As I passed the mayor's office, I saw that there were people gathered about the little board on which notices were posted. For two years all our bad news had come from that board—battles lost, conscriptions, orders from headquarters; and I thought without stopping:
"What can it be now?"
Then, as I ran across the square, Wachter the blacksmith, who stood there with his apprentice, reading the placard, called out to me:
"Don't hurry so, my boy; you'll get to your school soon enough!"
I thought that he was making fun of me, and I ran into Monsieur Hamel's little yard all out of breath.
Usually, at the beginning of school, there was a great uproar which could be heard in the street, desks opening and closing, lessons repeated aloud in unison, with our ears stuffed in order to learn quicker, and the teacher's stout ruler beating on the desk:
"A little more quiet!"
I counted on all this noise to reach my bench unnoticed; but as it happened, that day everything was quiet, like a Sunday morning.

License information: nan
MPAA: G
Go to source: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/the-last-class-the-story-of-a-little-alsatian