Neither am I prepared to pass judgment on the fancy penmanship displayed by Professor Swope, framed elegantly in black walnut, and gilt, depicting a bounding deer, all made out of hair-line, shaded spirals, done with his facile pen. (No wonder a deer can jump so, with all those springs inside him.) Professor Swope writes visiting cards for you, wonderful birds done in flourishes and holding ribbons in their bills. He puts your name on the ribbon place.
Neatest and tastiest thing you can imagine. I like to watch him do it, but it makes me feel unhappy, somehow. I never was much of a scribe, and it's too late for me to learn now.
I don't feel so downcast when I examine the specimens of writing done by the children of District No. 34. I can just see the young ones working at home on these things, with their tongues stuck out of one corner of their mouths.
"Rome was not built in a day Rome was not built in a day Rome was not built in a day"and so on, bearing down hard on the downstroke of the curve in the capital "R," and clubbing the end of the little "t." And in the higher grades, they toil over "An Original Social Letter,"describing to an imaginary correspondent a visit to Crystal Lake, or the Magnetic Springs. I can hear them mourn: "What shall I say next?" and "Ma, make Effie play some place else, won't you? She jist joggles the table like everything. Now, see what you done!
Now I got to write it all over again. No, I cain't 'scratch it out.
How'd it look to the County Fair all scratched out? Plague take it all!"The same hands have done maps of North and South America, and red-and-blue ink pictures of the circulation of the blood. It does beat all how smart the young ones are nowadays. I could no more draw off a picture of the circulation of the blood - get it right, I mean - why, I wouldn't attempt it.
I am kind of mixed up in my recollection of the hall right next to the Fine Arts. You know it had two doors in each end. Sometimes I can see the central space between the doors, roped off and devoted to sewing-machines with persons demonstrating that they ran as light as a feather, and how it was no trouble at all to tuck and gather, and fell; to organs, which struck me with amaze, because by some witchcraft (octave coupler, I think they called it) the man could play on keys that he didn't touch, and pianos, whereon young ladies were prevailed to perform "Silvery Waves" - that's a lovely piece, I think, don't you? - and"Listen to the mocking-bird, TEE-die-eedle-DONGLisen to the mocking-bird, teedle-eedle-EE-dle DONGThe mocking-bird still singing oer her grave, toomatooral-oo-cal-LEE!"And then again I can see that central, roped-off space given over to reckless deviltry, sheer impudent, brazen-faced, bold, discipline-defying er - er - wickedness. I had heard that people did things like that, but this was the first time I had ever caught a glimpse of such carryings-on in the broad open daylight, right before everybody. I stood there and watched them for hours, expecting every minute to see fire fall from heaven on them and burn up every son and daughter of Belial. But it didn't.
I seem to recollect that it was a hot day, and that, tucked away where not a breath of air could get to them, were three fellows in their shirtsleeves, one playing on an organ, one on a yellow clarinet, and one on a fiddle. Every chance he could get, the fiddler would say to the organist: "Gimme A, please," and saw away trying to get into some sort of tune, but the catgut was never twisted that would hold to pitch with the perspiration dribbling down his fingers in little rills. The clarinet man looked as if he wanted to cry, and he had to twitter his eyelids all the time to keep the sweat from blinding him, and every once in a while, his soggy reed would let go of a squawk that sounded like a scared chicken. But the organ groaned on unrelentingly, and the tune didn't matter so much as the rhythm which was kept up as regular as a clock, whack! whack! whack! whack! And there were two or three other fellows with badges on that went around shouting:
"Select your podners for the next quadrille! One more couple wanted right over here!"Dancing. M-hm.
The fiddler "called off" and chanted to the tune, with his mouth on one side: "Sullootch podners! First couple forward and back.
Side couples the same. Doe see do-o-o-o. Al-lee-man LEFT!
Ballunce ALL! Sa-weeny the corners!" I don't know whether I get the proper order of these commands or not, or whether my memory serves me as to their effect, but it seems to me that at "Bal-lunce ALL!" the ladies demurely teetered, first on one foot and then on the other, like a frozen-toed rooster, while the gents fairly tore themselves apart with grape-vine twists and fancy steps, and slapped the dust out of the cracks in the floor. When it came to "SaWEENGyour podners!" the room billowed with flying skirts, and the ladies squealed like anything. It made you a little dizzy to watch them do "Graaan' right and left," and you could understand how those folks felt - there were always one or two in each set - who had to be hauled this way and that, not sure whether they were having a good time or not, but hoping they were, their faces set in a sickly grin, while their foreheads wrinkled into a puzzled: "How's that?
