At This Stage A Successor To Mr. Trigg, A Real Schoolmaster, Was
Unexpectedly Found For Us In The Person Of Father O'Keefe, An Irish
Priest Without A Cure And With Nothing To Do.
Some friends of my
father, on one of his periodical visits to Buenos Ayres, mentioned
this person to him-
This priest who in his wanderings about the world
had drifted hither and was anxious to find some place to stay at out
on the plains while waiting for something to turn up. As he was
without means he said he would be glad of the position of schoolmaster
in the house for a time, that it would exactly suit him.
Father O'Keefe, who now appeared on the scene, was very unlike Mr.
Trigg; he was a very big man in black but rusty clerical garments. He
also had an extraordinarily big head and face, all of a dull, reddish
colour, usually covered with a three or four days' growth of grizzly
hair. Although his large face was unmistakably, intensely Irish, it
was not the gorilla-like countenance so common in the Irish peasant-
priest - the priest one sees every day in the streets of Dublin. He
was, perhaps, of a better class, as his features were all good. A
heavy man as well as a big one, he was not so amusing and so fluent a
talker out of school as his predecessor, nor, as we were delighted to
discover, so exacting and tyrannical in school. On the contrary, in
and out of school he was always the same, mild and placid in temper,
with a gentle sort of humour, and he was also very absent-minded. He
would forget all about school hours, roam about the gardens and
plantations, get into long conversations with the workmen, and
eventually, when he found that he was somewhat too casual to please
his employer, he enjoined us to "look him up" and let him know when it
was school-time. Looking him up usually took a good deal of time. His
teaching was not very effective. He could not be severe nor even
passably strict, and never punished us in any way. When lessons were
not learned he would sympathize with and comfort us by saying we had
done our best and more could not be expected. He was also glad of any
excuse to let us off for half-a-day. We found out that he was
exceedingly fond of fishing - that with a rod and line in his hand he
would spend hours of perfect happiness, even without a bite to cheer
him, and on any fine day that called us to the plain we would tell him
that it was a perfect day for fishing, and ask him to let us off for
the afternoon. At dinner time he would broach the subject and say the
children had been very hard at their studies all the morning, and that
it would be a mistake to force their young minds too much, that all
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and so on and so forth, and
that he considered it would be best for them, instead of going back to
more lessons in the afternoon, to go for a ride. He always gained his
point, and dinner over we would rush out to catch and saddle our
horses, and one for Father O'Keefe.
The younger of our two elder brothers, the sportsman and fighter, and
our leader and master in all our outdoor pastimes and peregrinations,
had taken to the study of mathematics with tremendous enthusiasm, the
same temper which he displayed in every subject and exercise that
engaged him - fencing, boxing, shooting, hunting, and so on; and on
Father O'Keefe's engagement he was anxious to know if the new master
would be any use to him. The priest had sent a most satisfactory
reply; he would be delighted to assist the young gentleman with his
mathematics, and to help him over all his difficulties; it was
accordingly arranged that my brother was to have an early hour each
morning with the master before school hours, and an hour or two in the
evening. Very soon it began to appear that the studies were not
progressing smoothly; the priest would come forth as usual with a
smiling, placid countenance, my brother with a black scowl on his
face, and gaining his room, he would hurl his books down and protest
in violent language that the O'Keefe was a perfect fraud, that he knew
as much of the infinitesimal calculus as a gaucho on horseback or a
wild Indian. Then, beginning to see it in a humorous light, he would
shout with laughter at the priest's pretentions to know anything, and
would say he was only fit to teach babies just out of the cradle to
say their ABC. He only wished the priest had also pretended to some
acquaintance with the manly art, so that they could have a few bouts
with the gloves on, as it would have been a great pleasure to bruise
that big humbugging face black and blue.
The mathematical lessons soon ceased altogether, but whenever an
afternoon outing was arranged my brother would throw aside his books
to join us and take the lead. The ride to the river, he would say,
would give us the opportunity for a little cavalry training and lance-
throwing exercise. In the cane-brake he would cut long, straight canes
for lances, which at the fishing-ground would be cut down to a proper
length for rods. Then, mounting, we would set off, O'Keefe ahead,
absorbed as usual in his own thoughts, while we at a distance of a
hundred yards or so would form in line and go through our evolutions,
chasing the flying enemy, O'Keefe; and at intervals our commander
would give the order to charge, whereupon we would dash forward with a
shout, and when about forty yards from him we would all hurl our
lances so as to make them fall just at the feet of his horse.
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