ewise a seer and a prophet, and in the fourth month of the second year
of his reign over the Pounder's School District, that a certain youth
whose name rhymes with 'hitch it,' hitched himself to the apron-strings
of a maid, who was at that time sojourning at the top of the hill--and
was hitched so tight that you couldn't have pried the two apart with a
crowbar!"

"Oh, by cracky!" gasped the suddenly ruddy-faced Lucas. "What a wallop!"

The paragraph was punctuated with a general titter from the girls all over
the room, while some of the boys hooted at Lucas in vast joy.

Lyddy turned pale; 'Phemie's countenance for once rivalled Lucas's own
in hue. But Miss Lowry went on to the next paragraph, which was quite as
severe a slap at somebody else.

"Don't get mad with _me_, Miss 'Phemie," begged Lucas, in a whisper.

"Oh, you can't help it, Lucas," she said. "But I'll never come to this
place with you again. Don't expect it!"

The amusing but sometimes merely foolish paragraphs were reeled off, one
after the other. Sometimes the crowd shouted with laughter; sometimes
there was almost dead silence as Miss Lowry delivered a particularly hard
hit, or one that was not entirely understood at first.

"And it came to pass in those days that certain damsels of the Pounder's
Brook Temperance Club gathered themselves together in one place, and
saith, the one to the other:

"Is it not so that the young men of Pounder's Brook are no longer
attracted by our girls? They no longer care to listen to our songs, or
when we play upon the harp or psaltery. They pass us by with unseeing
vision. Verily an Easter bonnet no longer catcheth the eye of the wayward
youth, and holdeth his attention. Selah.

"Therefore spake one damsel to the others gathered together, and sayeth:
'Surely we are not wise. The young men of our tribe goeth after strange
gods. Therefore, let us awake, and go forth, and show the wisdom of
serpents and--each and every one of us--start a boarding house!'"

The young men, who had begun to look exceedingly foolish during this
harangue, suddenly broke into a chorus of laughter. Even Lucas and Harris
Colesworth could not hide a grin, and the school teacher hid his face
from the company.

The whole room was a-roar. Lyddy and 'Phemie suffered under the
indignity--and yet 'Phemie could scarcely forbear a grin. It was a
coarse joke, but laughter is contagious--even when the joke is against
oneself.

Miss Lowry gave them