ypical struggle between the teacher and
the big boy who, despite resistance, was soundly thrashed. Those were
the days of physical rather than moral argument, of punishment before
judicial inquiry. Once young Carleton had marked his face with a
pencil, making the scholars laugh. Called up by the man behind the
desk, and asked whether he had done it purposely, the frightened boy,
not knowing what to say, answered first yes, and then no. "Don't tell
a lie, sir," roared the master, and down came the blows upon the boy's
hands, while up came the sense of injustice and the longing for
revenge. The boy took his seat with tingling palms and a heart hot
with the sense of wrong, but no tears fell.

It was his father's rule that if the children were punished at school,
they should have the punishment repeated at home. This was the
sentiment of the time and the method of discipline believed to be best
for moulding boys and girls into law-abiding citizens. In the evening,
tender-hearted and with pain in his soul, but fearing to relax and let
down the bars to admit a herd of evils, the father doomed his son to
stay at home, ordering as a punishment the reading of the narrative of
Ananias and Sapphira.

From that hour throughout his life Carleton hated this particular
scripture. He had told no lie, he did not know what he had said, yet
he was old enough to feel the injustice of the punishment. It rankled
in memory for years. Temporarily he hated the teacher and the Bible,
and the episode diminished for awhile his respect for law and order.

The next ten years of Carleton's life may be told in his own words, as
follows:

"The year of 1830 may be taken as a general date for a new order of
social life. The years prior to that date were the days of homespun. I
remember the loom in the garret, the great and small spinning-wheels,
the warping bars, quill wheel, reels, swifts, and other rude
mechanisms for spinning and weaving. My eldest sister learned to spin
and weave. My second sister Mary and sister Elvira both could spin on
the large wheel, but did not learn to weave. I myself learned to twist
yarn on the large wheel, and was set to winding it into balls.

"The linen and the tow cloths were bleached on the grass in the
orchard, and it was my business to keep it sprinkled during the hot
days, to take it in at night and on rainy days, to prevent mildew. In
those days a girl began to prepare for marriage as soon as she could
use a n