A Bloodsmoor Romance (36 page)

So the pedlar's son was rescued, and carried some thirty-five miles away, to a farming region north of Germantown, on the Granitehill River: which distance might have been a thousand miles from the village in which his father was tarred and feathered, for in those days the valleys had little to do with one another, and village looked with uninquisitive suspicion upon village. News spread slowly, if at all; the fact that a parentless young boy was taken in by a Dutch farm family near Germantown, was a fact of virtually no interest to anyone.

How
John Quincy came to be brought to the Van Dusens, and
why
the woman in the plum-colored cape rescued him, were not questions the boy asked himself at the time; nor did he exhibit much curiosity about the past, as the years unfolded. He quite readily adapted to his new family, discovering himself the youngest of five children, and as zealous as the oldest boy (some nine years his senior) when it came to work in the fields, and in and around the barns. He was so profoundly grateful for his having been rescued, and years on the road as a pedlar's son had so accustomed him to fortuities of all kinds, he demonstrated little surprise at his fate; and perhaps even his nights were dreamless—for he worked very hard, and took an evident satisfaction in his labor.

He never did inquire about the circumstances of his rescue. But over the years he pieced together the fairly simple explanation: the woman in the plum-colored cape and her husband had learned of the atrocity committed against his father, and against him; they had pitied him, and sought him out, and carried him off to the Van Dusens of Germantown—the woman being a cousin of Mrs. Van Dusen, and confident as to the family's Christian benevolence.

John Quincy did not torture himself with the questions—did his Van Dusen brothers and sisters know of his father's fate?—did they look upon him with pity?—for he pondered little upon the past, and resolutely turned his thoughts elsewhere. He was soon praised for his quick wits, the dexterity of his hands, and his sunny disposition. He loved books, and so was fondly teased for being a “scholar”; he loved to work with tools, repairing and improving upon farm implements, and so was teased for being a “tinkerer.” If his foster family seemed to him at times a dream-concoction, a bubble which malevolent daylight might pierce, it might have been the case that John Jay Zinn himself had been, to his son, something of a dream: and one was as readily accommodated as the other, in a child so young. If the boy suffered visions of a twisted, writhing body—if he saw again the hideous contorted face, blackened with tar, fluttering-white with feathers, splashed with bright red blood across the eyes—he gave no indication; his was a stalwart and forthrightly
physical
temperament, very much at home amongst the Van Dusens.

Thus, the dramatic rescue of little John Quincy; and the radical alteration of his life.

 

AS FOR THE
murdered John Jay—no doubt his body was simply dragged away and buried in an unmarked grave, and quickly forgotten. Not a word about him, not a whisper!—and surely no one in the village dared report the crime. Many convinced themselves, no doubt, that the Yankee pedlar, being what he was, deserved any fate that came his way; few indeed were those who believed he had not, however crudely, met with justice. Lest the reader think such persons barbarians, and not citizens of our rural America in those years, he is advised to look into the chronicles of local history if he will—and if he dare.

TWENTY-FOUR

A
n ineluctable course, or one guided wantonly by Chance? So the schoolmaster John Quincy Zinn must oft have pondered upon the mystery of his life, as he gazed over the bent heads of his twenty students; so he must have brooded, while vigorously sweeping the schoolhouse floor, and sawing and chopping firewood for the old Franklin stove, and making an heroic effort, every few days, to maintain the doubtful cleanliness of the outhouses, some distance behind the schoolhouse, on the bank of a narrow meandering stream.

That his Destiny was enigmatic, he could not doubt. That it
existed
—and lay shimmering before him—he dared not doubt. For was he not, by a fortuitous stroke, suddenly made schoolmaster of the Mouth-of-Lebanon common school?—the former schoolmaster, a young man not many years John Quincy's senior, having made an abrupt departure. (John Quincy had been hired for this position upon the enthusiastic recommendation of the Van Dusen family, and other families in the area, who knew and admired him as a “scholar,” yet did not doubt his capacity—evidenced by his husky shoulders and arms, and a certain quiet resoluteness in his face—to keep the larger and less disciplined boys in line.)

