University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
MR. BERNARD TRIES HIS HAND.

Whether the Student advertised for a school,
or whether he fell in with the advertisement of a
school-committee, is not certain. At any rate, it
was not long before he found himself the head of
a large district, or, as it was called by the inhabitants,
“deestric” school, in the flourishing inland
village of Pequawkett, or, as it is commonly
spelt, Pigwacket Centre. The natives of this
place would be surprised, if they should hear
that any of the readers of a work published in
Boston were unacquainted with so remarkable a
locality. As, however, some copies of it may be
read at a distance from this distinguished metropolis,
it may be well to give a few particulars
respecting the place, taken from the Universal
Gazetteer.

The reader may think there is nothing very
remarkable implied in this description. If, however,
he had read the town-history, by the Rev.
Jabez Grubb, he would have learned, that, like
the celebrated Little Pedlington, it was distinguished
by many very remarkable advantages.
Thus: —

That is the way they all talk. After all, it is
probably pretty much like other inland New England
towns in point of “salubrity,” — that is, gives
people their choice of dysentery or fever every autumn,

with a season-ticket for consumption, good
all the year round. And so of the other pretences.
“Pigwacket audience,” forsooth! Was there ever
an audience anywhere, though there wasn't a pair
of eyes in it brighter than pickled oysters, that
didn't think it was “distinguished for intelligence”?
— “The preachèd word”! That means
the Rev. Jabez Grubb's sermons. “Temperance
society”! “Excellent schools”! Ah, that is just
what we were talking about.

The truth was, that District No. 1, Pigwacket
Centre, had had a good deal of trouble of late
with its schoolmasters. The committee had done
their best, but there were a number of well-grown
and pretty rough young fellows who had got the
upperhand of the masters, and meant to keep it.
Two dynasties had fallen before the uprising of
this fierce democracy. This was a thing that
used to be not very uncommon; but in so “intelligent”
a community as that of Pigwacket
Centre, in an era of public libraries and lyceum-lectures,
it was portentous and alarming.

The rebellion began under the ferule of Master
Weeks, a slender youth from a country college,
under-fed, thin-blooded, sloping-shouldered,
knock-kneed, straight-haired, weak-bearded, pale-eyed,
wide-pupilled, half-colored; a common type
enough in in-door races, not rich enough to pick
and choose in their alliances. Nature kills off a
good many of this sort in the first teething-time,
a few in later childhood, a good many again in

early adolescence; but every now and then one
runs the gauntlet of her various diseases, or rather
forms of one disease, and grows up, as Master
Weeks had done.

It was a very foolish thing for him to try to inflict
personal punishment on such a lusty young
fellow as Abner Briggs, Junior, one of the “hardest
customers” in the way of a rough-and-tumble
fight that there were anywhere round. No doubt
he had been insolent, but it would have been better
to overlook it. It pains me to report the events
which took place when the master made his rash
attempt to maintain his authority. Abner Briggs,
Junior, was a great, hulking fellow, who had been
bred to butchering, but urged by his parents to
attend school, in order to learn the elegant accomplishments
of reading and writing, in which he
was sadly deficient. He was in the habit of talking
and laughing pretty loud in school-hours, of
throwing wads of paper reduced to a pulp by a
natural and easy process, of occasional insolence
and general negligence. One of the soft, but unpleasant
missiles just alluded to, flew by the master's
head one morning, and flattened itself against
the wall, where it adhered in the form of a convex
mass in alto rilievo. The master looked round
and saw the young butcher's arm in an attitude
which pointed to it unequivocally as the source
from which the projectile had taken its flight.

Master Weeks turned pale. He must “lick”
Abner Briggs, Junior, or abdicate. So he determined
to lick Abner Briggs, Junior.

“Come here, Sir!” he said; “you have insulted
me and outraged the decency of the school-room
often enough! Hold out your hand!”

The young fellow grinned and held it out.
The master struck at it with his black ruler, with
a will in the blow and a snapping of the eyes, as
much as to say that he meant to make him smart
this time. The young fellow pulled his hand
back as the ruler came down, and the master hit
himself a vicious blow with it on the right knee.
There are things no man can stand. The master
caught the refractory youth by the collar and
began shaking him, or rather shaking himself
against him.

“Le' go o' that are cät, naow,” said the fellow,
“or I 'll make ye! 'T 'll take tew on ye t' handle
me, I tell ye, 'n' then ye caänt dew it!” — and the
young pupil returned the master's attention by
catching hold of his collar.

