When I had explained to the teacher that I was there to relieve him, he explained it to the boys, and they replied with the same unanimity and the same robustness of voice, “Yis, all ri’!” So he went away, leaving me in charge of the boiler factory.

It stays in my recollection as the most strenuous five hours’ labor I ever put in.  Only two personalities were impressive, those of the pupil teacher who aided me, and who has since graduated from the University of Michigan (agricultural department), and of a very small boy who had possessed himself of a wooden box, once the receptacle of forty-eight tins of condensed milk, which he used for a seat.  He carried the box with him when he went from one place to another, and more than one fight was generated by his plutocracy.  He also sang “Suwanee River” in a clear but sweet nasal voice, and was evidently regarded as the show pupil of the school.

The school was popular not only with boys but with goats.  Flocks of them wandered in, coming through the doors or jumping through the windows.  I soon found that Filipino children are more matter-of-fact than American children.  Nobody giggled when our four-footed friends came in, and until I gave an order to expel them their presence was accepted as a matter of course.  When I suggested putting them out, I found the Filipino youth ready enough at rough play.  The first charge nearly swept me off my feet, and turned the school into a pandemonium.  After that the goats were allowed to assist in the classes at their pleasure.

During the next three days, what with the labor of school and the fatigue of entertaining most of the population of Capiz during calling hours, I was almost worn out.  The Division Superintendent came back the latter part of the week, and the Presidente, or mayor, sent out, at his request, a bandillo to announce the opening of a girls’ school.

The bandillo corresponds to the colonial institution of the town crier.  It consists usually of three native police, armed with most ferocious-looking revolvers, and preceded by a temporary guest of municipal hospitality from the local calabozo.  This citizen, generally ragged and dirty and smoking a big cigar, is provided with a drum which he beats lustily.  The people flock to doors and windows, and the curious and the little boys and girls who are carrying their baby relations cross saddle on their hips, fall in behind as for a circus procession.  At every corner they stop, and the middle policeman reads the announcement aloud from a paper.  Then the march is taken up again by those who desire to continue, and the rest race back to their doorways to wag their tongues over the news.  The bandillo makes the rounds of the town and returns to the municipal hall whence it started.  The prisoner goes back to jail, the police lay aside their bloodthirsty revolvers, and such is the rapidity with which news flies in the Philippines that, in a little more than twenty-four hours, the essentials of the bandillo may be known all over the province.