, lured by rumors of pleasant things, and
remained to imbibe learning with more or less avidity. There was an
absence of restraint about this novel school which appealed strongly to
the childish heart. The scholars were free to come and go as they
pleased, a privilege which, once established, they were not inclined to
take undue advantage of. They sat on the most amusing seats, improvised
from fallen tree trunks, or small wood-piles, or cocks of hay. They
called their teacher what they pleased: sometimes Simon, sometimes
Teacher, sometimes Mister! Bella Jones always said "Perfessor." They
studied from whatever book they liked best, each child bringing the
"Reader" or "Speller" he could most easily lay hands on. But they
learned more from Simon's books than from their own. That book of
William Shakespeare's stood easily first in their estimation, for when
the "perfessor" read from it, they somehow understood the story, in
spite of the hard words which, taken by themselves, seemed to mean
nothing at all.

If a ground squirrel scuttled across the clearing, no one was so quick
to observe him as the teacher himself, and before Fritz Meyer could
seize a stone to fire at the tame little chap, the young sportsman had
become so interested in something Simon was saying about its ways and
nature, that he forgot what he wanted of the stone.

"How do you spell squirrel?" asked a sharp-featured boy one day, as he
watched the twinkling eyes of one of the tiny creatures.

Simon drew his brows together over his mild eyes, with a mighty effort
at thinking.

"How do you spell squirrel?" he repeated. "How do you spell it? Well;
you begin with an _sk_, of course--and then there's a _w_.--I don't
know, Tim, but that's too hard a word to spell until you're growed up.
But I'll learn you to spell woodchuck! We used to go after woodchucks
when I was a youngster."

What boy could insist upon the spelling of a paltry little ground
squirrel, with beady eyes and nervous, inconsequent motions, when there
was talk of a woodchuck, lowering in his black hole, ready to fix his
sharp teeth in the nose of the first intruding terrier? If they learned
in after years that the spelling-books knew nought of a _k_ or a _w_ in
squirrel,--and some of them never did!--we may be very sure that it was
not Simon Amberley that fell in their estimation!

Sometimes Simon Jr. came to school, and there was a sudden, exhilarating
scramble in pursuit of his tail; now