Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1915-05-27
CHAPTER v.
School.

- - EXT morning, when he had
III once more resumed the dread
full burden of education, it
seemed infinitely duller. And
yet what pleasanter sight is there than
a schoolroom well filled 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
blunted memory to experience the
most agreeable and eXhilarating SEN
sations Still, for the greater part the
children are unconscious Of the happi-
ness Of their condition, for nothing is
more pathetically true than that we
"never know when we are well off,"
The boys in a 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
textbook. but not studying, not even
reading, not even thinking. Nor was
he lost in a reverie. His minds eye
was shut. as his physical eye might
we'll have been, for the optic nerve.
faced with ennui, conveyed nothing
whatever of the printed page upon
which the orb of vision was partially
very unusual and rare, something al
most never accomplished except by
colored people or by boy in school
on q spring day-he was doing really
nothing at all. He was merely state
of being.
From the street a sound stole in
through the open window, and abhor
ring nature began to fill the vacuum
called Penrod Schofield. for the sound
was the spring song of 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 quail
ty in the runs and trills partaking Of
the oboe, of the calliope and Of cats in
excruciating sweetness OBJ
tanned only by the wallowing. wallop-
ing yellow-pink palm of 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 syncopations 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 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 eye
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-
defaced by arithmetical
formula and other insignia or 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
portraits, yotive 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 sameness of
the schoolroom. Long day after long |
day, interminable week in and inter- |
week out, vast month on vast |
the pupils sat with those four |
portraits beaming kindness down upon |