



Produced by Donald Lainson





CRESSY


By Bret Harte




CRESSY




CHAPTER I.


As the master of the Indian Spring school emerged from the pine woods
into the little clearing before the schoolhouse, he stopped whistling,
put his hat less jauntily on his head, threw away some wild flowers he
had gathered on his way, and otherwise assumed the severe demeanor of
his profession and his mature age--which was at least twenty. Not that
he usually felt this an assumption; it was a firm conviction of his
serious nature that he impressed others, as he did himself, with the
blended austerity and ennui of deep and exhausted experience.

The building which was assigned to him and his flock by the Board of
Education of Tuolumne County, California, had been originally a church.
It still bore a faded odor of sanctity, mingled, however, with a later
and slightly alcoholic breath of political discussion, the result of its
weekly occupation under the authority of the Board as a Tribune for the
enunciation of party principles and devotion to the Liberties of the
People. There were a few dog-eared hymn-books on the teacher's desk, and
the blackboard but imperfectly hid an impassioned appeal to the citizens
of Indian Spring to "Rally" for Stebbins as Supervisor. The master had
been struck with the size of the black type in which this placard
was printed, and with a shrewd perception of its value to the round
wandering eyes of his smaller pupils, allowed it to remain as a pleasing
example of orthography. Unfortunately, although subdivided and spelt by
them in its separate letters with painful and perfect accuracy, it was
collectively known as "Wally," and its general import productive of
vague hilarity.

Taking a large key from his pocket, the master