Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-10-25
- The Schooln>aster|
Copyrighted, 1907. by E. c. Parcells. SVvvvvvvvvvvVvvvvvvvvvvvv|
By HERMAN LEWIS.

. Copyrighted, 1907. by E. c. Parcells. . Svvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvk There was no doubt that Farmer Watkins was the richest man at Rob- inson's Corners, and there was no doubt that his nineteen-year-old daugh-
 ter was the best looking and best edu- cated girl for five miles around. :, In one way that was saying much, for the other farmers were poor and the other
 girls rather plain and uneducated, but
 in another way it amounted to very little to an outsider. The schoolmaster
 was an outsider. He had come from a distance of fifty miles to teach the
 winter term at the Corners. He was a young man of twenty three, slim and pale faced, and the 'big boys" who were to attend the term smiled and chuckled at sight of him. There were half a dozen who "reckOned' they could stand him on his head if he got too fresh.
 It was Farmer Watkins who engaged the young man. He was president of the school board, and what he said who decided him in this. She was his only child and he was a widower, and what she said also went. There were also dozen other applicants, and she threw her influence for Walter Crane for very curious reason. He was the only one among the applicants who had the manners of gentleman and the only one who appeared to her to be her superior in education. The school didn't require and had never had a gentleman for teacher. It did not require and had never had an edu- cated man.
 The pupils were a rough and igno- rant lot, attending when they pleased and doing about as they pleased Sometimes the farmers sons of eight cen, strong as horses and rough as bears, had broken up the school after four weeks; sometimes they had let 1t continue on until spring. Sometimes the 'big girls" had rushed the master and rolled him in snowdrift and shat tered his dignity, and sometimes they had been content to turn the school room into a sewing bee and laugh at him as he protested.
 And now they were going to try new teacher, and Jennie Watkins had plans to make him trouble from the very start She had no particular dis | like, but she wanted to see him taken down a peg-several pegs. He had too much assurance-too much confidence in himself. Why, at the examination of candidates at her fathers house. when Mir Crane had been asked what ocean surrounded Switzerland he had smiled and replied none at all, when she knew as well as could be that it was the Atlantic. She didn't say any thing then, but she saved it up for some future time. She had always spelled the word "dissipated" with one "s," but he went right at it and spelled it with two, and even produced spell ing book to show that he was right. She had always answered that the Rocky mountains were in Kansas, and when ne moved them farther west her cheeks got red and she put rod in pickle for him. That young man was pretending that he knew altogether too much. He was even condescending a little to her father, and he wasn't pay ing half enough attention to her.
 Mir. Crane secured board at the house of a farmers widow and opened his school. He announced that it was to begin at Q a. m. Heretofore it had be- gun at almost any hour to suit the scholars. He made this announcement without consulting Farmer Watkins and without Farmer Watkins consult ing his daughter. This was another sign of his independence.
 He insisted on having dry instead of green wood for the big box stove. and he insisted on repairs to the stove to carry the smoke away. There was no blackboard, and he made and painted one. Some of the benches were broken. and he asked that they be repaired. There were some panes of glass need ed in the windows, lock on the door and new tin water pail. and before school actually opened the teacher was being looked upon as living curiosity.
 He had gone through the neighbor- hood and made a brief call at every house to ascertain how many scholars he would have and to form their ac- quaintance in advance. His call did not last longer at the Watkins house than elsewhere He was gentlemanly. unembarrasSed and a ready talker, and Jennie had just begun to wonder if she wouldn't like him after all when he picked up some poetry she had been writing and had left where he was cer- tain to see 1t and criticised her rhymes and the spelling of three or four differ ent words. He did worse. He sug- gested that she attend school. and, fail ing in that. he would assist her of an evening now and then. The girl re- strained herself from killing him on the spot. but she said to herself that his career would be brief and full of tribulation. She went to her father for sympathy. but after she had stated her case her surprise was unbOunded to hear him reply:
 Well. mebbe you do make mistake here and there. This eddecatiOn is such a tangled up thing that can't see how anybody ever spells cat twice alike guess that young fcIIer sorter knows what he's about"
 The custom in district schools all over America is to give a new mas