erstood. He believed a sudden overdose of enlightenment would be to
them a real disaster, and he proposed to save them from it by the kind
of management they had been accustomed to--they and their fathers--for
a thousand years.

Catou answered the question only by a timid smile and shrug. The
questioner spoke again:

"Why do you Grande Pointe folk allow it? Do you want your children
stuffed full of American ideas? What is in those books they are
studying? You don't know? Neither do I. I would not look into one of
them. But you ought to know that to learn English is to learn
free-thinking. Do you know who print those books that your children
are rubbing their noses in? Yankees! Oh, I doubt not they have been
sharp enough to sprinkle a little of the stuff _they_ call religion
here and there in them; 'tis but the bait on the hook! But you silly
'Cadians think your children are getting education, and that makes up
for every thing else. Do you know what comes of it? Discontent.
Vanity. Contempt of honest labor. Your children are going to be
discontented with their lot. It will soon be good-by to sunbonnets;
good-by to homespun; good-by to Grande Pointe,--yes, and good-by to
the faith of your fathers. Catou, what do you know about that man,
anyhow? You ask him no questions, you 'Cadians, and he--oh, he is too
modest to tell you who or what he is. _Who pays him?_"

"He say pay is way behine. He say he don't get not'in' since he come
yondeh," said Catou, the distress that had gathered on his face
disappearing for a moment.

The questioner laughed contemptuously.

"Do you suppose he works that way for nothing? How do you know, at
all, that his real errand is to teach school? A letter from Mr.
Wallis! who simply told your simple-minded brother what the fellow
told him! See here, Catou; you owe a tax as a raiser of tobacco, eh?
And besides that, hasn't every one of you an absurd little sign stuck
up on the side of his house, as required by the Government, to show
that you owe another tax as a tobacco manufacturer? But still you have
a little arrangement to neutralize that, eh? How do you know this man
is not among you to look into that? Do you know that he _can_ teach?
No wonder he prefers to teach in English! I had a conversation with
him the other day; I want no more; he preferred to talk to _me_ in
English. That is the good manners he is teaching; light-headed,
hero-worshipping, free-thinker that he is."

Catou was sore