It was a telling sermon! If I had been a child I should never have looked at a match again; and old as I was, I could not, for days afterwards, regard a box of them without a shudder. I thought that probably Yverdon had been visited in the olden time by a series of disastrous holocausts, all set by small boys, and that this was the powerful antidote presented; so I asked the teacher whether incendiari** was a popular failing in that vicinity and whether the chart was one of a series inculcating various moral lessons. I don't know whether she understood me or not, but she said no, it was "la methode de Pestalozzi."
Just at this juncture she left the room, apparently to give the pupils a brief study-period, and simultaneously the concierge was called downstairs by a crying baby. A bright idea occurred to me and I went hurriedly into the corridor where my friend was taking notes.
"Salemina," said I, "here is an opportunity of a lifetime! We ought to address these children in their native tongue. It will be something to talk about in educational pow-wows. They do not know that we are distinguished visitors, but we know it. A female member of a School Board and the Honorary President of a Froebel Society owe a duty to their constituents. You go in and tell them who and what I am and make a speech in French. Then I'll tell them who and what you are and make another speech."
Salemina assumed a modest violet attitude, declined the honour absolutely, and intimated that there were persons who would prefer talking in a language they didn't know rather than to remain sensibly silent.
However the plan struck me as being so fascinating that I went back alone, looked all ways to see if any one were coming, mounted the platform, cleared my throat, and addressed the awe-struck youngsters in the following words. I will spare you the French, but you will perceive by the construction of the sentences, that I uttered only those sentiments possible in an early stage of language-study.
"My dear children," I began, "I live many thousand miles across the ocean in America. You do not know me and I do not know you, but I do know all about your good Pestalozzi and I love him"
"Il est mort!" interpolated one offensive little girl in the front row.
Salemina tittered audibly in the corridor, and I crossed the room and closed the door. I think the children expected me to put the key in my pocket and then murder them and stuff them into the stove.
"I know perfectly well that he is dead, my child," I replied winningly,--"it is his life, his memory that I love.--And once upon a time, long ago, a great man named Friedrich Froebel came here to Yverdon and studied with your great Pestalozzi. It was he who made kindergartens for little children, jardins des enfants, you know.
Some of your grand-mothers remember Froebel, I think?"
Hereupon two of the smaller chits shouted some sort of a negation which I did not in the least comprehend, but which from large American experience I took to be, "My grandmother doesn't!" "My grandmother doesn't!"
Seeing that the others regarded me favourably, I continued, "It is because I love Pestalozzi and Froebel, that I came here to day to see your beautiful new monument. I have just bought a photograph taken on that day last year when it was first uncovered. It shows the flags and the decorations, the flowers and garlands, and ever so many children standing in the sunshine, dressed in white and singing hymns of praise. You are all in the picture, I am sure!"
This was a happy stroke. The children crowded about me and showed me where they were standing in the photograph, what they wore on the august occasion, how the bright sun made them squint, how a certain malheureuse Henriette couldn't go to the festival because she was ill.
I could understand very little of their magpie chatter, but it was a proud moment. Alone, unaided, a stranger in a strange land, I had gained the attention of children while speaking in a foreign tongue. Oh, if I had only left the door open that Salemina might have witnessed this triumph! But hearing steps in the distance, I said hastily, "Asseyez-vous, mes enfants, tout-de-suite!" My tone was so authoritative that they obeyed instantly, and when the teacher entered it was as calm as the millennium.
We rambled through the village for another hour, dined at a quaint little inn, gave a last look at the monument, and left for Geneva at seven o'clock in the pleasant September twilight. Arriving a trifle after ten, somewhat weary in body and slightly anxious in mind, I followed Salemina into the tiny cake-shop across the street from the station. She returned the tumbler, and the man, who seemed to consider it an unexpected courtesy, thanked us volubly.
I held out my hand and reminded him timidly of the one franc fifty centimes.
He inquired what I meant. I explained. He laughed scornfully. I remonstrated. He asked me if I thought him an imbecile. I answered no, and wished that I knew the French for several other terms nearer the truth, but equally offensive. Then we retired, having done our part, as good Americans, to swell the French revenues, and that was the end of our day in Pestalozzi-town; not the end, however, of the lemonade glass episode, which was always a favourite story in Salemina's repertory