The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1875-05-24
THE FARM-YARD CLUB OF JOTHAM
By DR.. George B, Lofing,

TENTH MEETING-SUBJECT: FERTILIZERS.
When Charles ingalls, left Jonathan at
the close of his school, he promised the
committee that If he found it necessary to
teach at all during the next season it should
be in their service. The promise was not
forgotten. The impression he left upon
the community was so substantially good
that time only made it better and when
begin again, Mr.. Howe was instructed to
write at once to the schoolmaster, as he
was now called, and remind him that the
educational Monday would soon come
round, and he would be expected to renew
his labors in the old red school-house. To
this the shoolmaster did not object. The
compensation was small, it was true, and
he might do better elsewhere. But else
where was not Jotham--the town whore
he first tried his wings, the village with
Farmers club, the home of Mr.. Hopkins,
the birthplace Of Clara Bell. He looked
forward to another winter there with
feeling of pleasure so keen that toll and
compensation seemed to be entirely second
airy. He returned, therefore, to his labor
at the appointed time not to the same la
Dor and the same town and the same schol-
ars which he saw for the first time, the
year before; but to a well known and ia
miliar scene, to whose service he was now
fitted by experience, and to whose locality
atoms. He brought with him also ma
turer mind for his days IN college had
been devoted to the most dilligent study,
in which his powers had been quickened
by vague sense Of the mark he might
make in life And when he entered that
primitive school-room to begin again his
labors there, he felt as if he were only
returning home, stronger and wiser than
ever before, with firmer ties and broader
understanding and enlarged capacity. The
room had not changed the stove and the
brick floor and the desk and Gallee and the
mature young men and women and the lit
tie children we've all there, just as they
were on that first anxious and trembling
morning. AS he entered he gave the chill
dren general recognition, and proceeded
at once TO his desk and began his laboIs by
calling for the customary reading of a chap
ter in the Bible. Verse after verse was
read by the pupils, and it seemed to him
that the work in which he was engaged
had only been suspended the day before.
The voices were all familiar, and all came
to the order TO which he had become ac-
custOmed. And without exploring minute
ly the well-flled benches--without exactly
daring to run his eye along to see if all the old
familiar faces were present-he waited for
one voice, and waited in vain, until the
last stubling and hesitating and vociferous
reader had finished his verse and he
learned that the voice of Cara Bell was
not among them. To say that he was dis
appointed would be to give utterance to
what he would not say himself. And yet
he felt that the zeal with which he had
travelled over the long road in rough wealth
er to johann, the readiness with which he
had accepted another call to teach in that
gloomy old school-house, the enthusiasm
with which he persuaded himself that he
was actuated by high sense of his duty to
mankind were all suddenly cooled before
the realization that, after all, he was not
eager to return TO his labor, but to her. 1t
was amazing how his courage was dashed
what a feeling of disgust seized upon him
what a sense came over him that he had
sold himself and with what an indifferent
hiuuuCI nc pIOuScutu W lay OUT lot lue
scholars the work of the term. But then
he remembered that he was in lothian
and that in the ordinary routine of life,
either at the singing school or at church, or
at her fathers house, in the regular order
of boarding round, he should ere long meet
Clara and he went to work with his usual
determination, but with less of that elastic
zeal that he had anticipated, before he dis
covered what wretched place Eden must
have been before Eve was born, and what
a commonplace affair the world becomes
when there is no one in 1t to love.
The schoolmaster had not, however, for
gotten IN the midst of all his devotion to
the school-house and its associations the
frequent meetings OF the club at the cheer
full home of Mr.. Hopkins and when he
was notified that he would be expected to
take part in the deliberations of the COM
ing season, as almost a public duty, he did
not hesitate to declare that duty like that
belonged to the list of the most agreeable
pleasures of the town. And he rather
hoped he might have an opportunity to APP
ply his rhetorical powers to some other in
teresting question before the club, as he
did so acceptaby to the subject of cattle.
When the club met, therefore, he was
present. DIR. Parker was not
The meeting was called TO order, as usu-
al, by Mr.. Hopkins, who took special
pains to congratulate the members and