternoon an Irish girlcame to the house to obtain the place in the kitchen. The judge wassitting upon the front porch at the time reading a newspaper; andwhen the girl entered the gate of the yard, he mistook her for aschool-mistress, and he said to her,

  "Did you come about that place?"

  "Yes, sor," she answered.

  "Oh, very well, then; take a seat and I'll run over a few things inorder to ascertain what your qualifications are. Bound Africa."

  "If you please, sor, I don't know what you mean."

  "I say, bound Africa."

  "Bou--bou--Begorra, I don't know what ye're referrin' to."

  "Very strange," said the judge. "Can you tell me if 'amphibious' is anadverb or a preposition? What is an adverb?"

  "Indade, and ye bother me intirely. I never had anything to do widsuch things at my last place."

  "Then it must have been a curious sort of an institution," said thejudge. "Probably you can tell me how to conjugate the verb 'to be,'and just mention, also, what you know about Herodotus."

  "Ah, yer Honor's jokin' wid me. Be done wid yer fun, now."

  "Did you ever hear of Herodotus?"

  "Never once in the whole coorse of my life. Do you make it with eggs?"

  "This is the most extraordinary woman I ever encountered," murmuredthe judge. "How she ever associated Herodotus with the idea of eggs issimply incomprehensible. Well, can you name the hemisphere in whichChina and Japan are situated?"

  "Don't bother me wid yer fun, now. I can wash the china and the pansas well as anybody, and that's enough, now, isn't it?"

  "Dumb! awful dumb! Don't know the country from the crockery. I'll tryher once more. Name the limits of the Tropic of Capricorn, and tell mewhere Asia Minor is located."

  "I have a brother that's one, sor; that's all I know about it."

  "One? One what?"

  "Didn't ye ask me afther the miners, sor? My brother Teddy works wid'em."

  "And this," said the judge, "is the kind of person to whom we areasked to entrust the education of youth. Woman, what _do_ you know?What kind of a school have you been teaching?"

  "None, sor. What should I teach school for?"

  "Totally without experience, as I supposed," said the judge.

  "Mrs. Ferguson had a governess teach the children when I was cookin'for her."

  "Cooking! Ain't you a school-teacher? What do you mean by proposing tostop cooking in order to teach school? Why, it's preposterous."

  "Begorra, I came here to get the cook's place, sor, and that's all ofit."

  "Oh, by George! I see now. You ain't a candidate for the grammarschool, after all. You want to see Mrs. Twiddler. Maria, come downhere a minute. There's a thick-headed immigrant here wants to cook foryou."

  And the judge picked up his paper and resumed the editorial on "TheImpending Crisis."

  They obtained a good teacher, however, and the course of affairs inthe girls' department was smooth enough; but just after the opening ofthe fall session there was some trouble in the boys' department.

  Mr. Barnes, the master, read in the _Educational Monthly_ that boyscould be taught history better than in any other way by letting eachboy in the class represent some historical character, and relate theacts of that character as if he had done them himself. This struckBarnes as a mighty good idea, and he resolved to put it in practice.The school had then progressed so far in its study of the history ofRome as the Punic wars, and Mr. Barnes immediately divided the boysinto two parties, one Romans and the other Carthaginians, and certainof the boys were named after the leaders upon both sides. All the boysthought it was a fine thing, and Barnes noticed that they were soanxious to get to the history lesson that they could hardly say theirother lessons properly.

  When the time came, Barnes ranged the Romans upon one side of the roomand the Carthaginians on the other. The recitation was very spirited,each party telling about its deeds with extraordinary unction. After awhile Barnes asked a Roman to describe the battle of Cannae. Whereuponthe Romans hurled their copies of Wayland's Moral Science at theenemy. Then the Carthaginians made a battering-ram out of a bench andjammed it among the Romans, who retaliated with a volley of books,slates and chewed paper-balls. Barnes concluded that the battle ofCannae had been sufficiently illustrated, and he tried to stop it;but the warriors considered it too good a thing to let drop, andaccordingly the Carthaginians dashed over to the Romans with anotherbattering-ram and thumped a couple of them savagely.

