went to his reward, there was no more genuine mourner that
stood about his grave than the hero of these adventures.

Quarrel with the theory of corporal punishment as much as you choose,
beloved, but when you get a case like "Dodd's," do as well by it as
grandpa Stebbins did by him--if you can.

CHAPTER VI.

The "Fall School" in "deestrick" number four had been in session for
more than a month when the Weavers moved into the country and came
within its jurisdiction. Preparations were at once made to increase
its numbers, if not its graces, to a very perceptible extent, from out
of the bosom of the Weaver homestead; for, as the youngest twins were
now "five past," they were held by the inexorable logic of rural
argumentation to be "in their sixth year," and so to come within the
age limit of the school law, and entitled to go to school and draw
public money.

Besides, "Old Man Stebbins owns nigh onter six eighties in the
deestrick, an' pays more school tax nor ary other man in Dundas
township, an' it hain't no more nor fair 'at ef he wants to send the
hull family, he orter be 'lowed ter, coz he hain't sent no one ter
school fur more 'n ten year, only one winter, when Si Hodges done
chores fer him fer his board, an' went ter school," explained old Uncle
Billy Wetzel to a company of objecting neighbors, as they all stood
together by a hitching post in front of the church, waiting for
"meetin' to take up," whittling and discussing local affairs meantime.

So the five young Weavers, headed by "Dodd," became members of the
"fall school in deestrick four, Dundas township," and were marched off
for the day, five times a week, with dinner for the crowd in a wooden
dinner pail, which was the special care of twins number one.

This laxity regarding twins number two would have been rebuked in a
city where there is a superintendent kept on purpose to head off such
midgets as these, who creep in under the legislative gates that guard
the entrance to the road to learning, but no such potentate held sway
in Dundas township, so the little bow-legged pair went to school
unmolested and began, thus early, the heavy task of climbing the hill
of knowledge, starting on their hands and knees.

Is it, or is it not, better so?

Amos Waughops (pronounced Wops, but spelled W-a-u-g-h-o-p-s, such is
the tyranny laid upon us by those who invented the spelling of proper
names, and who have upon their invention the never-expiring paten