Of course, he could not drive them out; but, after
watching them for a little while, he boldly opened the door and went in
among them.

They were so occupied with their game, however, that they paid little
attention to him; and, after standing with them for a time, he remarked
to one of them that he hoped that when they had finished their game, and
were ready to go away, they would leave everything behind them in as
good order as they had found it, and then he himself departed and went
home. But the next morning, when he and his scholar came to the
schoolhouse, he found everything as they had left it on the afternoon
before; and this schoolmaster might have been excused if he had imagined
that he had dreamed that he saw the curious sight of a company of
gamblers in his schoolhouse.

But he found out afterwards that it was no dream. There was a set of men
gathered together from the neighboring country, who regularly spent
certain evenings in gambling for high stakes. They had discovered that
there was no better place for their meetings than the little
schoolhouse, which was tenanted by two persons in the daytime and by
nobody at night; and, as it was so far away from the other houses, it
was a very convenient place for their secret meetings, and they had been
in the habit of assembling there almost from the very time that it was
cleaned out and arranged for a schoolhouse.

When the schoolmaster found that he had devoted his energies to the
establishment of a very flourishing gambling saloon, when he supposed
that he had founded nothing but a weak little school, he took measures
to prevent any further visits from the gentlemen with the cards and the
money. After that, the exercises in addition, subtraction, and
multiplication, were figured out with a pencil or chalk instead of being
done by means of spades or diamonds.

In those early days the doctor was almost as slow in coming to the front
as was the schoolmaster.

In fact, it is said that the first doctors in New Jersey were women, and
that the people placed such faith in their abilities, that unless a case
were very serious indeed, so that a physician had to be sent for from
the city, they were perfectly satisfied with the services of the women
doctors. It is also stated, that in those days the people of New Jersey
were very healthy. These two statements can be put together in different
ways: some may say, that, where people were so seldom sick, doctors of
great