nds in a sort of injured resignation and
exclaimed:

"_Ach so_; what's gone of Patem's Elishamet's Patem?"

So you see little Patem Onderdonk was generally at the bottom of
whatever mischief was afoot in those last Dutch days of New Amsterdam
on the island of Manhattan.

[Footnote 10: From "Storied Holidays," Lothrop, Lee & Shepard
Company.]

But this time he was conjuring a more serious bit of mischief than
even he usually attempted. This was plain from the appearance of the
startled but deeply interested faces of the half-dozen boys gathered
around him on the bridge.

"But I say, Patem," queried young Teuny Vanderbreets, who was always
ready to second any of Patem's plans, "how can we come it over the
dominie as you would have us?"

"So then, Teuny," cried Patem, in his highest key of contempt, "did
your wits blow away with your hat out of Heer Snediker's nut tree
yesterday? Do not you know that the Heer Governor is at royal odds
with Dominie Curtius because the skinflint old dominie will not pay
the taxes due the town? Why, lad, the Heer Governor will back us up!"

"And why will he not pay the taxes, Patem?" asked Jan Hooglant, the
tanner's son.

"Because he's a skinflint, I tell you," asserted Patem, "though I do
believe he says that he was brought here from Holland as one of the
Company's men, and ought not therefore pay taxes to the Company.
That's what I did hear them say at the Stadt Huys this morning, and
Heer Vanderveer, the schepen, said there, too, that Dominie Curtius
was not worth one of the five hundred guilders which he doth receive
for our teaching. And sure, if the burgomaster and schepens will have
none of the old dominie, why then no more will we who know how stupid
are his lessons, and how his switch doth sting. So, hoy, lads, let's
turn him out."

And with that little Patem Onderdonk gave Teuny Vanderbreets' broad
back a sounding slap with his battered horn book and crying, "Come on,
lads," headed his mutinous companions on a race for the rickety little
schoolhouse near the fort.

It was hard lines for Dominie Curtius all that day at school. The boys
had never been so unruly; the girls never so inattentive. Rebellion
seemed in the air, and the dominie, never a patient or gentle-mannered
man, grew harsher and more exacting as the session advanced. His reign
as master of the Latin School of New Amsterdam had not been a
successful one, and his dispute with the town officers as to his
pa