They scrambled to their feet and stood respectfully before him. Their downcast eyes peered at him half-anxious, half-wondering. For he was a strange person, the Maestro. Carnota had often told about him.
The first day he had come to school he had been very angry because, turning around upon the crash of a chart, upset by one of the boys in a sly antic, he had found all the index-fingers converging dutifully upon the abashed culprit.
He was very queer. He did not like the boys to tell on each other.
Every morning he made them go through violent movements with their arms, their legs, their bodies; and they were very tired, for the palay crop had failed and they had little in their stomachs.
But if he was queer at school, he was still more queer at home.
One Saturday afternoon, Carnota, peering with his brother into the Maestro's house, had retreated suddenly, very much awed and astonished.
For the Maestro, in his shirt sleeves, was insanely pounding away at a big, round ball that hung from the ceiling by a string. He hit and hit and hit, and the ball rebounded from his fist to the ceiling so fast that it sounded like the escribiente beating a bandillo upon his drum, only much louder.
