Wichita eagle., 1888-09-11

WUaL mas COule-dkl, tilab AoS o'SS4 ehiO ecV
misfortune of our Aisace: always putting Of
her education until tomorrow. Now these
men have the right TO say to us: How IS
this. You pretend TO be French, and you
can neither speak nor write your language!
You are not the Ilost TO blame, my poor
Frzntz. We all have much to Feproach our
selves for.
"Your fathers and mothers haven't given
enough attention to your education They
like better to send you TO work in the fields
or to help the spinners, because It brings IN q
few sous more. And I, have l no fault to
find with mysclfs How often have sent
you to water my garden instead OF making
you study: And when l wanted to so trout
fishing, how impatient have been to get rid
OF you allI'
Then, running on from one thing to another,
n Hamel began to talk to US about our Ian
g1nge, saving it was the most beautiful IN
all tho world, the clearest and tie strongest;
end that we must guard it among us and
never forget it, for when people fell into
slavery, 80 long as they held fast to their
language it was as If they Kept the key to
their prison. Then he took up grammar
and read US our lesson. l was astonished to
see how we'll 1 understood it. Ali that he
said seemed so easy to me. think, also, that
had never listened SO attentively before, and
perhaps, too. that he had never before had
SO much patience in explaining 10 Us. Ono
would have said that before going away
from US the poor man wanted TO give Us ell
his knowledge, to force it into our heads at a
single stroke.
When the lesson was finished we had our
writing next. For this last day n. Hamel
had made new copies for Us, on which were
written in a clear, round hand: "Frauce.
Alsace, France, Alsace', They looked like
so many little futtering flags hanging from
the rail at the front Of each desk. You
should have seen how We applied ourselves;
and what a silence there wos! One heerd
only the scratching of the pens on the paper.
Once some beetles few in at the window, but
no one paid any attention to them, not even
the little ones, who were tracing their up
strokes and down strokes as energetically and
a. sconscientiously as If there were something
French In that, too On the roof Of the
school house the pigeons were cooing softly,
and said to myself while | listened: And
tho pigeons, boo; will they have TO sing in
German"
From time to time, when raised my eyes
to the top of the page, could see NJ. Hamel
sitting motionless in his chair, fixing his eyes
on the things around him, as if he wanted to
carry away in his mind the whole of his
little school Just think of it, For forty
years he had sat there in the same place,
looking into his little court yard through the
window in front of him, and with his class
always the same. Only the desks and benches
had become worn and polished by usage; the
walnut trees in the court yard had grown
bigger, and the hop vine that he had planted
with his own hands now encircled the win
dows and climbed up to the roof. How it
must have made his heart ache to think Of
leaving all these things; to hear his sister
going and coming in the chamber above
while she fastened their boxes; for they were
going the next day-going away from their
country forever!
But for all that he had the courage to
teach us to the end After our writing came
our history lesson; then the little ones
chanted their "Ba-be-bi-bo-bu" There at
the back of the room old Hauser had put on
his spectacles, and, holding his primer in
both hands, was spelling out the letters with
them You could SEQ how earnest he was;
his voice trembled with emotion, and 1t was
so droll to hear him that we could hardly
keep from laughing and crying, too. All!
shall always remember that last day.
All at once the clock In the church tower
sounded for noon, then cbimed the AN
gelus." At the same moment the trumpets
of the Prussians, who were returning from,
their drill, rang out under our windows. NJ
Ha,nel raised himself from his chair; he was
very pale. He had never looked SO tall to
me rs he did then.
'My friends" he said, tiny friends,
III
But something choked him He couldn't
finish what he was going to say.
He turned TO the blackboard, took up a
piece of chalk, and bearing on it with all his
strength, he wrote as Large as he could:
''Vive la Franoef'
Then he stood there leaning his head
against the wall, and, without speaking,
made gesture with his hand:
''It is all-go!"-Translated from the
French of Daudet for The Evening Sun.