m Mr.
Barringer. At about two o'clock in the afternoon of this, to him,
eventful day, young Glazier had arrived at the residence of Harmon
Payne, near East Schodack, or "Scott's Corners," as it was sometimes
called. He had been referred to this gentleman as one likely to assist
him in his endeavors to obtain a school. He had eaten nothing since
morning, and, having walked a distance of nearly sixteen miles, as may
be imagined, was somewhat faint and hungry. But the good wife of Mr.
Payne showed herself not lacking in the kindly courtesy belonging to a
gentlewoman, and, with true hospitality, placed before the young Normal
student a delicious repast of bread and honey.

To this youthful wayfarer, with a purse reduced to a cypher, and
struggling over the first rough places in the pathway of life, the
simple meal was like manna in the wilderness. After chatting pleasantly
with the family for an hour or more, he started again on his journey.
But this time not alone; for Mr. Payne very kindly sent his niece with
the boy teacher, in whom he had become so much interested, to show him a
shorter route "across lots" to East Schodack. This village, two miles
farther on, by the traveled highway, was only three-quarters of a mile
distant by a pathway leading across the pasture lands of some adjoining
farms. In the fading November afternoon the young lady and her _protege_
walked together to East Schodack--a walk which young Willard never
forgot, and out of which afterwards grew a fairy fabric of romantic
regard glittering with all the rainbow hues of boyish sentiment, and
falling collapsed in the after-crash of life, like many another
soap-bubble experience of first young days.

But he did not succeed, at that time, in securing the East Schodack
School, as he had hoped to do. Nothing daunted, however, he trod
reverses under foot and pushed on towards the residence of the School
Commissioner whose _ipse dixit_ was to award him success or failure.

Allen Barringer lived one mile from the village of Nassau, in Rensselaer
County, and it was nearly nightfall when, with an anxious heart and
weary with the day's journey, he knocked at the door of the comfortable
country residence which had been pointed out to him as the one
belonging to the School Commissioner. That gentleman himself came to the
door in answer to his knock, and upon Willard's inquiry for Mr.
Barringer replied:

"I am Mr. Barringer, sir; what can I do for you?"

His m