k the schoolmaster in winter. They had
been quite successful in this latter industry for several years in my
school, and at once proceeded to try the same tactics with me. On the
first morning, I was saluted with a volley of iced snow balls as hard
as brickbats, and I at once reciprocated these favors by knocking
down the leader, dragging him into the house, and giving him a sound
cowhiding, and when the vinegar-faced committee came in later I was
busily engaged in teaching their sons to dance to this same useful
instrument.

These owl-like worthies sat solemnly on the platform for awhile,
saying no more than the ugly fowls they so much resembled, and then
stalked out, leaving me to my fate. A young Hercules fisherman at once
suggested, that the first business in order was to throw me out the
window as they had so many of my predecessors. To this I stoutly
objected, and seizing a big hickory stick window-elevator, I swung it
fiercely close to their heads. This was more than they had bargained
for, and the uproar pro tem subsided.

This was the winter famed in the history of Massachusetts, as
producing the severest snowstorm ever known, and for a week I was
snow-bound in my boarding-house, where my bright-eyed, sweet-faced
cousins were most agreeable substitutes for my plug-ugly pupils.

One day, this same week, the giant ringleader of my assailants who
had moved to baptize me by immersion in the icy waters of the harbor,
himself, while fishing, fell through a hole in the ice and was
drowned. The loss of their mighty general somewhat demoralized his
followers, and _vi et armis_, I managed to survive the fourteen weeks'
term. At the close of the first session of the last day, I threw a
football to my enemies, who, not suspecting my trick, rushed off,
kicking it down the street, and when they returned in the afternoon to
take vengeance upon me for my unprecedented rule over them, I was in
the "hub of the universe." I afterwards learned that my discretion
was the better part of valor, for my ferocious pupils had the
determination and the necessary force to send me unshriven to Davy
Jones' locker.

I had never believed in the doctrine of reincarnation until I met in
the city, the veritable Judas Iscariot, ready and anxious to sell
anybody and everything for thirty pieces of silver, nickel, copper,
or any old thing he could pick up. This Jew pretended to wish to sell
one-half interest in his commercial school for $2,000.