s right in the way of the pigs. Up they came trotting
and grunting, curling their little tails; they rubbed against our legs;
they poked their cold pink snouts into our hands in search of a scrap
of crust; they questioned us with their sharp little eyes to learn if we
happened to have a dry chestnut for them in our pockets. When they
had gone the round, some this way and some that, they went back to the
farmyard, driven away by a friendly flick of the master's handkerchief.
Next came the visit of the hen, bringing her velvet-coated chicks to see
us. All of us eagerly crumbled a little bread for our pretty visitors.
We vied with one another in calling them to us and tickling with our
fingers their soft and downy backs. No, there was certainly no lack of
distractions.

What could we learn in such a school as that! Let us first speak of the
young ones, of whom I was one. Each of us had, or rather was supposed
to have, in his hands a little penny book, the alphabet, printed on gray
paper. It began, on the cover, with a pigeon, or something like it. Next
came a cross, followed by the letters in their order. When we turned
over, our eyes encountered the terrible ba, be, bi, bo, bu, the
stumbling block of most of us. When we had mastered that formidable
page, we were considered to know how to read and were admitted among the
big ones. But, if the little book was to be of any use, the least that
was required was that the master should interest himself in us to some
extent and show us how to set about things. For this, the worthy man,
too much taken up with the big ones, had not the time. The famous
alphabet with the pigeon was thrust upon us only to give us the air of
scholars. We were to contemplate it on our bench, to decipher it with
the help of our next neighbor, in case he might know one or two of the
letters. Our contemplation came to nothing, being every moment disturbed
by a visit to the potatoes in the stew pots, a quarrel among playmates
about a marble, the grunting invasion of the porkers or the arrival of
the chicks. With the aid of these distractions, we would wait patiently
until it was time for us to go home. That was our most serious work.

The big ones used to write. They had the benefit of the small amount
of light in the room, by the narrow window where the Wandering Jew and
ruthless Golo faced each other, and of the large and only table with its
circle of seats. The school supplied nothing, not even a drop o