THE LIBRARY · THE EASTERN HILLS

The Copybook Complaint

A peevish letter from an eastern-Vale hedge-schoolmaster to the parents of his pupils, begging them to stop the children scratching 'the same silly unfinished mark' on every slate, wall, and frozen puddle — a fad, he is sure, that one wicked clever child started and the rest have aped. He is wrong about where it started.

[a schoolmaster's circular letter, eastern steadings] Good folk of the upper steadings — I must ask your help with a nonsense that has taken the little ones. For a season now they will draw a certain figure — you will have seen it, scratched on the byre door, traced in the hearth-ash, gouged into the ice on the water-butt. A cornered sort of shape, all straight lines and angles, and always — this is the part they will not be argued out of — with one line left off, unfinished, though they draw the rest exact as a mason. Ask them what it is and they cannot say. Ask them who taught it and they blame each other. Tell them to stop and they weep and swear their hands do it while they think of other things. I have strapped young Sela Othrenni's slate away twice, for the others copy her worst of all, and I'll own the marks have a queer catching quality — I found the figure on my OWN wall this morning and cannot for my life say when I drew it. But it is a fad, no more, the sort of foolishness children pass round like a cough, and it will pass the same way if we are firm. Do not, I beg you, encourage the Soft Choir's soft talk of touched children and omens. It is chalk and idleness. Take the chalk away. — Master Bendrel, who would like his pupils to attend to their letters and not their scribbling

KIND

letter

AUTHOR

Master Bendrel, a hedge-schoolmaster of the eastern steadings

FOUND REGION

The Eastern Crags

REVEALS

that Athra's sign is surfacing in ordinary human children — the making leaking downhill — read wrongly as a fad

Connected

Sela, the Ringing ChildCHARACTER · [concerns] text.the-copybook-children → character.th…Athra, the Endless DesignCONCEPT · [concerns] text.the-copybook-children → concept.athr…

Type Fields

kindletter

authorMaster Bendrel, a hedge-schoolmaster of the eastern steadings

found_regionplace.the-eastern-crags

revealsthat Athra's sign is surfacing in ordinary human children — the making leaking downhill — read wrongly as a fad

referencescharacter.the-ringing-child, concept.athra-the-design, concept.the-fair-copy

All Relationships (2)

documents

→Sela, the Ringing Child — [concerns] text.the-copybook-children → character.the-ringing-child
→Athra, the Endless Design — [concerns] text.the-copybook-children → concept.athra-the-design

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