  Then the Romans turned in, and the fight became general. ACarthaginian would grasp a Roman by the hair and hustle him aroundover the desk in a manner that was simply frightful, and a Roman wouldgive a fiendish whoop and knock a Carthaginian over the head withGreenleaf's Arithmetic. Hannibal got the head of Scipio Africanusunder his arm, and Scipio, in his efforts to break away, stumbled,and the two generals fell and had a rough-and-tumble fight under theblackboard. Caius Gracchus prodded Hamilcar with a ruler, and thelatter in his struggles to get loose fell against the stove andknocked down about thirty feet of stove-pipe. Thereupon the Romansmade a grand rally, and in five minutes they chased the entireCarthaginian army out of the school-room, and Barnes along with it;and then they locked the door and began to hunt up the apples andlunch in the desks of the enemy.

  THE BATTLE OF CANNAE.]

  After consuming the supplies they went to the windows and madedisagreeable remarks to the Carthaginians, who were standing in theyard, and dared old Barnes to bring the foe once more into battlearray. Then Barnes went for a policeman; and when he knocked at thedoor, it was opened, and all the Romans were found busy studying theirlessons. When Barnes came in with the defeated troops he went forScipio Africanus; and pulling him out of his seat by the ear, hethrashed that great military genius with a rattan until Scipio beganto cry, whereupon Barnes dropped him and began to paddle CaiusGracchus. Then things settled down in the old way, and next morningBarnes announced that history in the future would be studied as italways had been; and he wrote a note to the _Educational Monthly_ tosay that in his opinion the man who suggested the new system oughtto be led out and shot. The boys do not now take as much interest inRoman history as they did on that day.

  * * * * *

  The young tragedian who represented Scipio Africanus is named Smith.His family came to the village to live only a few weeks before theschool opened. Scipio is a very enterprising and ingenious lad.Colonel Coffin's boy leaned over the fence one day and gave to me hisimpressions of Scipio, a lad about fourteen years old:

  "Yes, me and him are right well acquainted now; he knows more'n I do,and he's had more experience. Bill says his father used to be a robber(Smith, by the way, is a deacon in the Presbyterian church, and a veryexcellent lawyer), and that he has ten million dollars in gold buriedin his cellar, along with a whole lot of human bones--people he'skilled. And he says his father is a conjurer, and that he makes allthe earthquakes that happen anywheres in the world. The old man'llcome home at night, after there's been an earthquake, all covered withperspiration and so tired he kin hardly stand. Bill says it's suchhard work.

  "And Bill tole me that once when a man came around there trying tosell lightning-rods his father got mad and et him--et him right up;and he takes bites out of everybody he comes acrost.

  "That's what Bill tells me. That's all I know about it. And he tole methat once he used to have a dog--one of these little kind of dogs--andhe was flying his kite, and just for fun he tied the kite-
stringonto his dog's tail. And then the wind struck her and his dog wenta-scuddin' down the street with his hind legs in the air for about amile, when the kite all of a sudden begun to go up, and in abouta minute the dog was fifteen miles high and commanding a view ofCalifornia and Egypt, I think Bill said. He came down, anyhow, I know,in Brazil, and Bill said he swum home all the way in the AtlanticOcean; and when he landed, his legs were all nibbled off by sharks.

  "I wish father'd buy me a dog, so's I could send him up that way. ButI never have any luck. Bill said that where they used to live he wentout on the roof one day to fly his kite, and he sat on top of thechimbly to give her plenty of room, and while he was sitting therethinking about nothing, the old man put a keg of powder down belowin the fire-place to clean the soot out of the chimbly. And when hetouched her off, Bill was blowed over agin the Baptist church steeple,and he landed on the weather-cock with his pants torn, and theycouldn't git him down for three days, so he hung there, going roundand round with the wind, and he lived by eating the crows that cameand sat on him, because they thought he was made of sheet-iron and putup there on purpose.

