p, the
school room, and had a chance to try his tools on "Dodd." Wait a
minute, and verily you shall find out about this.

He was the orphan nephew of two farmers in the district, men who had
taken turns in caring for him during his childhood. These men were
school directors and had been elected to their positions for the very
purpose of getting Amos to teach the "fall-and-winter school." This
had further been made possible by the fact that two winters before the
young man had "got religion," and his friends in the church had an eye
on him for the ministry. To work him toward this goal they had
resolved that he, being poor, should teach their school to fill his
purse; and so glorify God through the school fund, and his uncles had
been chosen directors to that end.

Hush! Don't say a word! The thing is done, time and again, all over
the country!

The matter had been set up for the year before, but the examiner of
teachers had vetoed the plan by refusing a certificate to teach to the
young man who talked so much and knew so little. This official had
asked the candidate, when he came for examination, to add together 2/3,
3/4, 5/6, and 7/8, whereupon he wrote: "Since you cannot reduce these
fractions to a common denominator, I adopt the method of multiplying
the numerators together for a new numerator, and the denominators
together for a new denominator=210/576! This, reduced to the greatest
common divisor, or, add numerators and denominators=17/21!"

Please do not think that I am jesting, for I have copied this quotation
verbatim from a set of examination papers that lie before me as I
write, papers that were written before the very face and eyes of an
examiner in this great State of Illinois, by a bona fide candidate for
a certificate, on the 16th day of December, in the year of grace, 1875;
the man who wrote them being over thirty years of age and having taught
school for more than half a decade! This is a truthful tale, if
nothing else.

So Amos did not teach the first year that his friends and relations
wanted him to. His friends and relations, however, had their own way
about it after all, for they met and resolved that it should be "Amos
or nobody," and they got the latter. That is, they asked the examiner
to send them a teacher if he would not let them have the one they
wanted.

The examiner asked them what they would pay for a good teacher and they
replied, "Twenty dollars a month!" The poor man