And so, from the age of eighteen to the age of twenty-five, John Quincy Zinn taught eight grades at the Mouth-of-Lebanon school, some twelve miles south of Germantown; and tho', in later years, he frequently alluded to his “schoolmaster days” with an air of fond regret, and wondered aloud whether Education, after all, should not have drawn the brunt of his considerable energy, it cannot be said—as the reader shall shortly learn—that John Quincy departed Mouth-of-Lebanon with much more reluctance, perhaps, than we might attribute to his predecessor, about whom so little was said save that he “failed to adjust himself” to the rigors of common school teaching in general, and Mouth-of-Lebanon in particular.

His greatest trial came, as one might expect, almost immediately upon his arrival at Mouth-of-Lebanon, for it was then that the older boys tested him, slyly gauging how far they might go in slouching in their desks at the rear of the room, crossing their long legs in the aisles, drawling or muttering answers when called upon, and neglecting to say “Sir”; and in bullying the younger children, some of whom were their own brothers and sisters. Buck, Homer, Carleton—these were the “big” boys, in fact quite tall, tho' only fourteen and fifteen years old: not truly rebellious, in John Quincy's opinion, and surely not bad, but naturally restive in their seats, and angered by the ease with which some lessons were learned by younger pupils. John Quincy saw, and pitied, the half-shamed bewilderment in Homer's face, when one of his younger sisters herself applied the answer for which he had been groping; and the class, tho' cautioned by their schoolmaster against such displays, burst into laughter. It was John Quincy's intention, from the very first, to spare the children the humiliation of
competition,
tho' naturally he had not worked out his thoughts, let alone any theory of education approaching the depth of the long report he would eventually compose, and mail off to the Supervisor of Public Education for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, so many miles away in the great city of Philadelphia. He knew only, and at once, with an emotion that caused tears to spring to his eyes, that
educating
might fairly be equated with
loving:
and that one could not succeed in educating, where one had failed to love.

 

(GRANTED, JOHN QUINCY
Zinn's physical stature, his sunny and reasonable manner, and a certain stolid implacability in his face, testified to authority. Perhaps it scarcely mattered, to most of his pupils, what words he uttered and wrote upon the blackboard in his large, careful hand: for they respected him, and feared him, and would not have dreamt of disobeying him; and, it may be, they “loved” him as well—for were not fear and love reversible, in Mr. Zinn's classroom? Granted all this, yet one must conclude, upon the evidence of those unfaulted successes John Quincy did enjoy, that he was as original and brilliant a pedagogue as Dr. Bayard later claimed. And that his precipitous flight from Mouth-of-Lebanon, in the seventh year of his employ, should not cast too shameful a shadow back upon those earlier and happier years.)

John Quincy Zinn's fastidious report,
Out of the Mouths of Babes: A Teacher's Day-Book,
which created such a stir in educational circles in Philadelphia, was surely authentic as to its details, but could not of course convey the e'er-shifting and e'er-changing complexity of the classroom—particularly not a classroom presided over by Mr. Zinn. For teaching of such quality was both a science and an art, and very much depended upon spontaneity. It hardly obliges me to point out how greatly the young schoolmaster's methods differed from those of the majority of his colleagues in the States, in those unenlightened years!—when pedagogical method involved recitation, rote memory, an unquestioning acceptance of all facts, and stupefying boredom; as well as an astonishing degree of corporeal punishment.

Miss Prudence Kidde­master, having acquired the document from her godfather Mr. Bayard, studied it with extreme interest, for she was, after all, a devoted teacher herself, and one who fully intended to make teaching her life's work, and never to marry. She read, then, young Mr. Zinn's report with more than routine concentration, rejoicing in his extraordinary attentiveness to his pupils—as if they were more than pupils, but fully formed
human beings.

Out of the mouths and hearts of mere babes,
John Quincy Zinn wrote,
a veritable fountain of wisdom!

The
Day-Book
conveyed a sense of the excitement of John Quincy's revolutionary teaching, but did not, Prudence felt, convey an adequate sense of
him.
(At this time they were not yet well acquainted, having conversed upon less than a half-dozen occasions.) And so, while reading and rereading the document, Prudence frequently closed her eyes in order to summon John Quincy to her: the ruddy, animated face with its scattering of freckles, and its curious birthmark; the staring, demanding, penetrating gaze; the deep resonant commanding voice. She wondered if it was Mr. Zinn's custom to stand, or to sit at his desk; she wondered if, restless as a caged lion, he paced about at the front of the classroom. And what sort of costume did he wear? Not the black preacher's coat, surely? And did he smile? And did he scold? And did he use the hickory cane
very
hard? (For John Quincy, despite his mild manner, did firmly believe that punishment of a sort was a natural accompaniment of affection, and an intrinsic part of education.)

