ll sententiously;
"an' Colonel Wheeler says good women are so rigged inside that they
can't be agreeable all the time. The couple of 'em are workin' their
fingers to the bone for the school teacher to-day; fixin' him up for all
the world as if he was a bride. He's got the women folks o' this village
kind o' mesmerized, Thurston has."

"He's a first-rate teacher; nobody that ain't hed experience in the
school room is fitted to jedge jest how good a teacher Ralph Thurston
is, but I have, an' I know what I 'm talkin' about."

"I never heard nothin' about your teachin' school, Osh."

"There's a good deal about me you never heard; specially about the time
afore I come to Beulah, 'cause you ain't a good hearer, Bill! I taught
the most notorious school in Digby once, and taught it to a finish; I
named my boy Digby after that school! You see my father an' mother was
determined to give me an education, an' I wa'n't intended for it. I was
a great big, strong, clumsy lunkhead, an' the only thing I could do,
even in a one-horse college, was to play base ball, so they kep' me
along jest for that. I never got further than the second class, an' I
wouldn't 'a' got there if the Faculty hadn't 'a' promoted me jest for
the looks o' the thing. Well Prof. Millard was off in the country
lecturin' somewheres near Bangor an' he met a school superintendent who
told him they was awful hard up for a teacher in Digby. He said they'd
hed three in three weeks an' had lost two stoves besides; for the boys
had fired out the teachers and broke up the stoves an' pitched 'em out
the door after 'em. When Prof. Millard heard the story he says, 'I've
got a young man that could teach that school; a feller named Ossian
Popham.' The superintendent hed an interview with me, an' I says: 'I'll
agree to teach out your nine weeks o' school for a hundred dollars, an'
if I leave afore the last day I won't claim a cent!' 'That's the right
sperit,' says the Supe, an' we struck a bargain then an' there. I was
glad it was Saturday, so 't I could start right off while my blood was
up. I got to Digby on Sunday an' found a good boardin' place. The
trustees didn't examine me, an' 't was lucky for me they didn't. The
last three teachers hed been splendid scholars, but that didn't save the
stoves any, so they just looked at my six feet o' height, an' the muscle
in my arms, an' said they'd drop in sometime durin' the month. 'Look in
any time you like after the first day,' I s