When it comes to that, the best man, not exactly
in the moral sense, but rather in the material,
and more especially the muscular point of
view, is very apt to have the best of it, irrespectively
of the merits of the case. So it happened
now. The unfortunate schoolmaster found himself
taking the measure of the sanded floor, amidst
the general uproar of the school. From that moment
his ferule was broken, and the school-committee
very soon had a vacancy to fill.

Master Pigeon, the successor of Master Weeks,
was of better stature, but loosely put together,

and slender-limbed. A dreadfully nervous kind
of man he was, walked on tiptoe, started at sudden
noises, was distressed when he heard a whisper,
had a quick, suspicious look, and was always
saying, “Hush!” and putting his hands to his
ears. The boys were not long in finding out
this nervous weakness, of course. In less than
a week a regular system of torments was inaugurated,
full of the most diabolical malice and
ingenuity. The exercises of the conspirators
varied from day to day, but consisted mainly of
foot-scraping, solos on the slate-pencil, (making it
screech on the slate,) falling of heavy books, attacks
of coughing, banging of desk-lids, boot-creaking,
with sounds as of drawing a cork from
time to time, followed by suppressed chuckles.

Master Pigeon grew worse and worse under
these inflictions. The rascally boys always had
an excuse for any one trick they were caught at.
“Couldn' help coughin', Sir.” “Slipped out o'
m' han', Sir.” “Didn' go to, Sir.” “Didn' dew 't
o' purpose, Sir.” And so on, — always the best
of reasons for the most outrageous of behavior.
The master weighed himself at the grocer's on a
platform balance, some ten days after he began
keeping the school. At the end of a week he
weighed himself again. He had lost two pounds.
At the end of another week he had lost five. He
made a little calculation, based on these data,
from which he learned that in a certain number
of months, going on at this rate, he should come

to weigh precisely nothing at all; and as this
was a sum in subtraction he did not care to
work out in practice, Master Pigeon took to himself
wings and left the school-committee in possession
of a letter of resignation and a vacant
place to fill once more.

This was the school to which Mr. Bernard
Langdon found himself appointed as master.
He accepted the place conditionally, with the
understanding that he should leave it at the end
of a month, if he were tired of it.

The advent of Master Langdon to Pigwacket
Centre created a much more lively sensation than
had attended that of either of his predecessors.
Looks go a good way all the world over, and
though there were several good-looking people
in the place, and Major Bush was what the natives
of the town called a “hahnsome mahn,”
that is, big, fat, and red, yet the sight of a really
elegant young fellow, with the natural air which
grows up with carefully-bred young persons, was
a novelty. The Brahmin blood which came from
his grandfather as well as from his mother, a direct
descendant of the old Flynt family, well
known by the famous tutor, Henry Flynt, (see
Cat. Harv. Anno 1693,) had been enlivened and
enriched by that of the Wentworths, which had
had a good deal of ripe old Madeira and other
generous elements mingled with it, so that it ran
to gout sometimes in the old folks, and to high
spirit, warm complexion, and curly hair in some

of the younger ones. The soft curling hair Mr.
Bernard had inherited, — something, perhaps, of
the high spirit; but that we shall have a chance
of finding out by-and-by. But the long sermons
and the frugal board of his Brahmin ancestry,
with his own habits of study, had told upon his
color, which was subdued to something more of
delicacy than one would care to see in a young
fellow with rough work before him. This, however,
made him look more interesting, or, as the
young ladies at Major Bush's said, “interéstin'.”

When Mr. Bernard showed himself at meeting,
on the first Sunday after his arrival, it may
be supposed that a good many eyes were turned
upon the young schoolmaster. There was something
heroic in his coming forward so readily to
take a place which called for a strong hand, and
a prompt, steady will to guide it. In fact, his
position was that of a military chieftain on the
eve of a battle. Everybody knew everything in
Pigwacket Centre; and it was an understood
thing that the young rebels meant to put down
the new master, if they could. It was natural
that the two prettiest girls in the village, called
in the local dialect, as nearly as our limited alphabet
will represent it, Alminy Cutterr, and Arvilly
Braowne, should feel and express an interest
in the good-looking stranger, and that, when their
flattering comments were repeated in the hearing
of their indigenous admirers, among whom
were some of the older “boys” of the school, it

should not add to the amiable dispositions of the
turbulent youth.

