The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1900-08-18
scHooLMAsrER OF SUGAR RIVER.
His Life There Was Riddled With
Riddles. So He Gave IL Up.

ploughed through the sand with my wheel
He was clicking his heels together, while
mosquitoes and other insects of the heavy
bottoms circled in the hot morning air.
Sugar river flows through banks and over
Shiny mas ses of mud. IL was a source
/ in Dane county, Wisconsin, and a branch
! in Green county known as the Little Su-
| gar. The dark waters have no roman
/ tic aspect; the bottom lands which the
river once wasted are melancholy. The
schoolmaster looked as dismal the
stream. over which the crows were hide
ousy crying l said to him:
This would be fit place for trag-
edy."
He paid no attention to my remark, but
commented:
You should have taken the Harrison
road If you wished to avoid the sand
| You will have three miles more of sand
TO Shirland" Then a pause, and then abb
ruptly
with what animals do you always go
| to bed?''
l thought Sugar river had affected his
| brain, so declined to answer the ancient
conumdrum He smiled and threw
chip into the murky waters, where cat
fish fatten TO the weight OF twenty-five
! pounds
My school has just ended" he seid
I've been teaching in these parts the
| last term. You don't know children
! thought not, or you would have pushed
me into the river when l asked you that
| many questions. The one / gave you was
one of them. They were to present ME
with an album to-day because l am
| leaving to try to get work in the cit.
ran away from them. l was afraid of
more questions. Could you, sir, retain
your right mind If you were suddenly ask
| ed by imp of six years:
If cheese comes after meat what
comes after cheese?
"Of course, since | see that you are a
city man. you know that a mouse comes
after cheese, but l didn't. | protest ed
! that did not know and could not guess,
but the question haunted me day and
night until l satisfied the class that 1
wanted the answer from it. And then
| their ridiculous laughter As soon as they
| were over laughing a boy who once lived
| in Beloit asked me:
Why is fool like a needle?
| Why" l asked, eager to be over with
| it.
Because he has an eye, but no head
Personal application of that joke was
made to me at once
Il am patient" continued the school,
master, shying a stone at his satchel
which stood by the roadway but such
i'lfotic questions from children l was try
| ing TO educate drove me nearly wild. Life
In the country is not very bright for most
of the people. l have often thought that
| was their own fault, for there is a wealth
OF natural and other history about them
| wholly ignored. The people of the coun-
| try live too near the soil and too far away
from the sky. For instance, sir, why
| should catfish attain the enormous size
that it does in this insignificant stream of
mud? Is Sugar river an offshot of the
once mighty Fox, marvellous stream in
ancient times, or is II decaying branch
OF the once powerful stream that poured
from Lake Michigan westward and south
ward to the Gulf of Mexico? Pardon me-
| though, for giving you conundrums
| when | have just been complaining of
them. You probably know that in and
about 1882 Abraham Lincoln was fire.
quently in the vicinity of this stream and
| crossed IL several times You also are
probably aware that Jefferson Davis once
camped upon its banks, and was wise
enough not TO attempt to battle in it, Gen.
Zachary Taylor made a valiant effort 10
reach us waters at one time, but small
pox held back his troops. Here. sir.
| Black Hawk laughed above the dirty flow
While Stillman fled from him and his
thirty warriors. Yet no one of the COM
munity that has been born by the stream.
| lived, loved and died in sight of it, knows
aught of these facts. Facts, sir. not mis-
| cradle conundrums like, for instance:
Why does sailor know there is a
man in the MOON?
He shook his head and went on. while
L busted myself in taking the dust from
the enamel of my wheel
People III the country wish their chill
| dren educated, but do not know what rho
word education means. In this they re-
semble the ambitious people of the city's
Sums They start the child on its educa-
tional way in this fashion:
The year contains twelve months, OF
these you will have four in the fields. three
at the woodpile and in the barn and five
In school. For vacation you may go to the
circus if it comes and the price of butter
keeps up.
That the child shall learn anything bur
the mere rudiments al school enter into
the head of no one but the teacher-if the
te6cher is ambitious. / have been ambl-
nous. am so no longer. l would rather
be sewing machine agent than teach in
the average country district. There NAV
DC enjoyable districts in the moon or
hamschatka, but not here. ThinK of be-
ing chased through an entire term by The
question: ''-e
w hen is man thinner than a lath ?,
1 automatically avoided getting an an
swer 10 that question until yesterday.
Then asked the Oldest girl under nv
care She pulled at her calico gown
showed her not too attractive teeth, and
answered:
Please, sir, when he's a shaving
Think of such rot permeating the minds
| of children. Not a word about algebra
higher arithmetic. the sciences-onlv
questions. questions, from morning uhtil
night. l wonder l did not throw myself
! into the stream"
would have sympathized with him, but
he waved me 10 one side.
| i can see poetry in the dark waters be-
meath me, joyous life in all about me, but
what is an ambitious soul 10 do before
| the question from towheaded urchin, son
! OF thrifty farmer, who pipes up:
When is fellows eye like a barrel?'
You think of bungs, hoops. slaves and
the like. but you never get the answer
until you have appealed to the small boy
that gave the question. l am going 10
the city"
over the hill and far away in the forest
could he heard the voices of children
! They were running and coming toward
Sugar river bridge The schoolma ster
| looked despairingly at me, and with
drew 10 where l would not be observed
al the brow of the hill the children saw
the form OF their preceptor and shouted
again. They swarmed down upon him
and pressed a red album into his hands
When he had claeped the hands of all
! the from and thew para ahOff IN laaya