emember the big boys on the back seats, where the apple-cores
and the spit-balls come from. The school-director that hired you gave
you a searching look-over and said: "M-well-l-l, I'm afraid you haint
hardly qualified for our school--oh, that's all right, sir; that's all
right. Your 'stiff-kit' is first-rate, and you got good recommends, good
recommends; but I was thinkin'--well, I tell you. Might's well out with
it first as last. I d' know's I ort to say so, but this here district
No. 34 is a poot' tol'able hard school to teach. Ya-uss. A poot-ty
tol'able hard school to teach. Now, that's jist the plumb facts in the
matter. We've had four try it this winter a'ready. One of 'em stuck it
out four weeks--I jimminy! he had grit, that feller had. The balance of
'em didn't take so long to make up their minds. Well, now, if you're a
mind to try it--I was goin' to say you didn't look to me like you had
the heft. Like to have you the worst way. Now, if you want to back
out.... Well, all right. Monday mornin', eh? Well, you got my
sympathies."

I believe that some have tried to figure out that St. Martin of Tours,
ought to be the patron saint of the United States. One of his feast-days
falls on July 4, and his colors are red, white and blue. But I rather
prefer, myself, the Boanerges, the two sons of Zebedee. When asked: "Are
ye able to drink of this cup?" they answered: "We are able." They didn't
in the least know what it was; but they knew they were able for anything
that anybody else was, and, perhaps, able for a little more. At any
rate, they were willing to chance it. That's the United States of
America, clear to the bone and back again to the skin.

You ask any really great man: "Have you ever taught a winter term in a
country school?" If he says he hasn't, then depend upon it he isn't
a really great man. People only think he is. The winter term breeds
Boanerges--sons of thunder. Yes, and of lightning, too. Something struck
the big boys in the back seats, as sure as you're a foot high; and if it
wasn't lightning, what was it? Brute strength for brute strength, they
were more than a match for Teacher. It was up to him. It was either
prove himself the superior power, or slink off home and crawl under the
porch.

The curriculum of the Old Red School-house, which was, until lately, the
universal curriculum, consisted in reading, writing, and arithmetic or
ciphering. I like the word "ciphering," because it makes me think of