The Heart of a Teacher

“THE Glee and Banjo Club of the University of Michigan make their annual appearance at Helmuth Hall this evening. Their former success in this city, added to the fact that several of the home boys are members of the club, will doubtless fill the house with an appreciative audience.”

So said the Evening Press, giving in addition the programme and a list of members.

For several days the High School had been full of interest in the approaching concert, and in sympathy with the rollicking college spirit. The boys and girls sang snatches of college songs, and talked about the gayeties that always attend the coming of the Glee Club. As preceptress I found myself thinking of our own boys who belonged to the club, — thinking of them with a tenderness second only to their mothers’, and sometimes I have wondered if my love were not the greater.

Of course I went to the concert. Dressing with especial care, I gave a final look into the glass and felt that I had the appearance of a lady. Some one thinking to compliment me might have said, “ No one would suspect you of being a teacher.”

Helmuth Hall is large, with a gallery around three sides of it. As we walked to our seats near the front on the lower floor, I was conscious of the mass of color and general lightness that belong to an assembly made up largely of young people.

Almost as soon as we were seated the Banjo Club made its bow. I do not know what it played, — I do not remember that there was any music at all; for my mind swept back to the old High School room, and was busy with tender recollections of the days when these boys were there.

Before me rises a vision of a boyish face whose clear skin, delicate pink cheeks, deep blue eyes, and yellow hair gave a coloring that Correggio would have made immortal. But without brush or canvas the picture is mine, and I love it,— love it though for three years I carried that boy as a burden day and night. Restless and troublesome when he should have been manly, weak when I trusted him to be strong, he was, in fact, everything that he should not have been to be a member of a well-ordered school. But I loved him, had faith in him, and by and by he found himself. He has some little sense of my patience and care, but he can never know how many anxious hours I gave to him. Next to him, a young man plays his guitar just as he always did everything else, — as though it were the one thing in the world to do. All through his school days, it mattered not what the task, he accomplished it without an apparent effort, and better than any one else who tried the same thing. With equal ease he could beat the running record of the school on field day, make the best translation in the Virgil class, work out the simplest solution to the original exercises in geometry, or write the best poem for the school paper. What a comfort he was !

The Glee Club sings. I look sharply at another of my boys, to see if the arrogance has faded from his face. I have not forgotten the day when his eyes flashed, and a scornful retort trembled on his lips, in response to some deserved criticism from me. I saw it coming in time to save him, and kept on talking, looking him in the face in a way that made him understand that I was trying to give him time to control himself. Soon the anger faded from his eyes, and when I saw that he was master of himself I asked, " Did you have something to say ? ” “ No, Miss Wilson,”he replied in a softened voice, while a look sealed a compact between us, and no one else in the class knew that anything had happened. From that day the boy understood that I was an ally against his temper, and it never afterwards got the better of him in my presence.

When the club sings a second time, the boys begin to get accustomed to their audience, and the home boys search the sea of faces for familiar ones. Now they recognize an acquaintance with a gentle bend of the head, or a friend with a smile. Soon my scornful hoy looks toward me. His face lights up, and then follow nod and smile and happy recognition. How my fond heart leaps with joy and swells with pride that all this should be for his old teacher ! I send back a responsive look, and am as foolishly happy as a young girl. But no answering glance comes from my boy. I scan his face more closely, and then see that he is looking over my head. I know now that he has not noticed me at all, so I turn to follow his glance. No wonder he has no eyes for a teacher past her youth ! Above me in the gallery sits a young girl, beautiful beyond the power of an old maid’s pen to describe. Black hair, flashing black eyes, a snowy neck rising from a lowcut white dress, fan, flowers, a suggestion of luxury and elegance, meet that first glance; but as I look upon it all I know that “ it is good.”

I turn away with aching heart, and hear no more of banjo or of song. From time to time I glance at the beautiful girl, and it is borne in upon me that I do not belong to the kingdom of this world, however good my chances may be for the kingdom of heaven.

As I am now satisfied that no one notices me, I look to my heart’s content at the brilliant company. There sit the fathers and mothers of my sometime children ; there sit the children themselves, grown to men and women now, some of them with homes and families of their own ; others not yet out of school are there. As I look along the rows of seats, there is scarcely a group that has not for me some personal interest. I know the inmost natures of the people sitting there, for I have worked upon their minds and souls, and am fairly familial’ with the results of my handiwork. Conscious of their indifference to me, I blush to think how they fill my mind, and how much I remember of the details of my daily life with them. Now as never before I realize that a teacher is never to her pupils what she feels she is nor what she longs to be.

The audience rises and moves slowly toward the door. As I pass out I hear some one say, “ Miss Wilson is growing old, is n’t she ? ” The tears gather in my eyes, and my heart makes answer : “Yes, Miss Wilson is growing old,— growing old in the service of your boys and girls. She has taken the youth and freshness out of her life to inspire your children to the best their natures are capable of ; wearing herself out in thought for them, living heart-hungry and alone.”

The cool air is grateful to me, as we step outside. On the way home my mind grows calmer, and soon it settles into its accustomed quiet. I reach my sitting room, and as I enter the familiar place a restful content steals over me. My books look down upon me with the eyes of friends; the easy-chair invites, and I sink into it, thinking to continue my reverie.