Monday came, and the new schoolmaster was
in his chair at the upper end of the schoolhouse,
on the raised platform. The rustics looked at
his handsome face, thoughtful, peaceful, pleasant,
cheerful, but sharply cut round the lips and
proudly lighted about the eyes. The ringleader
of the mischief-makers, the young butcher who
has before figured in this narrative, looked at him
stealthily, whenever he got a chance to study
him unobserved; for the truth was, he felt uncomfortable,
whenever he found the large, dark eyes
fixed on his own little, sharp, deep-set, gray ones.
But he managed to study him pretty well, — first
his face, then his neck and shoulders, the set of
his arms, the narrowing at the loins, the make of
his legs, and the way he moved. In short, he examined
him as he would have examined a steer,
to see what he could do and how he would cut
up. If he could only have gone to him and felt
of his muscles, he would have been entirely satisfied.
He was not a very wise youth, but he did
know well enough, that, though big arms and
legs are very good things, there is something besides
size that goes to make a man; and he had
heard stories of a fighting-man, called “The
Spider,” from his attenuated proportions, who
was yet a terrible hitter in the ring, and had
whipped many a big-limbed fellow, in and out of
the roped arena.

Nothing could be smoother than the way in
which everything went on for the first day or
two. The new master was so kind and courteous,
he seemed to take everything in such a
natural, easy way, that there was no chance to
pick a quarrel with him. He in the mean time
thought it best to watch the boys and young men
for a day or two with as little show of authority
as possible. It was easy enough to see that he
would have occasion for it before long.

The schoolhouse was a grim, old, red, one-story
building, perched on a bare rock at the top
of a hill, — partly because this was a conspicuous
site for the temple of learning, and partly
because land is cheap where there is no chance
even for rye or buckwheat, and the very sheep
find nothing to nibble. About the little porch
were carved initials and dates, at various heights,
from the stature of nine to that of eighteen. Inside
were old unpainted desks, — unpainted, but
browned with the umber of human contact, —
and hacked by innumerable jack-knives. It was
long since the walls had been whitewashed, as
might be conjectured by the various traces left
upon them, wherever idle hands or sleepy heads
could reach them. A curious appearance was
noticeable on various higher parts of the wall,
namely, a wart-like eruption, as one would be
tempted to call it, being in reality a crop of the
soft missiles before mentioned, which, adhering in
considerable numbers, and hardening after the

usual fashion of papier maché, formed at last permanent
ornaments of the edifice.

The young master's quick eye soon noticed
that a particular part of the wall was most favored
with these ornamental appendages. Their
position pointed sufficiently clearly to the part of
the room they came from. In fact, there was a
nest of young mutineers just there, which must
be broken up by a coup d'état. This was easily
effected by redistributing the seats and arranging
the scholars according to classes, so that a mischievous
fellow, charged full of the rebellious
imponderable, should find himself between two
non-conductors, in the shape of small boys of
studious habits. It was managed quietly enough,
in such a plausible sort of way that its motive
was not thought of. But its effects were soon
felt; and then began a system of correspondence
by signs, and the throwing of little scrawls done
up in pellets, and announced by preliminary
a'h'ms! to call the attention of the distant youth
addressed. Some of these were incendiary documents,
devoting the schoolmaster to the lower
divinities, as “a — stuck-up dandy,” as “a —
purse-proud aristocrat,” as “a — sight too big
for his, etc.,” and holding him up in a variety of
equally forcible phrases to the indignation of the
youthful community of School District No. 1,
Pigwacket Centre.

Presently the draughtsman of the school set
a caricature in circulation, labelled, to prevent

mistakes, with the schoolmaster's name. An
immense bell-crowned hat, and a long, pointed,
swallow-tailed coat showed that the artist had
in his mind the conventional dandy, as shown in
prints of thirty or forty years ago, rather than
any actual human aspect of the time. But it
was passed round among the boys and made its
laugh, helping of course to undermine the master's
authority, as “Punch” or the “Charivari”
takes the dignity out of an obnoxious minister.
One morning, on going to the schoolroom, Master
Langdon found an enlarged copy of this
sketch, with its label, pinned on the door. He
took it down, smiled a little, put it into his
pocket, and entered the schoolroom. An insidious
silence prevailed, which looked as if some
plot were brewing. The boys were ripe for mischief,
but afraid. They had really no fault to
find with the master, except that he was dressed
like a gentleman, which a certain class of fellows
always consider a personal insult to themselves.
But the older ones were evidently plotting, and
more than once the warning a'h'm! was heard,
and a dirty little scrap of paper rolled into a wad
shot from one seat to another. One of these
happened to strike the stove-funnel, and lodged
on the master's desk. He was cool enough not
to seem to notice it. He secured it, however,
and found an opportunity to look at it, without
being observed by the boys. It required no immediate
notice.

