t that he was first-rate in 'rithmetic, this man was, and
so Sim, says he,--I'll give ye the same ye git on the bog,' says he, 'to
stay up to the house and larn my boys 'rithmetic,' says he; and the man,
he tried it, and in the course of a day or two, he come around to Sim,
and wanted to know if he couldn't go back to clarin' bog again."

Emily took in the broadly contemplative expression on Grandma Keeler's
benign features, and then winked at me facetiously: "I tell 'em if they
was all like that," said she; "and I guess they be, pretty much, they
might as well be out o' doors as in, and less worryin' to the teacher."

It might have been the third day of my labors in Wallencamp that a man,
having the appearance of a lame giant, entered the school-room, and
advanced to meet me with an imposing dignity of mien. He held captive,
with one powerful hand, a stubbornly speechless, violently struggling
boy. I recognized the man as Godfrey Cradlebow, the handsome fiddler's
father, and the boy was none other than the imp whose eyes, scorching and
defiant now, had first sent mocking glances back at me while their
light-limbed owner kicked out a jaunty rigadoon from under the encircling
folds of his sacerdotal vestments.

"Miss Hungerford, I beg your pardon," said the elder Cradlebow, with a
distinct, refined enunciation foreign to the native element of
Wallencamp, whose ordinary locution had something of a Hoosier accent
"After a good deal of trouble in catching him, I have finally succeeded
in bringing you in this--a--this little dev"--he made an impressive
pause, patted his fiery offspring on the head with fatherly dignity, and
eyed him, at once doubtfully and reflectively.

I was interested in observing the aspect of the two faces.

"The little boy resembles you, I think," I said.

The lame man struck his cane down hard upon the floor and laughed
immoderately.

"If you knew what I had in my mind to say!" he exclaimed--"ah! that was
well put, well put!--though but dubiously complimentary, but dubiously
so, I assure you, either to father or son!"

The idea still continuing to tickle him, he laughed more gently, beating
a sympathetic tattoo with his cane on the floor.

"To pursue directly the cause of my intrusion here," he went on, at
length, "this little--well, for present purposes, we will call him the
_Phenomenon_. I confess it is a name to which he is not totally unused.
This little phenomenon, whom you see before yo