  "He's had more fun than enough. He was telling me the other day abouta sausage-stuffer his brother invented. It was a kinder machine thatworked with a treadle; and Bill said the way they did in the fall wasto fix it on the hog's back, and connect the treadle with a string,and then the hog'd work the treadle and keep on running it up and downuntil the machine cut the hog all up fine and shoved the meat into theskins. Bill said his brother called it 'Every Hog His Own Stuffer,'and it worked splendid. But I do' know. 'Pears to me 'sif therecouldn't be no machine like that. But anyway, Bill said so.

  "And he told me about an uncle of his out in Australia who was et by abig oyster once; and when, he got inside, he stayed there until he'det the oyster. Then he split the shell open and took half a one for aboat, and he sailed along until he met a sea-serpent, and he killed itand drawed off its skin, and when he got home he sold it to an enginecompany for a hose, for forty thousand dollars, to put out fires with.Bill said that was actually so, because he could show me a man whoused to belong to the engine company. I wish father'd let me go outto find a sea-serpent like that; but he don't let me have a chance todistinguish myself.

  "Bill was saying only yesterday that the Indians caught him once anddrove eleven railroad spikes through his stomach and cut off hisscalp, and it never hurt him a bit. He said he got away by thedaughter of the chief sneaking him out of the wigwam and lending him ahorse. Bill says she was in love with him; and when I asked him to letme see the holes where they drove in the spikes, he said he daresn'ttake off his clothes or he'd bleed to death. He said his own fatherdidn't know it, because Bill was afraid it might worry the old man.

  "And Bill tole me they wasn't going to get him to go to Sunday-school.He says his father has a brass idol that he keeps in the garret, andBill says he's made up his mind to be a pagan, and to begin to gonaked, and carry a tomahawk and a bow and arrow, as soon as the warmweather comes. And to prove it to me, he says his father has this townall underlaid with nitro-glycerine, and as soon as he gets ready he'sgoing to blow the old thing out, and bust her up, let her rip, anddemolish her. He said so down at the dam, and tole me not to tellanybody, but I thought they'd be no harm in mentioning it to you.

  "And now I believe I must be going. I hear Bill a-whistling. Maybehe's got something else to tell me."

  The Smith boy will be profitable to the youth of the community.

  * * * * *

  Barnes, the pedagogue, is a worthy man who has seen trouble. Preciselywhat was the nature of the afflictions which had filled his face withfurrows and given him the air of one who has been overburdened withsorrows was not revealed until Mr. Keyser told the story one eveningat the grocery-store. Whether his narrative is strictly true or notis uncertain. There is a bare possibility that Mr. Keyser may haveexaggerated grossly a very simple fact.

  "Nobody ever knew how it got in there," said Mr. Keyser, clasping hishands over his knee and spitting into the stove. "Some thought Barnesmust've swallowed a tadpole while drinking out of a spring and itsubsequently grew inside him, while others allowed that maybe he'daccidentally eaten frogs' eggs some time and they'd hatched out.But anyway, he had that frog down there inside of him settled andpermanent and perfectly satisfied with being in out of the rain. Itused to worry Barnes more'n a little, and he tried various things togit rid of it. The doctors they give him sickening stuff, and over andover agin emptied him; and then they'd hold him by the heels and shakehim over a basin, and they'd bait a hook with a fly and fish down histhroat hour after hour, but that frog was too intelligent. He nevereven gave them a nibble; and when they'd try to fetch him with anemetic, he'd dig his claws into Barnes's membranes and hold on untilthe storm was over.

