A Winter of Content (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 Excerpt: ... the neighborhood. In the comments that the boys were making all round me the other girls were all very well, but "Teacher" was easily the favorite. "She's a good teacher," I heard one declare, hoarsely fervent. "She's did well by Number Six. I could make out every word them children spoke"--a fact that really seemed to give him cause for satisfaction. The night wore on with drill after drill, song after song, recitation after recitation. Despite my fatigue, I was interested. As I watched the audience something took me by the throat. It was somehow so pathetic. Those heavy men, those work-worn women were not interested because their children were being shown off. No indeed. They liked the performance because it was just at their level, and that fact threw a searchlight on the bare monotony of their lives. We finished at about two o'clock with "Tipperary," and "God Save the King," and, as every national anthem is an assault on the feelings and makes me cry, I sang and wiped my eyes with the rest. The night skies here are seldom black, like the skies of the south, they are more often a soft, misty gray. The stars, instead of being sharp little points of light, are big and indistinct and furry. It is always light enough to see the road, even at the dark of the moon. We drove along through the bitter cold, Big John Beaulac's hired boy, Reginald, standing in the back of the sleigh, by way of getting a lift home. He was regretting, all the way, that some people had not eaten all their "cookings" and that so much good food had been wasted on the floor. I fancied that Reginald Bean would fain have eaten even more than he did. At the shore we dropped Mrs. Jackson and the three little sleeping Jacksons, and ...