Reveries of a Schoolmaster | Page 5

would have been for the home folks too! They could
have indulged their penchant for literary exercises, sitting in the parlor
making out certificates for me to carry to my teacher next day, and so
all the rough places in the home would have been made smooth. But
the crowning achievement would have been my graduation from
college. I can see the picture. I am husking corn in the lower field. To
reach this field one must go the length of the orchard and then walk
across the meadow. It is a crisp autumn day, about ten o'clock in the
morning, and the sun is shining. The golden ears are piling up under
my magic skill, and there is peace. As I take down another bundle from
the shock I descry what seems to be a sort of procession wending its
way through the orchard. Then the rail fence is surmounted, and the
procession solemnly moves across the meadow. In time the president
and an assortment of faculty members stand before me, bedight in caps
and gowns. I note that their gowns are liberally garnished with Spanish
needles and cockleburs, and their shoes give evidence of contact with
elemental mud. But then and there they confer upon me the degree of
bachelor of arts magna cum laude. But for this interruption I could
have finished husking that row before the dinner-horn blew.
CHAPTER III
BROWN
My neighbor came in again this evening, not for anything in particular,
but unconsciously proving that men are gregarious animals. I like this
neighbor. His name is Brown. I like the name Brown, too. It is easy to
pronounce. By a gentle crescendo you go to the summit and then coast
to the bottom. The name Brown, when pronounced, is a circumflex
accent. Now, if his name had happened to be Moriarity I never could be
quite sure when I came to the end in pronouncing it. I'm glad his name
is not Moriarity--not because it is Irish, for I like the Irish; so does
Brown, for he is married to one of them. Any one who has been in
Cork and heard the fine old Irishman say in his musical and inimitable

voice, "Tis a lovely dye," such a one will ever after have a snug place
in his affections for the Irish, whether he has kissed the "Blarney stone"
or not. If he has heard this same driver of a jaunting-car rhapsodize
about "Shandon Bells" and the author, Father Prout, his admiration for
things and people Irish will become well-nigh a passion. He will not
need to add to his mental picture, for the sake of emphasis or color, the
cherry-cheeked maids who lead their mites of donkeys along leafy
roads, the carts heaped high with cabbages. Even without this addition
he will become expansive when he speaks of Ireland and the Irish.
But, as I was saying, Brown came in this evening just to barter small
talk, as we often do. Now, in physical build Brown is somewhere
between Falstaff and Cassius, while in mental qualities he is an
admixture of Plato, Solomon, and Bill Nye.
When he drops in we do not discuss matters, nor even converse; we
talk. Our talk just oozes out and flows whither it wills, or little wisps of
talk drift into the silences, and now and then a dash of homely
philosophy splashes into the talking. Brown is a real comfort. He is
never cryptic, nor enigmatic, at least consciously so, nor does he ever
try to be impressive. If he were a teacher he would attract his pupils by
his good sense, his sincerity, his simplicity, and his freedom from pose.
I cannot think of him as ever becoming teachery, with a high-pitched
voice and a hysteric manner. He has too much poise for that. He would
never discuss things with children. He would talk with them. Brown
cannot walk on stilts, nor has the air-ship the least fascination for him.
One of my teachers for a time was Doctor T. C. Mendenhall, and he
was a great teacher. He could sound the very depths of his subject and
simply talk it. He led us to think, and thinking is not a noisy process.
Truth to tell, his talks often caused my poor head to ache from
overwork. But I have been in classes where the oases of thought were
far apart and one could doze and dream on the journey from one to the
other. Doctor Mendenhall's teaching was all white meat, sweet to the
taste, and altogether nourishing. He is the man who made the first
correct copy of Shakespeare's epitaph there in the church at
Stratford-on-Avon. I sent a copy of Doctor Mendenhall's version to Mr.

Brassinger, the librarian in the Memorial Building, and