young fellow might have come to; and now I
have let him go off into the country with my certificate, that he is fit
to teach in a school for either sex! Ten to one he will run like a moth
into a candle, right into one of those girls'-nests, and get tangled up
in some sentimental folly or other, and there will be the end of him.
Oh, yes! country doctor,--half a dollar a visit,--drive, drive, drive
all day,--get up at night and harness your own horse,--drive again
ten miles in a snow-storm, shake powders out of two phials, (pulv.
glycyrrhiz., pulv. gum. acac. as partes equates,)--drive back again,
if you don't happen to get stuck in a drift, no home, no peace, no
continuous meals, no unbroken sleep, no Sunday, no holiday, no social
intercourse, but one eternal jog, jog, jog, in a sulky, until you feel
like the mummy of an Indian who had been buried in the sitting posture,
and was dug up a hundred years afterwards! Why did n't I warn him about
love and all that nonsense? Why didn't I tell him he had nothing to do
with it, yet awhile? Why did n't I hold up to him those awful examples
I could have cited, where poor young fellows who could just keep
themselves afloat have hung a matrimonial millstone round their necks,
taking it for a life-preserver? All this of two words in a certificate!

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.

"PIGWACKET, sometimes spelt Pequawkett. A post-village and township
in ----- Co., State of ------, situated in a fine agricultural
region, 2 thriving villages, Pigwacket Centre and Smithville, 3
churches, several school houses, and many handsome private residences.
Mink River runs through the town, navigable for small boats after heavy
rains. Muddy Pond at N. E. section, wel