He who should have enjoyed the privilege of
looking upon Mr. Bernard Langdon the next
morning, when his toilet was about half finished,
would have had a very pleasant gratuitous exhibition.
First he buckled the strap of his trousers
pretty tightly. Then he took up a pair of heavy
dumb-bells, and swung them for a few minutes;
then two great “Indian clubs,” with which he enacted
all sorts of impossible-looking feats. His
limbs were not very large, nor his shoulders remarkably
broad; but if you knew as much of
the muscles as all persons who look at statues
and pictures with a critical eye ought to have
learned, — if you knew the trapezius, lying diamond-shaped
over the back and shoulders like
a monk's cowl, — or the deltoid, which caps the
shoulder like an epaulette, — or the triceps, which
furnishes the calf of the upper arm, — or the hard-knotted
biceps, — any of the great sculptural landmarks,
in fact, — you would have said there was
a pretty show of them, beneath the white satiny
skin of Mr. Bernard Langdon. And if you had
seen him, when he had laid down the Indian
clubs, catch hold of a leather strap that hung
from the beam of the old-fashioned ceiling, and
lift and lower himself over and over again by his
left hand alone, you might have thought it a very
simple and easy thing to do, until you tried to do
it yourself. — Mr. Bernard looked at himself with
the eye of an expert. “Pretty well!” he said;
— “not so much fallen off as I expected.” Then

he set up his bolster in a very knowing sort of
way, and delivered two or three blows straight
as rulers and swift as winks. “That will do,”
he said. Then, as if determined to make a certainty
of his condition, he took a dynamometer
from one of the drawers in his old veneered
bureau. First he squeezed it with his two hands.
Then he placed it on the floor and lifted, steadily,
strongly. The springs creaked and cracked; the
index swept with a great stride far up into the
high figures of the scale; it was a good lift.
He was satisfied. He sat down on the edge of
his bed and looked at his cleanly-shaped arms.
“If I strike one of those boobies, I am afraid I
shall spoil him,” he said. Yet this young man,
when weighed with his class at the college,
could barely turn one hundred and forty-two
pounds in the scale, — not a heavy weight,
surely; but some of the middle weights, as the
present English champion, for instance, seem to
be of a far finer quality of muscle than the bulkier
fellows.

The master took his breakfast with a good
appetite that morning, but was perhaps rather
more quiet than usual. After breakfast he went
up-stairs and put on a light loose frock, instead
of his usual dress-coat, which was a close-fitting
and rather stylish one. On his way to school
he met Alminy Cutterr, who happened to be
walking in the other direction. “Good morning,
Miss Cutter,” he said; for she and another

young lady had been introduced to him, on a
former occasion, in the usual phrase of polite society
in presenting ladies to gentlemen, — “Mr.
Langdon, let me make y' acquainted with Miss
Cutterr; — let me make y' acquainted with Miss
Braowne.” So he said, “Good morning”; to
which she replied, “Good mornin', Mr. Langdon.
Haow's your haälth?” The answer to
this question ought naturally to have been the
end of the talk; but Alminy Cutterr lingered
and looked as if she had something more on
her mind.

A young fellow does not require a great experience
to read a simple country-girl's face as
if it were a signboard. Alminy was a good soul,
with red cheeks and bright eyes, kind-hearted as
she could be, and it was out of the question for
her to hide her thoughts or feelings like a fine
lady. Her bright eyes were moist and her red
cheeks paler than their wont, as she said, with
her lips quivering, — “Oh, Mr. Langdon, them
boys 'll be the death of ye, if ye don't take
caär!”

“Why, what's the matter, my dear?” said Mr.
Bernard. — Don't think there was anything very
odd in that “my dear,” at the second interview
with a village belle; — some of these woman-tamers
call a girl “My dear,” after five minutes'
acquaintance, and it sounds all right as they say
it. But you had better not try it at a venture.

It sounded all right to Alminy, as Mr. Bernard

said it. — “I 'll tell ye what's the mahtterr,” she
said, in a frightened voice. “Ahbner's go'n' to
car' his dog, 'n' he 'll set him on ye 'z sure 'z y' 'r'
alive. 'T 's the same cretur that haäf ēat up
Eben Squires's little Jo, a year come nex' Faästday.”

