n' the tree!"

It was a bold stroke, but Amos felt that it had brought him safely
over. "Recumbent posture" was not a vile phrase, and he patted himself
on the back, though he puffed a little at the exertion it cost him to
hoist the words out of himself.

But it was "Dodd's" turn next. Quick as thought he retorted:

"Well, that ain't half so easy as what the book says."

The school giggled. Amos lost all control, and, starting toward
"Dodd," he shouted:

"I'll whip you, you little devil, if it's the last thing I ever do."

But "Dodd" was too quick for him. He shot down the room like an arrow,
and out at the open door, and was off like a deer. With his club foot,
Amos Waughops was no match for the boy with his nimble legs, and,
flushed and beaten, the gabbler hobbled back to his desk. He looked
toward the twins, all four of them, as if to wreak his vengeance on
them, but he somehow felt that they were foemen unworthy of his steel,
and forebore.

As for "Dodd," it was his last day of school with Amos Waughops. Even
the persuasion of his grandfather, for whom he had the greatest
reverence, was insufficient to get him into the school house again that
winter. He learned to do many things on the farm, and helped in
out-of-door work in all the coldest days, suffering much from cold and
storm, but all this he bore cheerfully rather than meet Amos Waughops
and the slat again.

Under these circumstances his parents did not force him to school, and
who shall say they did wrong by letting him stay at home and work?

Long suffering reader, you may frown at the introduction of this
unfortunate man, Amos Waughops, into the thread of this story, but I
can't help it if you do. I am telling the story of "Dodd" just as it
is, and I can't tell it at all unless I tell it that way. You may not
like Mr. Waughops; you may not like his way of teaching school; you may
say that I am cruel to harp on facts to the extent of intimating that
the mere misfortune of being a cripple is not reason enough for being a
school teacher; but I can't help this either, because it is true, and
we all know it is. We lift up our eyes and behold the educational
field all white for the harvest and even among the few laborers that
are working, we see a large per cent of bungling reapers who trample
under foot more grain than they gather, and whose pockets are full of
the seeds of tares, which they are sowing gratis for next year's crop,
as they s