Our master was a barber. With his light hand, which was so clever at beautifying our copies with curlicue birds, he shaved the notabilities of the place: the mayor, the parish priest, the notary. Our master was a bell-ringer. A wedding or a christening interrupted the lessons; he had to ring a peal. A gathering storm gave us a holiday: the great bell must be tolled to ward off the lightning and the hail. Our master was a choir-singer. With his mighty voice he filled the church where he led the Magnificat at vespers. Our master wound up the village clock. This was his proudest function. Giving a glance at the sun, to ascertain the time more or less nearly, he would climb to the top of the steeple, open a huge cage of rafters, and find himself in a maze of wheels and springs whereof the secret was known to him alone. In this picture of the schoolmaster and the school we have lost sight for a time of our little Jean-Henri. What becomes of him? What does he do in such a school, under such a master? To begin with, no one takes a greater interest in the visits of hens and piglings, no one appreciates more keenly the delights of school in the open air. In the meanwhile, his love of plants and animals finds expression in all directions, even on the cover of his penny spelling-book: Embellished with a crude picture of a pigeon which I study and contemplate much more zealously than the A, B, C. Its round eye, with its circlet of dots, seems to smile upon me. Its wing, of which I count the feathers one by one, tells me of flights on high, among the beautiful clouds; it carries me to the beeches, raising their smooth trunks above a mossy carpet studded with white mushrooms that look like eggs dropped by some vagrant hen; it takes me to the snow-clad peaks where the birds leave the starry print of their red feet. He is a fine fellow, my pigeon-friend: he consoles me for the woes hidden behind the cover of my book. Thanks to him, I sit quietly on my bench and wait more or less till school is over. School out of doors has other charms. When the master takes us to kill the snails in the box borders, I do not always scrupulously fulfil my office as exterminator. My heel sometimes hesitates before coming down upon the handful which I have gathered. They are so pretty! Just think, there are yellow ones and pink, white ones and brown, all with dark spiral streaks. I fill my pockets with the handsomest so as to feast my eyes upon them at my leisure.