The sense of bafflement,
the futile effort, forced the perspiration to my hands and face--yet
something in the faces before me told me that it was no ill-will that
fought against me; it was the apathy of minds without the power or habit
of concentration, unable to follow a sequence of ideas any distance, and
rendered more restless by bodies which were probably uncomfortable,
certainly undisciplined.
The first story took ten minutes. When I began a second, a very short one,
the initial work had to be done all over again, for the slight comparative
quiet I had won had been totally lost in the resulting manifestation of
approval.
At the end of the second story, the room was really orderly to the
superficial view, but where I stood I could see the small boy who
deliberately made a hideous face at me each time my eyes met his, the two
girls who talked with their backs turned, the squirms of a figure here
and there. It seemed so disheartening a record of failure that I hesitated
much to yield to the uproarious request for a third story, but finally I
did begin again, on a very long story which for its own sake I wanted them
to hear.
This time the little audience settled to attention almost at the opening
words. After about five minutes I was suddenly conscious of a sense of
ease and relief, a familiar restful feeling in the atmosphere; and then,
at last, I knew that my audience was "with me," that they and I were
interacting without obstruction.
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