ilful hands, and clear, sagacious heads, without which the affairs
of life would be thrown into confusion by the theories of studious and
visionary men. Wherefore, teach them their multiplication-table, good
Master Cheever, and whip them well when they deserve it; for much of the
country's welfare depends on these boys.

But, alas! while, we have been thinking of other matters, Master
Cheever's watchful eye has caught two boys at play. Now we shall see
awful times. The two malefactors are summoned before the master's chair,
wherein he sits with the terror of a judge upon his brow. Our old chair
is now a judgment-seat. Ah, Master Cheever has taken down that terrible
birch rod! Short is the trial,--the sentence quickly passed,--and now
the judge prepares to execute it in person. Thwack! thwack! thwack! In
these good old times, a schoolmaster's blows were well laid on.

See, the birch rod has lost several of its twigs, and will hardly serve
for another execution. Mercy on his, what a bellowing the urchins make!
My ears are almost deafened, though the clamor comes through the far
length of a hundred and fifty years. There, go to your seats, poor boys;
and do not cry, sweet little Alice, for they have ceased to feel the
pain a long time since.

And thus the forenoon passes away. Now it is twelve o'clock. The master
looks at his great silver watch, and then, with tiresome deliberation,
puts the ferule into his desk. The little multitude await the word of
dismissal with almost irrepressible impatience.

"You are dismissed," says Master Cheever.

The boys retire, treading softly until they have passed the threshold;
but, fairly out of the schoolroom, lo, what a joyous shout! what a
scampering and trampling of feet! what a sense of recovered freedom
expressed in the merry uproar of all their voices! What care they for
the ferule and birch rod now? Were boys created merely to study Latin
and arithmetic? No; the better purposes of their being are to sport, to
leap, to run, to shout, to slide upon the ice, to snowball.

Happy boys! Enjoy your playtime now, and come again to study and to feel
the birch rod and the ferule to-morrow; not till to-morrow; for to-day
is Thursday lecture; and, ever since the settlement of Massachusetts,
there has been no school on Thursday afternoons. Therefore sport, boys,
while you may, for the morrow cometh, with the birch rod and the ferule;
and after that another morrow, with troubles of its own