Now this last statement was undoubtedly over-colored;
as little Jo Squires was running about
the village, — with an ugly scar on his arm, it is
true, where the beast had caught him with his
teeth, on the occasion of the child's taking liberties
with him, as he had been accustomed to do
with a good-tempered Newfoundland dog, who
seemed to like being pulled and hauled round by
children. After this the creature was commonly
muzzled, and, as he was fed on raw meat chiefly,
was always ready for a fight, — which he was
occasionally indulged in, when anything stout
enough to match him could be found in any of
the neighboring villages.

Tiger, or, more briefly, Tige, the property of
Abner Briggs, Junior, belonged to a species not
distinctly named in scientific books, but well
known to our country-folks under the name
“Yallah dog.” They do not use this expression
as they would say black dog or white dog,
but with almost as definite a meaning as when
they speak of a terrier or a spaniel. A “yallah
dog,” is a large canine brute, of a dingy old-flannel
color, of no particular breed except his
own, who hangs round a tavern or a butcher's

shop, or trots alongside of a team, looking as if
he were disgusted with the world, and the world
with him. Our inland population, while they
tolerate him, speak of him with contempt. Old
—, of Meredith Bridge, used to twit the sun
for not shining on cloudy days, swearing, that,
if he hung up his “yallah dog,” he would make
a better show of daylight. A country fellow,
abusing a horse of his neighbor's, vowed, that,
“if he had such a hoss, he'd swap him for a
`yallah dog,' — and then shoot the dog.”

Tige was an ill-conditioned brute by nature,
and art had not improved him by cropping his
ears and tail and investing him with a spiked
collar. He bore on his person, also, various not
ornamental scars, marks of old battles; for Tige
had fight in him, as was said before, and as might
be guessed by a certain bluntness about the muzzle,
with a projection of the lower jaw, which
looked as if there might be a bull-dog stripe
among the numerous bar-sinisters of his lineage.

It was hardly fair, however, to leave Alminy
Cutterr waiting while this piece of natural history
was telling. — As she spoke of little Jo, who
had been “haäf ēat up” by Tige, she could not
contain her sympathies, and began to cry.

“Why, my dear little soul,” said Mr. Bernard,
“what are you worried about? I used to play
with a bear when I was a boy; and the bear
used to hug me, and I used to kiss him, —
so!”

It was too bad of Mr. Bernard, only the second
time he had seen Alminy; but her kind feelings
had touched him, and that seemed the most natural
way of expressing his gratitude. Alminy
looked round to see if anybody was near; she
saw nobody, so of course it would do no good
to “holler.” She saw nobody; but a stout young
fellow, leading a yellow dog, muzzled, saw her
through a crack in a picket fence, not a great
way off the road. Many a year he had been
“hangin' 'raoun'” Alminy, and never did he see
any encouraging look, or hear any “Behave,
naow!” or “Come, naow, a'n't ye 'shamed?”
or other forbidding phrase of acquiescence, such
as village belles understand as well as ever did
the nymph who fled to the willows in the eclogue
we all remember.

No wonder he was furious, when he saw the
schoolmaster, who had never seen the girl until
within a week, touching with his lips those rosy
cheeks which he had never dared to approach.
But that was all; it was a sudden impulse; and
the master turned away from the young girl,
laughing, and telling her not to fret herself about
him, — he would take care of himself.

So Master Langdon walked on toward his
schoolhouse, not displeased, perhaps, with his little
adventure, nor immensely elated by it; for he
was one of the natural class of the sex-subduers,
and had had many a smile without asking, which
had been denied to the feeble youth who try to

win favor by pleading their passion in rhyme, and
even to the more formidable approaches of young
officers in volunteer companies, considered by
many to be quite irresistible to the fair who
have once beheld them from their windows in the
epaulettes and plumes and sashes of the “Pigwacket
Invincibles,” or the “Hackmatack Rangers.”

Master Langdon took his seat and began the
exercises of his school. The smaller boys recited
their lessons well enough, but some of the larger
ones were negligent and surly. He noticed one
or two of them looking toward the door, as if expecting
somebody or something in that direction.
At half past nine o'clock, Abner Briggs, Junior,
who had not yet shown himself, made his appearance.
He was followed by his “yallah dog,”
without his muzzle, who squatted down very
grimly near the door, and gave a wolfish look
round the room, as if he were considering which
was the plumpest boy to begin with. The young
butcher, meanwhile, went to his seat, looking
somewhat flushed, except round the lips, which
were hardly as red as common, and set pretty
sharply.

