he Southwestern pioneer.

"Well, Almiry," said Mr. Hoover, turning to his wife after the first
greeting with the schoolmaster was over, "this makes me feel like
old times, you bet! Why, I ain't bin inside a schoolhouse since I was
knee-high to a grasshopper. Thar's the benches, and the desks, and the
books and all them 'a b, abs,' jest like the old days. Dear! Dear! But
the teacher in those days was ez old and grizzled ez I be--and some o'
the scholars--no offense to you, Mr. Brooks--was older and bigger nor
you. But times is changed: yet look, Almiry, if thar ain't a hunk o'
stale gingerbread in that desk jest as it uster be! Lord! how it all
comes back! Ez I was sayin' only t'other day, we can't be too grateful
to our parents for givin' us an eddication in our youth;" and Mr.
Hoover, with the air of recalling an alma mater of sequestered gloom and
cloistered erudition, gazed reverently around the new pine walls.

But Mrs. Hoover here intervened with a gracious appreciation of the
schoolmaster's youth after her usual kindly fashion. "And don't you
forget it, Hiram Hoover, that these young folks of to-day kin teach the
old schoolmasters of 'way back more'n you and I dream of. We've heard
of your book larnin', Mr. Brooks, afore this, and we're proud to hev you
here, even if the Lord has not pleased to give us the children to send
to ye. But we've always paid our share in keeping up the school
for others that was more favored, and now it looks as if He had not
forgotten us, and ez if"--with a significant, half-shy glance at her
husband and a corroborating nod from that gentleman--"ez if, reelly, we
might be reckonin' to send you a scholar ourselves."

The young schoolmaster, sympathetic and sensitive, felt somewhat
embarrassed. The allusion to his extreme youth, mollified though it was
by the salve of praise from the tactful Mrs. Hoover, had annoyed him,
and perhaps added to his slight confusion over the information she
vouchsafed. He had not heard of any late addition to the Hoover family,
he would not have been likely to, in his secluded habits; and although
he was accustomed to the naive and direct simplicity of the pioneer,
he could scarcely believe that this good lady was announcing a maternal
expectation. He smiled vaguely and begged them to be seated.

"Ye see," said Mr. Hoover, dropping upon a low bench, "the way the thing
pans out is this. Almiry's brother is a pow'ful preacher down the coast
at San Antonio an