News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1915-06-23

called Penrod Schofield, for the sound
was the spring song of a mouth organ
coming down the sidewalk The win.
dOwS were Intentionally above the lev
ell of the eyes of the seated pupils. but
the picture of the musician was plain
to Penrod, painted for him by a quail
ty in the runs and trills partaking of
the oboe, of the calliope and of cats in
anguish-an eXcruciating sweetness OBJ
tanned only by the walowing. wallop-
! ing yellow-pink palm of a hand whose
! back was Kongo black and shiny. The
music came down the street and pass.
ed beneath the window, accompanied
by the care free shutting of pair Of
old shoes scuffing appropriations on the
cement sidewalk. 1t passed into the
distance; became faint and blurred:
was gone. Emotion stirred in Penrod
a great and poignant desire, but per-
haps fortunately no fairy godmothel
made her appearance. Otherwise Pen
rod would have gone down the street
In black skim playing the mouth or
gan, and an unprepared colored youth
would have found himself enjoying
educational advantages for which he
had no ambition whatever
Reused from perfect apathy, the boy
cast about the schoolroom an eye
wear1ed to nausea by the perpetual
vision of the neat teacher upon the
platform, the backs of the heads of the
pupils in front of him and the mo-
iotonOus stretches of blackboard
threateningly defaced by arithmeticai
formula and other insignia of torture.
Above the blackboard the walls of the
high room were of white plaster
white with the qualified whiteness Of
old snow in a soft coal town. This
dismal eXpanSe was broken by four
photographic portraits. votive offerings
of a thoughtful publisher. The por-
traits We're of good and great men,
kind men. men who loved children.
Their faces were noble and benevo-
lent. But the Autographs offered the
only rest for the eyes of children IA
tigued by the everlasting sameness of |
the schoolroom. Long day after long |
day, interminable week in and inter |
minable week out, vast month on vast |
month, the pupils sat with those four |
portraits beanling kindness down upon |
them. The faces became permanent !
In the consciousness of the children;
they became an obsession. In and out
of school the children We're never free
of them. The four faces haunted the
minds of children falling asleep. They |
hung upon the minds of children wax
ing at night; they rose fOrebodingly in
the minds of children waking in the
morning; they became monstrously
nlive in the minds of children lying
sick of fever. Never while the chill
Ilren of that schoolroom lived would
they be able to forget one detail of the
four Autographs. The hand of Long
fellow was fixed for them forever in
his beard. And by a simple and I'M
conscious association of ideas Penrod
Schofeld was accommodating an antipa-
thy for the gentle Longfellow, and for
James Russell Lowell, and for Oliver
Wendell Holmes, and for John Green
leaf Whittier which would ever per-
nit him to peruse a work of one of
hose great New Englanders without a
feeling of personal resentment.
His eyes fell slowly and inimically
rom the brow of Whittier to the braid
IF reddish hair belonging to Victorine
Riordan, the little octoroon girl who
;at directly in front of him. Veto
ines back was as familiar TO Penrod
is the necktie of Oliver Wendell
Holmes. So was her gayly colored
,laid waist. He hated the waist as
lie hated victorine herself without
moving why. Enforced companion
hip in large quantities and on an equal
,asis between the sexes appears to
terilize the affections, and schoolroom
omances are few.