“Put out that dog, Abner Briggs!” — The
master spoke as the captain speaks to the helmsman,
when there are rocks foaming at the lips,
right under his lee.

Abner Briggs answered as the helmsman answers,
when he knows he has a mutinous crew

round him that mean to run the ship on the reef,
and is one of the mutineers himself. “Put him
aout y'rself, 'f ye a'n't afeard on him!”

The master stepped into the aisle. The great
cur showed his teeth, — and the devilish instincts
of his old wolf-ancestry looked out of his eyes,
and flashed from his sharp tusks, and yawned in
his wide mouth and deep red gullet.

The movements of animals are so much quicker
than those of human beings commonly are, that
they avoid blows as easily as one of us steps out
of the way of an ox-cart. It must be a very stupid
dog that lets himself be run over by a fast
driver in his gig; he can jump out of the wheel's
way after the tire has already touched him. So,
while one is lifting a stick to strike or drawing
back his foot to kick, the beast makes his spring,
and the blow or the kick comes too late.

It was not so this time. The master was a
fencer, and something of a boxer; he had played
at single-stick, and was used to watching an adversary's
eye and coming down on him without
any of those premonitory symptoms by which
unpractised persons show long beforehand what
mischief they meditate.

“Out with you!” he said, fiercely, — and explained
what he meant by a sudden flash of his
foot that clashed the yellow dog's white teeth together
like the springing of a bear-trap. The cur
knew he had found his master at the first word
and glance, as low animals on four legs, or a

smaller number, always do; and the blow took
him so by surprise, that it curled him up in an
instant, and he went bundling out of the open
schoolhouse-door with a most pitiable yelp, and
his stump of a tail shut down as close as his
owner ever shut the short, stubbed blade of his
jack-knife.

It was time for the other cur to find who his
master was.

“Follow your dog, Abner Briggs!” said Master
Langdon.

The stout butcher-youth looked round, but the
rebels were all cowed and sat still.

“I'll go when I'm ready,” he said, — “'n' I
guess I won't go afore I'm ready.”

“You're ready now,” said Master Langdon,
turning up his cuffs so that the little boys noticed
the yellow gleam of a pair of gold sleeve-buttons,
once worn by Colonel Percy Wentworth, famous
in the Old French War.

Abner Briggs, Junior, did not apparently think
he was ready, at any rate; for he rose up in his
place, and stood with clenched fists, defiant, as
the master strode towards him. The master
knew the fellow was really frightened, for all his
looks, and that he must have no time to rally.
So he caught him suddenly by the collar, and,
with one great pull, had him out over his desk
and on the open floor. He gave him a sharp
fling backwards and stood looking at him.

The rough-and-tumble fighters all clinch, as

everybody knows; and Abner Briggs, Junior, was
one of that kind. He remembered how he had
floored Master Weeks, and he had just “spunk”
enough left in him to try to repeat his former
successful experiment on the new master. He
sprang at him, open-handed, to clutch him. So
the master had to strike, — once, but very hard,
and just in the place to tell. No doubt, the authority
that doth hedge a schoolmaster added to
the effect of the blow; but the blow was itself a
neat one, and did not require to be repeated.

“Now go home,” said the master, “and don't
let me see you or your dog here again.” And he
turned his cuffs down over the gold sleeve-buttons.

This finished the great Pigwacket Centre School
rebellion. What could be done with a master
who was so pleasant as long as the boys behaved
decently, and such a terrible fellow when he got
“riled,” as they called it? In a week's time,
everything was reduced to order, and the school-committee
were delighted. The master, however,
had received a proposition so much more agreeable
and advantageous, that he informed the committee
he should leave at the end of his month,
having in his eye a sensible and energetic young
college-graduate who would be willing and fully
competent to take his place.

So, at the expiration of the appointed time,
Bernard Langdon, late master of the School District
No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, took his departure

from that place for another locality, whither we
shall follow him, carrying with him the regrets
of the committee, of most of the scholars, and
of several young ladies; also two locks of hair,
sent unbeknown to payrents, one dark and one
warmish auburn, inscribed with the respective initials
of Alminy Cutterr and Arvilly Braowne.