THE LAST LESSON

TOLD BY A LITTLE ALSATIAN

  
 

HAT morning I was very late
for school, and was terribly
afraid of being scolded, for
M. Hamel had said he intended
to examine us on the participles,
and I knew not a word about them.
The thought came into my head that
I would miss the class altogether, and
so off I went across the fields.

The weather was so hot and clear!

One could hear the blackbirds
whistling on the edge of the wood;
in Ripperts’s meadow, behind the saw-
yard, the Prussian soldiers were exer-
B