In truth, John Quincy had rarely sat at his desk: he strolled about, up and down the aisles, hands in his pockets, elbows cheerfully akimbo—the most astonishing behavior, for a schoolmaster—and he ofttimes noted,
I should have loved to dance among them—nay, to dance with them.
Since all natural primary truths resided in the child's soul, John Quincy Zinn had only to draw them out, one by one, by judicious questioning.
What was God? Where was God? How did God love? How did God wish them to behave? When were they “good”? When were they “bad”? How could they best please God? Would God make the earth flat—or round? Would God make numbers come to an end—or go on forever?
The first-graders, who could barely hold a pen properly, and whose parents were largely illiterate, were encouraged to “write”—to make lines and squiggles and mock letters, exactly as if they were real; and, far from chiding them, or correcting them, John Quincy praised their messiest efforts, insisting that they must make a beginning, and any beginning at all was excellent. They must only plunge forward—they must not hesitate, or exhibit fear.
All effort in a child is creative,
he wrote;
and all creativity is good.

John Quincy's vanquished predecessor had insisted upon memorization and drill—drill after drill after drill, up and down the rows—against which the pupils had eventually rebelled; and so it quite amazed them, and delighted them, that the new schoolmaster
forbade
memorization, and would poke them lightly on the head, or squeeze their shoulders, if he suspected them to be quoting from memory and not thinking for themselves. Arithmetic became a lively game, with small prizes—pens, erasers, books—awarded to the best students, and to those who had shown the greatest improvement; spelling bees were so fraught with excitement, the younger children could barely contain themselves. Mr. Zinn recited poetry to them, and read from
The Pilgrim's Progress,
and one or two stories by Edgar Allan Poe which they liked immensely, without completely understanding. The children acted out scenes from
Macbeth
and
Julius Caesar,
the desks pulled about in a large circle. So engrossing were these “lessons” that, at recess and lunch hour, many of the pupils insisted upon continuing them, and even the older boys lingered at the back of the schoolroom as if not wanting to miss a thing.

How is the new schoolmaster working out? people were asked.

The children adore him, and they seem to be learning a great deal; so went the usual reply.

Had John Quincy continued, over the years, with these experimental, and yet not radical, pedagogical methods, he would perhaps have had a less turbulent career: it is quite likely that he would have settled down forever in Mouth-of-Lebanon, and married, and had his family, without even seeking promotion to a better school, in a wealthier district. But so restive was his mind, so insatiable his curiosity, he continued to experiment with his pupils, one season stressing manual skills and gymnastics (never before taught in any school, not even in the most radical Boston schools), the next season stressing natural history and drawing from nature. Geography involved mapmaking, of the very terrain over which the children customarily traveled; poetry involved the writing of poems, and their recitation before the class. Butterflies, frogs, and small creatures like mice and shrews were closely examined, without being killed. One spring, Mr. Zinn having fallen under the spell of Sylvester Graham's teachings, a good deal of time was spent on
human nourishment
—with the conclusion that vegetarianism and temperance were extolled, and “gross” pleasures of the palate condemned. So enamored were the pupils, boys and girls alike, of their handsome young schoolmaster, it was not uncommon for many of them to linger after school, or to return on Saturday, in order to help him with the schoolhouse chores, which, too, became lively games: sweeping and dusting and polishing, chopping and sawing wood, washing windows, mopping up the floor after a rainstorm (for naturally the roof leaked—the shingles were all rotted), tending the old stove and carrying out the ashes, even maintaining the outhouses. Girls sewed colorful curtains for the windows, boys helped paint the walls—bright, bold, sunny shades of gold and green. One of the older boys redesigned the hand-pump at the sink, for greater efficiency, under Mr. Zinn's coaching; and an ingenious revolving coatrack was built, and small hinged blackboards affixed to the individual desks, and a “mechanical hand” at the end of a long pole, for reaching up to the highest shelves.
How is the new schoolmaster working out?
went the query (for John Quincy Zinn was to be called “new” throughout his seven years in Mouth-of-Lebanon), but now the reply might be,
Well—the children like him. And they seem to be learning.