ound favor in the eyes of the mothers, by petting
the children, particularly the youngest; and like the lion bold, which
whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on
one knee and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together.

In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master of the
neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by instructing the
young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him on
Sundays to take his station in front of the church gallery, with a band
of chosen singers; where, in his own mind, he completely carried away
the palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above
all the rest of the congregation, and there are peculiar quavers still
to be heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile
off, quite to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday
morning, which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of
Ichabod Crane. Thus by divers little makeshifts, in that ingenious way
which is commonly denominated "by hook and by crook," the worthy
pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by all who
understood nothing of the labor of head-work, to have a wonderfully
easy life of it.

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female
circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a kind of idle
gentleman-like personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments
to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to
the parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little
stir at the tea-table of a farmhouse and the addition of a
supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade
of a silver teapot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly
happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure
among them in the churchyard, between, services on Sundays! gathering
grapes for them from the wild vines that overrun the surrounding trees;
reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones, or
sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent
mill-pond; while the more bashful country bumpkins hung sheepishly
back, envying his superior elegance and address.

From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of traveling gazette,
carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house, so that
his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He wa