The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1915-08-12

once more resumed the dread
full burden of education, 1t
seemed infinitely duller. And
yet what pleasanter sight is there than
a schoolroom well filed with children
of those sprouting years just before
the teens? The casual visitor, gazing
from the teachers platform upon
these busy little heads, needs only a
blunted memory to experience the
most agreeable and celebrating SEN
sations. Still, for the greater part the
children are unconscious OF the happl-
ness of their condition, for nothing Is
more pathetically true than that we
never know when we are well Off"
The boys in n public school are less
aware of their happy state than are
the girls, and OF all the boys in his
room probably Penrod himself had the
least appreciation of his felicity.
He sat staring at an open page of a
textbook. but not studying, not even
reading, not ever thinking. Nor was
he lost in a reverie. His minds eye
was shut, as his physical eye might
well have been. for the optic nerve.
faced with ennui, conveyed nothing
whatever of the printed page upon
which the orb Of vision was partially
focused. Penrod was doing something
very unusual and rare, something al
most never accomplished except by
colored people or by a boy in school
on Il spring day-he was doing really
nothing at all. He was merely a state
of being.
From the street a sound stole i'm
through the open window. and abhor-
ring nature began to ill the vacuum
called Penrod SchOfield, for the sound
was the spring song Of n mouth organ
coming down the sidewalk. The win
dows were Intentionally above the lev
el 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 wallowing. 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 shufling Of a pair of
old shoes scuffing s~yncopations 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 godmother
made her appearance. Otherwise Pen
rod would have gone down the street
In a black skin, 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 eve
wearied 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-
notonous stretches Of blackboard
threateningly defaced by arithmetical
formula and other insignia Of torture.
Above the blackboard the walls Of the
high room were Of white plaster
white with the qualified Wilderness Of
old snow in q soft Goa town. This
dismal eXpanse vas broken by four
photographic portraits. votive offerings
Of a thoughtful publisher. The por-
traits were 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 someness of
the schOolroom. Long day after long
day, interminable week In and inter
minable week ont, vast month on vast
month. the pupils sat with those four
them. The faces became permanent
In the consciousness OF the children;
they became an obsession. In and out
Of school the children were 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
alive In the minds of children lying
sick Of fever. Never while the chill
aren 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 q simple and nm
conscious association Of IDEAS PenEod