It was very strange! Somehow--everything
was very strange. The room looked queer. Everybody was sitting so still,
so straight--as if it were an exhibition day, or something very
particular. And the master--he looked strange, too; why, he had on his
fine lace jabot and his best coat, that he wore only on holidays, and his
gold snuff-box in his hand. Certainly it was very odd. Little Franz looked
all round, wondering. And there in the back of the room was the oddest
thing of all. There, on a bench, sat _visitors_. Visitors! He could not
make it out; people never came except on great occasions,--examination
days and such. And it was not a holiday. Yet there were the agent, the
old blacksmith, the farmer, sitting quiet and still. It was very, very
strange.
Just then the master stood up and opened school. He said, "My children,
this is the last time I shall ever teach you. The order has come from
Berlin that henceforth nothing but German shall be taught in the schools
of Alsace and Lorraine. This is your last lesson in French. I beg you, be
very attentive."
_His last lesson in French!_ Little Franz could not believe his ears; his
last lesson--ah, _that_ was what was on the bulletin-board! It flashed
across him in an instant. That was it! His last lesson in French--and he
scarcely knew how to read and write--why, then, he should never know how!
He looked down at his books, all battered and torn at the corners; and
suddenly his books seemed quite different to him, they
seemed--somehow--like friends.
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