Bozeman avant courier. [volume] (Bozeman, Mont.) 1872-1882, 1878-07-18
A KENTUCKY ROMANCE.
How BashfuI Teacher FlOgged n
EiusilinE Maiden.

UenSelE lrnOTsiIlt Oh ine llatuIc anu IENUl
of girls. Everybody comedies that he is
good man. but he has always been believe
to be as impervions TO romance as is
rhinoceros in a travelling menagerie. An
yet into this dry and mathematical pc
sons prosaic lie has lately come uniqu
and charming romance. and he has bee
led TO study girls and their uses with an ii
tcrst even greater than that which h
formerly found in compound fractions an
cllbe roots.
Last winter this remarkable man was en-
gagged to teach the HarlansVille distric
school. lie did not know a soul in tn
village. but the school trustees. KNOWN:
that he had conducted the male department
OF a Frankfort school with eminent sue
cess. engaged him at iar,e salary. Tht
IIarlansyille scholars included the youth O
both sexes. and were. for the most part
orderly and industrious. There was, how
ever, one girl in the school who was prob
ably the most mischicvous and reckless OF
her sex. There is no doubt that Miss Alice.
as she was generally called, was a very
pretty girl. and no one claimed that she
was guilty of any serious crimes. Still.
si.e never out Of mischief. and would
plan and execute enterprises from which
the average boy would shrink in terror
When il is added that she was ID years old.
and unusually large for her age. it will be
perceived that she was well adapted to rem
der the life of school teacher unspeakably
wretched.
When Miss Alice first saw the new teach
er she at once perceived that he was adj
mirably adapted to be leased. His mani
fest bashtulnesS and the innocent. unsopll-
isticated expression of his kindly, but far
from handsome face. stimulated her mis-
chievous propcnsties to the utmost. She |
began her persecution without delay. and
carried ii on with immense success. Time
and space would fail were il attempted to
catalogue the various devices by which she
plagued The patient teacher. 1t was not
long. however. before he discovered that
the demuye Miss Alice was at the bottom
of all the mischief in school, though she
was too astute TO permit herself to be de-
tected in any overt act. One of her favor
ite methods Of harassing the good teacher
was to pretend to have an admiration for
him. She would constantly 90 to his desk
on the pretext of asking his help in her ;
lessons. and while he was laboriously ex- {
planning how this sum should be done or
how that verb should be parsed. she would ,
stand by his side gazing at him with an i,
.tit eff hopeless and passionate attachment !,
which filled the scholars with the widest ;
delight. Then, too. she would constantly 4,
manage TO touch. with apparent unconsci-
BUSINESS, the teachers hand or shoulder, or
would lean over him so that her breath :,
would fan his sparse and delicate hair. !
The uneasiness betrayed by the innocent \
man in these circumstances was excessive J.
~ ludicrous. and delighted the naughty .
girl and her frllow-pupils unspeakaby.
The day came. however. hen Miss Alice. A.,
grown careless by long impunity. was de- Il
tected in the act of firing at another girl fl
with bean-shooter. This was a crime q
for which tl!c memorable penalty was ''rul- h
erin%.' The teacher would have given ;,
mnch TO avoid the necessity Of ''rulering'' >,
4 girl, but if he suffered Miss Alice's offense !,
he would beaccusel OF unfiirness. and that
The discipline Of the school would be de-
s!roycd With heavy heart he called her
up TOR punishment, and ordered her to I'll
lold out her. hand. She held it out sml- p(
ngly and unflinchingly, and when the pun
shnent was ended she deliberately threw pi
Ter arms around the teachers neck and IN
Kissed him. Il always return kiss for a tlN
tow,' she explained. as soon as the teach
II recovered breath and Inconsistencies; "for GU
mother always taught he to do So" Hav- Ia'
ne said this, she went calmly back to her It's
eat. and the teocher WISHING. that t,,o Iii.
ar'h would open and hide him, tried to tn
aim his beating heart by studying history ne
rom spelling-book held upside down. Du
The cup OF misery was by no means full. pc
here was rule in school that whoever an
limbed the fence into the next yard, and Its
tole apples from Deacon Watkins apple err
zee should be logged. The teacher. in .
rider to check the growth of this terrible de
ice, had distinctly announced that this WI
ulc would be ineXorably enforced, no mat on
'r who might be the culprit or what de- OF
'nse be offered. OF course, it was never
'r moment imagined that any girl could STU
limb fence and an apple tree, and hence Hi
lie teacher was Mortified to discover, as he Wi
pproached the school house one morning, po
llss Alice perched on a limb of the apple INT
zee and tossing apples to the rest of the TAX
,holars. When he reflected that he was thi
lodged to inilict upon her the sevcrest art
unshment known to the school code, his
nees smote together and he tclt that death the
'ollld be sweet and welcome. OF
Ii was the custom to fog culprits at the ma
forming recess, and when the teacher no. tie
fled Miss Alice that she would remain in SIN
he school room during recess, the other CHI;
;holars chuchled with glee. and the girl
erself was seen to blush. When recess un
Inc and the guilty girl WAS left alone with Il
ne teacher, the excitement in the play Gf
round was immense, and the large boys he
ct immense quantities Of tops and slate dis
encils in favor or against the probability cal
Eat Miss Alice would be--in fact. punish no
]. One enterprising boy climbed the SCI
ghtning rod and looked in at the window. pie
is on his evidence that the remainder of thu
ne story rests.
'lle never even offered to lick her." tes- pr
fed the disappointed boy. ''IIe just do
lied her up and said, says he, Allie, I'd int
dsrned sight sooner marry you than lick cal
~ Then says Allie: 1T is about the cal
me thing anyhow, SO If you say marry,
n with you Then the old man, he kiss da
her. and that's how it ended. There ha
Mt no i.irness about no teacher. He
ouldnt have let boy off that way, you OF.
T." ~H thl
Doubtless the precise language Of the as
lcller and Miss Alice was not correctly tu'
ported. but the main features of the boys III;