I was
explaining to them the trend of the Rockies and the Himalayas, and of
other mountains I should never see; I was telling them why it snowed, and
unfolding the phenomena of the aurora borealis. Alexander with no more
worlds to conquer was a sorry spectacle. We pedagogues who have mastered
physical geography are Alexanders. But if I was bound to the pinnacle of
learning so that I could neither fly nor fall, I could at least watch Tim
as he struggled higher and higher. And Mary was watching with me! That
was what made my work that day seem doubly irksome and the hours trebly
long; for she was waiting to hear from him, and when the sun seemed to
rest on the mill gable I should be free to go to her. So the minutes
dragged. It made me angry. Ordinarily I speak quietly to the scholars,
but now I fairly bellowed at Chester Holmes, who was reading in such a
loud tone that he disturbed me and called me to the real business of the
moment.
"Don't say Dooglas!" I cried.
"That's the way Teacher Thomas used to say it," retorted Chester, sitting
down on the long bench where the Fifth Reader class was posted.
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