Each child will bring his or her favourite novel, and gladly hand it round. I shall certainly hand on my own fiction library:--Conan Doyle, Wells, Jack London, Rider Haggard, Cutcliffe Hyne, Guy Boothby, Barrie, O. Henry, Leac.o.c.k, Jacobs, Leonard Merrick, Seton Merriman, Stanley Weyman, and a host of others.
No, this won"t do! How can I furnish before my self-governing school decides what furniture it will have? The children may demand desks and time-tables, but I do not think it likely. Anyhow, I am counting my chickens before they are hatched.
XIV.
I finish this book in the place where I began it, in Forfarshire, but not in Tarbonny Village. Hustling Herbert Jenkins sent me the galley proofs this morning with an urgent demand that I should return them at once. I do dislike publishers. At first I took them at their own valuation: I believed what they said.
"Machines waiting," Jenkins would wire. "Send MS. at once."
And I, simple I, would sit up late correcting proofs. I know better now. I know that Jenkins always divides time by 20. His "at once"
means that twenty days hence he will say to his Secretary: "That new book of Neill"s . . . has it gone to the printer yet?" And his Secretary will "phone down to the office secretary and say: "You"ve got to send Neill"s new book to the printer." Then this lady will order the office-boy to take the MS. to the printer . . . and I bet the little devil reads _Deadwood d.i.c.k on the Boomerang Prairie_ as he crawls to the printer"s office with my masterpiece under his arm.
Hence, understanding Jenkins, I tossed the proofs into a corner this morning, and went out to continue the game of ring quoits that Nellie and I had to give up as darkness fell last night. Nellie is a Dundee la.s.sie of thirteen and she is spending her holidays with her auntie here.
Nellie won, and we sat down on the bank and I began to ask her about her school-life.
"I dinna like the school, and I wish I was left," she said.
"Tell me why you dislike it, Nellie."
"If ye speak ye get the strap."
"What!" I cried, "are you _never_ allowed to speak?"
"Only at playtime," she replied. "And ye never get less than six scuds."
And it was only the other day that a lady wrote me saying that when I preach against Prussianism in schools I am merely resuscitating a dead bogey for the purpose of knocking it down.
I get quite a lot of information of schools from children. I remember when I was in Lyme Regis last Easter I went out sketching one day. As I pa.s.sed a village school a troupe of happy children came out. Joy lit up their faces.
"The ideal school!" I cried, and stopped to speak to them.
"Tell me, children, tell me why you have laughter in your eyes," I said, "tell me of your happy school."
The oldest boy grinned.
"Master"s gone off for the day to a funeral," he said.
I walked on deep in thought.
Nellie dislikes school. What a tragedy. She is a dear sweet child with kind eyes and a bonny smile. She spoke frankly to me at first but when I told her that I was a teacher she looked at me with fear and (I smiled at this) dropped her Dundee dialect and answered me in School English. I had to throw plantain heads at her for a full five minutes before the look of fear left her eyes and her dialect returned.
"I dinna believe ye _are_ a teacher," she said to-night.
"Why not?"
"Ye"re no like ane," she said hesitatingly. "Ye"re ower--ower daft."
"But why shouldn"t a teacher be daft?" I asked.
"They shud be respectable," she said, "or the children winna respect them."
I looked alarmed.
"What!" I cried, "don"t you respect me?"
She laughed gaily.
"No!" she cried, then she added seriously: "But I"d like to be at your schule."
She returns to Dundee to-morrow, to a cla.s.s of fifty, where silence reigns. Poor Nellie! What worries me is that when Nellie"s teacher reads this book she will most probably agree with Nellie"s remark that I"m "daft". But she won"t mean what Nellie meant.
A telegraph girl approached.
"Machines are waiting.--Jenkins."
Nellie looked anxious.
"That"s twa telegrams ye"ve got the day," she said. "Is onybody deid?"
I looked at the words on the telegraph form.
"No, Nellie, unfortunately no!" I said slowly, and I went in to read my galley proofs.
THE END.