He looked at the master, and he seemed
different, too,--like a very good friend. Little Franz began to feel
strange himself. Just as he was thinking about it, he heard his name
called, and he stood up to recite.
It was the rule of participles.
Oh, what wouldn't he have given to be able to say it off from beginning to
end, exceptions and all, without a blunder! But he could only stand and
hang his head; he did not know a word of it. Then through the hot
pounding in his ears he heard the master's voice; it was quite gentle; not
at all the scolding voice he expected. And it said, "I'm not going to
punish you, little Franz. Perhaps you are punished enough. And you are not
alone in your fault. We all do the same thing,--we all put off our tasks
till to-morrow. And--sometimes--to-morrow never comes. That is what it has
been with us. We Alsatians have been always putting off our education till
the morrow; and now they have a right, those people down there, to say to
us, 'What! You call yourselves French, and cannot even read and write the
French language? Learn German, then!'"
And then the master spoke to them of the French language. He told them how
beautiful it was, how clear and musical and reasonable, and he said that
no people could be hopelessly conquered so long as it kept its language,
for the language was the key to its prison-house.
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