The Hoosier Schoolmaster

We rely on your support to help us keep producing beautiful, free, and unrestricted editions of literature for the digital age. Will you support our efforts with a donation ? Ralph Hartsook has taken a teaching job in Flat Creek. It's a rough assignment—the last few teachers quit after getting beat up, or "licked," by the stronger pupils. Ralph meets Bud Jones, one of the biggest and toughest pupils, who warns him how tough it'll be to keep the school in order, and Ralph quickly decides he'll have to win Bud over to his side. As events develop, Ralph notices Hannah, a young servant who is "bound" to the Jones family. Just as he starts to take a romantic interest, there's a midnight burglary. Circumstances—and some conniving by corrupt officials—cause suspicion to fall on Ralph, and he soon finds that he must enlist the aid of his friends to help uncover the real culprits. In this novel Eggleston makes heavy use of local dialect, because while there was already plenty of literature focused on the culture of the Eastern United States, he wanted to portray life in what were then called the "Western" states, today's Midwest. In a later edition he added footnotes, some long and descriptive, on the development of these rural speech patterns. Eggleston went on to write several more novels in this style. Edward Eggleston (died 1902) was a prominent voice of the late 19th and early 20th century. Their work has endured across generations and continues to be read and studied worldwide. As a work of classic literary fiction, The Hoosier Schoolmaster exemplifies the narrative craft and social insight that defined great storytelling of its era. Literary fiction of this period was characterized by careful attention to character psychology, social milieu, and the moral questions that animated public discourse.