CHAPTER XXVIII.

TEACHING SCHOOL ON HOG ISLAND-ITS ADVANTAGES AND PLEASANT MEMORIES.

IF a census had been taken fifty years ago of the men who, unassisted, had successfully fought the battle of life, a large majority of them would have said that their first money was earned by teaching a district school. I have never happened to know one who did not remember his experiences as a teacher with pleasure, and as a very important part of his own education. To govern a school he had first to learn how to govern himself, and from the little men and women in whom he could not fail to become interested, he took his best lessons in the study of human nature. Teaching is less popular now, and the same necessity which existed in my boyhood is not so prevalent as it was then, and yet I should not hesitate to predict more successful lives for those who are teaching school this winter than for the more apparently fortunate ones who are devoting themselves to athletic or other sports on a liberal allowance from the fortunes of their ancestors.

An uncle who was a leading lawyer in Franklin County was kind enough not only to give me a place in his law office, but to take me into his family in the last half of my eighteenth year. He lived in the village of Swanton Falls, a community which, on account of its sympathy with the Canadians in the

Papineau rebellion and its resistance to the President's proclamation of neutrality, had acquired the name of "the Kingdom of Swanton."

Hog Island, a part of the township of Swanton, is a portion of land surrounded by the waters of Missisquoi Bay and River. Its divisions were the "North End" and the "South End." The "North End" comprised an extensive marsh, a part of which was covered with a first growth of pitch-pine and a very limited area of farming lands. It was inhabited by large families of the Honsingers, the Donaldsons, and the Carleys, great fishermen and mighty hunters of muskrats who disdained all such useless expenditures as for "skoolin," and no school had been maintained among them within the memory of man. The "South End," separated from the "mainland" by Maquam Bay, about two miles in width, was good agricultural land, occupied by a number of farmers, who were rough and unpolished, but good-hearted, excellent people with large families of children, for whose benefit they desired to maintain a school during the winter months of the year. The "North-enders" were litigious, and their numerous lawsuits before a justice of the peace against their neighbors of the "South End," which were defended by my uncle, had made me acquainted with most of the farmers on the southern part of the island.

One afternoon in November three of these farmers visited the office. I explained that my uncle was absent, when to my surprise they said that their business was with me. They were the "prudential committee," and wished to hire me to teach their district school. The term was three months; the master was to "board round," that is, he was to board with

each family in proportion to its number of pupils; the wages were to be twelve dollars per month or thirty-six dollars for the term. They said the school was a small one, there were only about twenty scholars, and the district had voted that twelve dollars a month was all they could afford to pay.

I explained that I had had no experience in teaching, but if they thought I would suit them I would accept their terms. I then asked them why they had waited until the last week in November before engaging their teacher, and was informed that two teachers had opened the school already that season, but both had left, one at the close of the second, the other of the fourth day. The fact was, they said, that the large boys were a "leetle bit onruly;" they had smoked out the first teacher by climbing on the roof of the school-house and stopping up the chimney with pieces of turf. The second teacher they had stood on his head in a snow-drift; he was dissatisfied and left. The previous winter they had entirely broken up the school. Now the committee had determined to have a school, and if I would take the place, one of the committee would come to the school and "help me lick any boy who undertook to cut up any monkey shines. The boys had all been licked at home by their fathers," he said, "but it didn't seem to do no good. If they were licked every day at school the deviltry could be licked out ov 'em." They were greatly surprised when I told them that I should decline the assistance of the committee, that I did not believe in "licking," and if I taught the school it would be without assistance and without flogging.

We closed the contract, but the committee were all despondent. They did not believe I could keep

the school a week unless the larger boys were "licked." One of them said that his own boy was about the worst of the lot-the very devil must be in him, for he had licked him until he was tired and it only seemed to make him worse.

Bright and early on the following Monday morning I was on hand. A roaring fire had warmed up the log school-house, and all the scholars were present to see the new master. The girls were bright and pleasant-faced, but four of the boys, each heavier and older than myself, looked very unpromising, and I saw at once that my trouble was to come from them.

I used the first two days in getting acquainted with my pupils, in pleasant conversation and dividing them into classes. For a day or two afterward all went smoothly. But on Thursday night one of the older girls said she wanted to speak to me after the school. After the other scholars had left, she told me that the boys had decided to send me home to Swanton the next (Friday) morning. Three of them were in the plot. One of the four said he liked the master; he believed he was "square" and he wouldn't try to drive him out. But he had agreed to stand neutral. Mart. Clark had undertaken alone to stand the master on his head in a snow-drift, and on the first trial the others were not to interfere. She had told them that she should tell the master; they had abused her and called her a tell-tale, and said they would never speak to her again. But she didn't care; she thought it was real mean, and so she had told me. She hoped I would get a club and beat out their brains if they touched me.

I was the proprietor of a walnut ruler, two feet long, and one of its edges was bevelled. It was

very heavy, and when in school I carried it constantly in my hand. The next morning the school was in a high state of expectation. It was nearly an hour before the champion appeared. He swaggered into the room to his place on one of the high seats which had a plank desk in front of it, and sat down with his cap on. I walked up to his seat and said in a pleasant tone, "Martin, take off your cap!"

"I shan't take off my cap for no Swanton Falls pettifogger!" was his emphatic reply.

A moment afterward his cap was sailing across the room, and still holding the ruler, I had seized his collar with both hands and drawn him out of his seat with such force that the bench in front was carried away and he sprawled over it on to the floor. He was on his feet in an instant and seized my collar with his right hand. His arm was extended, the large muscle strained to its utmost tension. That muscle I struck with the sharp edge of the ruler with all the force of my right arm. With a roar of pain like a wounded bull he relaxed his grasp and half fell to the floor.

"Goll darn ye! You have broke my arm!" he exclaimed, grasping the place where the blow fell, and limping about the room with a groan at every step. I let him groan for a short time, and then said:

"Your arm will feel better when it stops aching. Now I think you had better pick up your cap, go to your seat, and behave yourself. Don't you?"

He stood for a moment looking down upon the floor in a brown-study. Some idea seemed to be struggling into his mind. Then with the observation, "By Goll! I guess I had," he picked up his cap and went to his seat. I went on with my exercises. Soon