  "Not that Barnes minded the frog merely being in there if he'd only akept quiet. But he was too vociferous--that's what Barnes said to me.A taciturn frog he wouldn't have cared about so much. But how wouldyou like to have one down inside of you there a-whooping every now andthen in the most ridiculous manner? Maybe, for instance, Barnes'd beout taking tea with a friend, and just when everybody else was quietit'd suddenly occur to his frog to tune-up, and the next minute you'dhear something go 'Blo-o-o-ood-a-noun! Blo-oo-oo-ood-a-noun!' two orthree times, apparently under the table. Then the folks would ask ifthere was an aquarium in the house or if the man had a frog-pond inthe cellar, and Barnes'd get as red as fire and jump up and go home.

  "And often when he'd be setting in church, perhaps in the most solemnpart of the sermon, he'd feel something give two or three quick kinderjerks under his vest, and presently that reptile would bawl right outin the meeting 'Bloo-oo-oo-ood-a-noun! Bloo-oo-oo-ood-a-nou-ou-oun!'and keep it up until the sexton would come along and run out two orthree boys for profaning the sanctuary. And at last he'd fix it onpoor old Barnes, and then tell him that if he wanted to practiceventriloquism he'd better wait till after church. And then the frog'dgive six or seven more hollers, so that the minister would stop andlook at Barnes, and Barnes'd get up and skip down the aisle and gohome furious about it.

  "It had a deep voice for an ordinary frog--betwixt a French horn and abark-mill. And Mrs. Barnes told me herself that often, when John'd getcomfortably fixed in bed and just dropping off into a nap, the frog'dthink it was a convenient time for some music; and after hoppingabout a bit, it'd all at once grind out three or four awful'Bloo-oo-ood-a-nouns' and wake Mrs. Barnes and the baby, and startthings up generally all around the house. And--would you believeit?--if that frog felt, maybe, a little frisky, or p'raps had sometune running through its head, it'd keep on that way for hours. Itworried Barnes like thunder.

  "I dunno whether it was that that killed his wife or not; but anyhow,when she died, Barnes wanted to marry agin, and he went for a while tosee Miss Flickers, who lives out yer on the river road, you know. Hecourted her pretty steady for a while, and we all thought there wasgoin' to be a consolidation. But she was telling my wife that oneevening Barnes had just taken hold of her hand and told her heloved her, when all of a sudden something said,'Bloo-oo-oo-ood-a-nou-ou-oun!'

  "'What on earth's that?' asked Miss Flickers, looking sorter scared.

  "'I dunno,' said Barnes; 'it sounds like somebody making a noise inthe cellar.' Lied, of course, for he knew mighty well what it was.

  MR. BARNES PROPOSES]

  "''Pears to me 'sif it was under the sofa,' says she.

  "'Maybe it wasn't anything, after all,' says Barnes, when just thenthe frog, he feels like running up the scales again, and he yells out,'Bloo-oo-ood-a-nou-ou-ou-oun!'

  "'Upon my word,' says Miss Flickers, 'I believe you've got a frog inyour pocket, Mr. Barnes; now, haven't you?'

  "Then he gets down on his knees and owns up to the truth, and swearshe'll do his best to git rid of the frog, and all the time he istalking the frog is singing exercises and scales and oratorios insideof him, and worse than ever, too, because Barnes drank a
good deal ofice-water that day, and it made the frog hoarse--ketched cold, youknow.

  "But Miss Flickers, she refused him. Said she might've loved him, onlyshe couldn't marry any man that had continual music in his interior.

  "So Barnes, he was the most disgusted man you ever saw. Perfectly sickabout it. And one day he was lying on the bed gaping, and that frogunexpectedly made up its mind to come up to ask Barnes to eat morecarefully, maybe, and it jumped out on the counterpane. After lookingabout a bit it came up and tried three or four times to hop back,but he kept his mouth shut, and killed the frog with the back of ahair-brush. Ever since then he runs his drinking-water through astrainer, and he hates frogs worse than you and me hate pison. Now,that's the honest truth about Barnes; you ask him if it ain't."

  Then Keyser bought some tobacco and went home.