The Night-School and the Schoolmaster
- Time to get ourselves an education, Hayslope-style. After leaving the Hall Farm, Adam heads to the local schoolhouse, a place he knows like the back of his hand. Heck, he knew "the backs of all the books of the shelf running along the whitewashed wall above the pegs for the slates" (21.2).
- Meet Bartle Massey, Schoolteacher. He's hot-tempered, woman-hating, about as attractive as a garden gnome, and given to unexpected kindnesses.
- At this time of the night, Bartle is in charge of a class of borderline-illiterate workmen. Seated near the front are three students who barely know their ABCs, and who could each throw Bartle down the street with one hand. Yet they bring out the best in their teacher, "for such full-grown children as these were the only pupils for whom he had no severe epithets and no impatient tones" (21.8).
- But don't think this is going to last. Soon two other students—two teenagers learning accounts and calculation—approach Bartle's desk with their work. Shoddy work, if Bartle does say so himself. "Never come to me again," he orders them, "if you can't show that you've been working with your own heads, instead of thinking that you can pay for mine to work for you" (21.10). Oh, snap.
- The night school adjourns, Adam helps Bartle lock up, and the two adjourn to Bartle's living quarters.
- Bartle and Adam settle in, and a new character appears—Bartle's stocky little dog, Vixen. And with that, Insult Comic Bartle Massey exits and Full-Blown Misogynist Bartle enters. Hooray? Turns out Vixen is a pretty good straw man, or straw dog, or whatever. All she has to do is bark, and Bartle says something like "You're just like the rest o' the women—always putting in your word before you know why" (21.28).
- But Bartle does have important news to share. As it happens, the Donnithornes are trying to find somebody new to manage their woods. Some of our Hayslopians think Jonathan Burge (remember him? Adam's boss, whom we never see?) will get the job. But Bartle is convinced that Adam himself will be appointed. After all, "It's pretty well known who's the backbone of Jonathan Burge's business" (21.37). And no, it isn't Jonathan Burge.
- Adam, however, believes that the Donnithornes hold a grudge against him. He once built a "frame screen" for Lydia Donnithorne, they quarreled about the price, and the ill feelings are still there (21.40). So good luck with that, Adam.
- And now Bartle gets worked up again. He tells Adam not to be "overhasty and proud," and to accept unpleasantries in order to succeed (5.43).
- And then, oh-so-conveniently, it's time for Adam to leave. He departs, and Bartle looks off into the distance, proud that "there's plenty of these big, lumbering fellows p'ud have never known their ABC if it hadn't been for Bartle Massey" (21.49). He'll live to harangue Adam another day.