The Chickasha daily express. (Chickasha, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1899-current, 1909-12-02

eTS Or the VllldBe Hdu come 10 Slt at
the end of the room; II was as II to
express regret at not having visited
the school more often; it was, too, a
way OF rewarding our master for his
40 years OF good service, and Of pay
ing their respects to the fatherland
to which he was going,
In the midst OF my meditations
heard my name called; 1t was my turn
to recite. What would not have Civ
en- to be able to repeat, loud and with
out a mistake, the whole of that IA
nous rule for the participlesl But
bungled the first words, and stood
wriggling III my place, heavy-hearted.
not daring to raise my head. Then l
heard M Hamel speak to me:
Il will not reproach you, my boy;
you are sufficiently punished as 1t Isl
You see now how It is; you have said
to yourself day by day; oh, have
plenty Of time; ! will learn it to-mor-
row, and then you see what to-mor-
row brings when it comes All, that
has been the great misfortune Of our
Alsace, putting off its instruction I'M
til tomorrow And soon 1t will be just
for them to say to us: What you
pretend to be French, when you can
neither speak nor write your own
language'
But with 1t all. you are no worse
than the rest Of us; we all deserve a
full share of the blame. Your par
ents have not been sufficiently anxious
to have you educated, They have pre-
ferred the sous you could make by
working in the fields or the factories.
And for my part | reproach myself;
reproach myself for making you so
often water my garden when you
should have been studying. and for
not hesitating to give you holiday
when wanted to 90 fishing"
And then M Hamel spoke to us Of
the French language, point by point,
saying that 1T was the most beautiful
language in the world, the most ex-
pressive, the most yirile; that it be
hooved us to preserve 1t among us
and never to forget it, because that
even when a people fell into slavery
50 long as they kept their language
intact. they held the key to their pris-
on Then he took grammar and read
us our lesson, and was astonished to
find how well | understood 1t; all he
told us seemed easy, very easy, |
believe too that had never listened
so well, and that he had never ex-
planned SO patiently 1t seemed as
though the poor man wished before
he went to put into our heads at one
effort all he knew.
The lesson finished we took up wri-
ting. For this day. NJ Hamel had pre-
4 pared entirely new copies, on which
was written in beautiful eound-hand,
France, Alsace, France. Alsace: (
I these were made in the shape of lit
tie flags, which were hung from the
rods OF our desks, and SO floated on
all sides of the class. You should
have seen how everyone applied him
self. And such silence one could
hear nothing but the scratching of
\ pens upon paper. Even when cock
4 chafers buzzed into the room no one
\ paid any attention to them. not even
the smallest chAlren. who applied
themselves as industrlously as though
their pot-hooks were also French
Upon the roof of the school the pi-
geons cooed softly 1Will not they
4 too have to use German?" / asked my
self as listened
When | raised my eyes from the
\ page in front of me from time to time,
4 l saw NJ. HameI sitting motionless in
his seat, gazing long at the objects
about him. as though he would take
away in his memory ali the little
schoolhouse Think of it, for
40 years he had been there in the
same place opposite his courtyard,
4 facing classroom which had
changed in appearance only in that
the benches and desks had become
shiny. polished by use. The walnut
X trees in the courtyard had grown. and
the hop-yine he had planted himself
4 had by this time festooned the win
doNs up to the roof What a heart
Z breaking thing 1t must have been for
/ the poor man to turn his back on all
\ these things, and to hear his sister
walking to and fro I'M the room be-
Z yond. packing their baggage, for they
must go away tomorrow forever
Nevertheless, he had the courage to
keep the class up to the last moment.
After the writing exercise, we had our
history lesson: and then the little chill
dren sang their Tba, be, bi. bo. bu" in
concert And old Hauser. who sat at
the end OF the room. putting on his
spcctacles and holding his primer
with both hands. repeated the letters
\ with them. One could see that he was
in deadly earnest; but his voice Quiv-
cred so with emotion. and it was SO
droll to hear him, that we hardly
knew whether to laugh or to weep
All, shall never forget that. last
I class,
Suddenly the church clock struck
midday, then the Angelus AT the
same moment the trumpet-call Of she
Prussians, who were returning from
their drill, burst through our windows
M HameI raised himself, deathly