An Epoch in History | Page 5

soldiers with whom we ate. Her clothes were clean, her hair was nicely combed, and her general appearance was neat. She seemed to anticipate the slightest wish of the soldier with whom she was. She brought him water to drink, cleaned his plate after the meal and saw that his knife, fork, and spoon were put into his haversack.
We had now finished supper and the launch had returned for the last load of troops. The lieutenant in command of the company gave the order to "fall in"; the men shouldered their rifles and fell into line. "Forward, march!" called the lieutenant, and the column swept forward towards the boats. The women had until now restrained themselves, but, as their husbands marched away never to return, their feelings could no longer be restrained. One young woman of about eighteen, who was leaning against a rock by the roadside sobbing, when her husband passed, leaped up in frenzy of passionate love and caught the rifle from his shoulder. Her first impulse seemed to be to throw the gun away, but suddenly realizing the futility of such an act she burst into tears, shouldered the rifle herself and marched on by his side. Another woman of more mature age threw her arms around the legs of a tall stalwart man, and drew him bodily from the line.
But the troops marched on and entered the boats. One woman who had been unnoticed before came down into the shallow water and caught hold of our last boat as if to prevent its leaving, while others stood mingling their sobs with the sounds of the wavelets as they broke on the sands. As we passed away, an expectant mother, standing in bold outline against the twilight sky, threw up her hands in an agony of despair and then sank upon the stones. The curtain had fallen upon a drama in actual life deeper in pathos than any other we had ever seen or ever expected to see. Depth of passion, depth of love! Who can fathom the human heart?
CHAPTER IV.
WHAT THE TEACHERS DID.
There is a remarkable sameness about the towns in the Philippines. They all have a large open square about the middle of the town, around three sides of which are Chinese stores, unless one side lies open to the sea, and on the fourth is the great stone ecclesia. The streets run at right angles to one another and divide up the town into creditable squares.
Everybody in the Philippines lives up-stairs, for the ground is so soaked with water during the rainy season that it is a menace to health to live upon the ground floor. So even the poorest nippa hut is built upon stakes four or five feet above the ground.
Bacalod is a typical Philippine town. As we landed, a broad open square was spread out before us. Two sides of the square were lined with two-story houses in which were Chinese stores below and Filipino homes above. On the third side stood the great stone church in whose massive tower the clock was striking the hour of four, while the fourth lay open to the sea that had borne us thither.
We landed, but it was in a method new to us and one not usually employed by the traveling public.
When our sail boat ran aground on the sandy bottom a hundred yards or more from the shore, a crowd of Filipino men who were on the beach slowly rolled up their pantaloons and waded out to the rescue,--for the money that was in it. The boat's crew elevated their trousers' legs also and slided down into the water. Each of us then straddled the neck of a Filipino standing in the water and was held by ankles to be steadied while our biped mounts proceeded to the shore.
We were now on the ground and face to face with the situation. To give the reader an idea of the actual conditions met by the first teachers who went to the Islands, the following is copied from the instructions given us in Manila:
1. There shall be two sessions daily of all schools, and the last hour of the morning session shall be devoted solely to instructing the Filipino teachers.
2. In cases where teachers are sent to a town in which there is no school-house, they are expected to secure the aid of the people and have one built.
3. The American teacher is to see that all studying aloud is stopped.
4. All supplies must be kept under lock and key. In towns where there is no case or box to lock the supplies in, and it is also impossible to get the town council to furnish a case, a requisition may be sent to Manila, and, if an appropriation can be secured, one will