end of
the term bought a copy of Cornell's text-book, which was then used in
Maine schools.

What most interested him was to trace rivers on the maps and to learn
their names. Cities he cared nothing for; but he loved to learn about
the mountain ranges where pine and spruce grew.

"What places them would be for sawmills!" he exclaimed.

Much as he liked his new geography, however, he had grown violently
angry over the first lesson and declared with strong language that it
was all a lie! The master had read aloud to him the first lesson, which
describes the earth as one of the planets that revolve round the sun,
and which says that it is a globe or sphere, turning on its axis once in
twenty-four hours and so causing day and night.

Old Zack listened incredulously. "I don't believe a word of that!" he
declared flatly.

The master labored with him for some time, trying to convince him that
the earth is round and moves, but it was quite in vain.

"No such thing!" old Zack exclaimed. "I know better! That's the biggest
lie that ever was told!"

He quite took it to heart and continued talking about it after school.
He really seemed to believe that a great and dangerous delusion had gone
abroad.

"It's wrong," he said, "puttin' sich stuff as that into young ones'
heads. It didn't oughter be 'lowed!"

What old Zack was saying about the earth spread abroad and caused a
great deal of amusement. Certain waggish persons began to "josh" him and
others tried to argue with him, but all such attempts merely roused his
native obstinacy. One Sunday evening he gave a somewhat wrong direction
to the weekly prayer meeting by rising to warn the people that their
children were being taught a pack of lies; and such was his vehemence
that the regular Sabbath service resolved itself into a heated debate on
the contour of the earth.

Perhaps old Zack believed that, as a recently educated man, it had
become his duty to set things right in the public mind.

The day before school closed he went to his late antagonist, the lawyer
on the school board, and again offered to pay the twenty dollars for his
tuition. After formally expelling him from school, however, the board
did not dare to accept the money, and old Zack gave it to the
long-suffering Master Cobb.

CHAPTER VI

THE SAD ABUSE OF OLD MEHITABLE

About this time there occurred a domestic episode with which Halstead
was imperishably connected in the family annals.

I