tumble about. I am sure I pity a cripple as much as any one
can, but children have rights that even cripples should be made to
respect, and no man or woman has a right in the schoolroom merely from
the fact of physical inability to work at some more muscular calling.
I know there are many most excellent teachers who are bodily maimed,
and whose misfortune seems to enhance their devotion to their
profession and their success therein, but there are a multitude besides
who are in the school room solely because they are the victims of
misfortune, and for them there is little excuse to be made. Amos
Waughops was a factor in the evolution of "Dodd" Weaver, and his like
are found by the quantity in the rural schools of this and other
States. We have had enough of them.

It is all right for us to be kind and charitable to unfortunate people,
but let us be careful whose money and means we are charitable with.
When the State took charge of the schools it removed them from the
realm of charitable institutions, though some people are very unwilling
to acknowledge the fact, and it is a very common thing for the public
funds to be still used indirectly for charitable purposes. They are so
used on fellows like Amos Waughops and his cognates of the other sex.
It is an abomination.

CHAPTER VII.

The white drifts of winter grew gray and then turned black under the
March sun that melted them down and drained off their soluble parts,
leaving only a residuum of mud along fences and hedges where, a few
days before had been shapely piles of snow. April came with its
deluges of rain that washed the earth clean and carried off the
riffraff of the previous season, making ready for another and more
bountiful harvest. What a thrifty housekeeper nature is!

"Dodd" still stayed away from school, and through slush and mud and
drenching rain worked like a little man. The fact is, he had secretly
made up his mind never to go to school again, a conclusion that it is
no particular wonder he had reached after his experience with Amos
Waughops, as just chronicled. He observed that his ready work met the
approval of both of his parents and grandparents, and he quietly hoped
that they would let him alone and permit him to stay out of school so
long as he continued to make himself useful on the farm.

He said nothing about this, however. His training had not been such as
to inspire confidence between himself and his parents, and already h