egg, well beaten and mixed with two tablespoonfuls of cold milk or
water. Let the mixture simmer five minutes, then serve hot on wheat
bread or brown-bread toast, well browned and buttered.

CHAPTER V

WHEN OLD ZACK WENT TO SCHOOL

This same week, I think, there was a commotion throughout the town on
account of exciting incidents in what was known as the "Mills" school
district, four miles from the old Squire's, where a "pupil" nearly sixty
years old was bent on attending school--contrary to law!

For ten or fifteen years Zachary Lurvey had been the old Squire's rival
in the lumber business. We had had more than one distracting contention
with him. Yet we could not but feel a certain sympathy for him when, at
the age of fifty-eight, he set out to get an education.

Old Zack would never tell any one where he came from, though there was a
rumor that he hailed originally from Petitcodiac, New Brunswick. When,
as a boy of about twenty, he had first appeared in our vicinity, he
could neither read nor write; apparently he had never seen a
schoolhouse. He did not even know there was such a place as Boston, or
New York, and had never heard of George Washington!

But he had settled and gone to work at the place that was afterwards
known as Lurvey's Mills; and he soon began to prosper, for he was
possessed of keen mother wit and had energy and resolution enough for
half a dozen ordinary men.

For years and years in all his many business transactions he had to make
a mark for his signature; and he kept all his accounts on the attic
floor of his house with beans and kernels of corn, even after they
represented thousands of dollars. Then at last a disaster befell him;
his house burned while he was away; and from the confusion that resulted
the disadvantages of bookkeeping in cereals was so forcibly borne in
upon him that he suddenly resolved to learn to read, write and reckon.

On the first day of the following winter term he appeared at the
district schoolhouse with a primer, a spelling book, a Greenleaf's
Arithmetic, a copy book, a pen and an ink bottle.

The schoolmaster was a young sophomore from Colby College named Marcus
Cobb, a stranger in the place. When he entered the schoolhouse that
morning he was visibly astonished to see a large, bony,
formidable-looking old man sitting there among the children.

"Don't ye be scairt of me, young feller," old Zack said to him. "I guess
ye can teach me, for