Hoppy OHalloran is the only master in Leamys National School who
ever sits. Thats because hes the headmaster or because he has to rest
himself from the twisting walk that comes from the short leg.The other
masters walk back and forth in the front of the room or up and down
the aisles and you never know when youll get a whack of a cane or a
slap of a strap for giving the wrong answer or writing something sloppy.
If Hoppy wants to do anything to you he calls you to the front of the
room to punish you before three classes.
There are good days when he sits at the desk and talks about Amer-
ica. He says, My boys, from the frozen wastes of North Dakota to the
fragrant orange groves of Florida,Americans enjoy all climates. He talks
about American history, If the American farmer, with flintlock and
musket, could wrest from the English a continent, surely we, warriors
ever, can recover our island.
If we dont want him tormenting us with algebra or Irish grammar
all we have to do is ask him a question about America and that gets him
so excited he might go on for the whole day.
He sits at his desk and recites the tribes and chiefs he loves.Arapaho,
Cheyenne, Chippewa, Sioux,Apache, Iroquois. Poetry, my boys, poetry.
And listen to the chiefs, Kicking Bear, Rain-in-the-Face, Sitting Bull,
Crazy Horse, and the genius, Geronimo.
In seventh class he hands out a small book, a poem that goes on for
pages and pages, The Deserted Village, by Oliver Goldsmith. He says that
this seems to be a poem about England but it is a lament for the poets
native land, our own native land, Ireland. We are to get this poem by
heart, twenty lines a night to be recited every morning. Six boys are
called to the front of the room for reciting and if you miss a line you are
slapped twice on each hand. He tells us put the books under the desks
and the whole class chants the passage on the schoolmaster in the
village.
Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossomed furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule
The village master taught his little school.
A man severe he was and stern to view,
I knew him well, and every truant knew.
Full well the boding tremblers learned to trace
The days disaster in his morning face.
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