For He Was A Schoolmaster Who Hated And Despised
Teaching As Much As Children In The Wild Hated To Be Taught.
He
followed teaching because all work was excessively irksome to him, yet
he had to do something for a living, and this was the easiest thing he
could find to do.
How such a man ever came to be so far from home in a
half-civilized country was a mystery, but there he was, a bachelor and
homeless man after twenty or thirty years on the pampas, with little
or no money in his pocket, and no belongings except his horse - he
never owned more than one at a time - and its cumbrous native saddle,
and the saddle-bags in which he kept his wardrobe and whatever he
possessed besides. He didn't own a box. On his horse, with his saddle-
bags behind him, he would journey about the land, visiting all the
English, Scotch, and Irish settlers, who were mostly sheep-farmers,
but religiously avoiding the houses of the natives. With the natives
he could not affiliate, and not properly knowing and incapable of
understanding them he regarded them with secret dislike and suspicion.
And by and by he would find a house where there were children old
enough to be taught their letters, and Mr. Trigg would be hired by the
month, like a shepherd or cowherd, to teach them, living with the
family. He would go on very well for a time, his failings being
condoned for the sake of the little ones; but by and by there would be
a falling-out, and Mr. Trigg would saddle his horse, buckle on the
saddle-bags, and ride forth over the wide plain in quest of a new
home.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 32 of 355
Words from 9364 to 9656
of 98444
